Finn gave me a long-suffering look. “Will you just this once do as you’re told without the thousand and one questions?”

“Well, excuse me for wanting to understand why I’m not supposed to talk to the police.”

Finn didn’t have time to respond before the police descended on us.

From the way Finn had been talking, I half expected the cops to arrest us or something, but when Finn told them what happened, they accepted his word without question and slapped handcuffs on Fake-Lachlan. When the cops asked me if I’d be willing to answer a few questions, I bit my tongue and told them I wanted to wait for my dad. I didn’t like it, but Finn wouldn’t have told me to keep quiet without a good reason. I thought maybe the cops would get mad about that, but it didn’t seem to bother them much.

They were just asking us to come to the police station to give formal statements—or at least for Finn to give a formal statement while they tried to contact my dad—when my dad made a surprise appearance. I knew Finn hadn’t called him, and the police hadn’t had time to yet, so I wondered how he knew where to find me—and that I needed him to find me. He worked as a Council Liaison, whatever that was. All I knew was that it was some kind of government position, and that it gave him some degree of power.

I can’t say for sure what happened next, but my suspicion is that some money changed hands, or my dad pulled some strings. Whatever the reason, the police decided Finn and I didn’t have to make a formal statement after all.

“Take her home immediately,” my dad told Finn as the cops stuffed Fake-Lachlan into the back of one of their cars. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, and I’ll expect a full report.”

Finn acknowledged his orders with a formal nod.

“What about Lachlan?” I asked. “He might be in trouble.”

Dad made one of his nose-in-the-air faces that said a troll was beneath his concern. “We won’t be able to do anything for Lachlan until we’ve had time to question the imposter. For all we know, he’s a willing accomplice.”

I opened my mouth to say something indignant, but Dad cut me off before I could.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he promised. “And if Lachlan is in trouble, I’ll do everything I can to help him. Now hurry home. You’ve had an eventful enough day already.”

I might have argued some more, except he turned away from me. I didn’t like being dismissed like a pesky child, but I figured if Finn was going to give a thorough recounting of the day’s events to my dad, it would be best to put that off as long as possible. Call me crazy, but I didn’t think my dad would be happy to hear that I’d chased the imposter.

As Finn led me away from the scene of the crime, I looked back over my shoulder and saw my dad getting into the front seat of one of the police cars. Somehow, I didn’t think it was business as usual to let a civilian do that. However, no one seemed to object, and both cars drove away.

*   *   *

Miraculously, my bag of groceries was still sitting right on the sidewalk where I’d dropped it. Even better, nothing had spilled or broken, though I suspected the bananas I’d bought for my cereal were going to be covered in nasty, mushy bruises. Because of what I’d done, no matter how dumb it might have been, the imposter was in police custody, and I couldn’t help feeling proud. I’d spent a lot of time in Avalon feeling like a damsel in distress, so it felt good to have scored this minor victory. No matter how fiercely Finn frowned as he escorted me back to the safe house.

“If that man had had a weapon,” Finn said quietly once we were in the privacy of the darkened tunnels, “you could well be dead by now.”

I fought down a superstitious shiver. “Good thing for me he didn’t, then,” I responded with as much bravado as I could muster. If I thought too hard about what might have happened, I could totally freak myself out.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Finn shake his head. “That isn’t the point, and you know it. You can’t keep taking risks like that. I’m good at my job, but I’m not invincible. And right now, you’re making my job a lot harder than it has to be.”

I hunched my shoulders a bit at the rebuke. If he’d yelled at me, or started barking orders at me, I’d have dug in my heels and fought back. His calm, quiet reasoning was a lot harder to fight against.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t really think about it at the time. I just saw that he was getting away, and I reacted.”

He sighed. “And what about last night? Did you think about it before you went gallivanting about at night without a bodyguard?”

So much for my hope that last night was water under the bridge. The fact was, at the time I’d decided to sneak out with Keane, I’d felt pretty safe with him. Yes, I’d known I was taking a risk, but it hadn’t seemed like a particularly big one. After seeing how badly outmatched Keane was against Finn, I knew I’d taken a much bigger risk than I’d realized. I couldn’t come up with anything to say in my defense, so I kept my mouth shut.

When we got back to my safe house, Finn wouldn’t let me head back into my suite, but insisted I sit on the couch in the guardroom. He sat in an armchair and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he fixed me with that green gaze of his.

“Your father is going to be very angry with you,” he warned.

Well, duh! If Dad had his way, I’d be holed up in this stupid cave twenty-four/seven, so I could hardly expect him to be happy that I’d taken the risk of chasing the imposter. He probably wasn’t going to be too happy to hear I’d gotten to meet the Erlking, either, though that wasn’t my fault.