Final warning

“Let’s wrap this up. Helena Carter—or whoever you are—you’re under arrest for several breaches of the conduct reform. Jamison will be coming with us; do you have anyone you could leave the little one with?”

Distraught as she was, the woman could barely manage to shake her head. “There’s…there’s no one.”

“She’ll come with us then. We might be able to find somewhere to house her while we get this sorted.”

“No—Demetrius!” Jamie cried.

The boy was already reaching for the papers in his back pocket. His hands shook, making the feat that much more difficult than it needed to be but eventually he steadied them enough to lay the papers on the counter. “You can’t,” he said. “You can’t yet. There’s still too much that we don’t know—extenuating circumstances that still haven’t been investigated before any judgem