“Scriv would have ordered Flex or Boulder to kill you immediately,” I say. “You were smart to stay quiet.”
“Contrary to what you might think, I do know when to shut up and when to listen.” He gives me a self-satisfied grin.
“Do you know how to untie knots?”
“Might be a little difficult, since I seem to be short a couple fingers,” he replies. “But I’m fairly sure I can cut you free. Turn onto your stomach and stay as still as you can, love.”
He starts crawling over to me—an awkward process since both his arms are injured now.
“I’m sorry about your team,” he says. “I’d heard the rumors of their dissatisfaction, but you seemed a pleasant enough crew when I saw you together at the Night Goose.”
“You were there?”
“A few nights ago. In fact, I came right up to your table. Poured you all a refill.”
“You were the brawny barmaid!” I exclaim.
“The brawny barmaid. That’s actually a decent name for a pub.” His laugh is cut short by a grunt of pain as he settles into place at my side. “Yes, that was me. I followed you afterward and tried to break into your lair to steal the Doras Àlainn. But my little charade at the Night Goose wasn’t the first I’d heard of this job, or of Annordun. I got my original information from a fellow called Wringer in South Hive.”
“Wait.” I twist around to look at him, alarm bells ringing in my brain. “Did he tell you that Midwinter’s Eve would be the best night to pull the job? Did he ask for a tenth of the take?”
“Yes.”
“That little bitch,” I hiss. “He said I was the only one he told.”
“He said the same thing to me.”
“Shit. Where did he tell you he got his information?”
“From his cousin, who hid in a wardrobe while the Fae just… talked openly about all of their plans within earshot and never checked inside the wardrobe…” His voice trails off. “Fuck. This was some kind of setup, wasn’t it?”
“It looks like it,” I concede. “But what would the purpose be? To capture us? Kill us? Why would the Fae leak information to a shady human in Belgate, with orders to give that information to the two of us, specifically?”
“Maybe because we were desperate,” Ravager mutters. From what I can tell, he has managed to get his knife positioned beneath the ropes binding my hands.
“Speak for yourself.” But he’s right. I was desperate. I was panicking at the possibility of losing my crew, so I was too anxious, too eager. Too foolish to see that I was being played, led along, funneled into the exact place where someone wanted me to be. And why? That’s what bothers me the most. “Why would anyone set this up? There’s no clear motive and too many variables. It doesn’t make sense.”
He’s sawing at the ropes now. His actions feel slow and clumsy, and his breathing is labored.
“Maybe we foiled their motive, whatever it was,” I muse. “Maybe we did something they didn’t expect? Changed the game?”
“We blew up a lot of stuff. Released those fast-breeding, flesh-eating razorwings.”
“We did do that.” I wince at the pained catch in his breath as he works to free me. “I’m going to have Witch fix your hand as soon as we get back.”
“That’s kind of you, sweetheart. But let’s not worry about healing or mysterious motives just now. Let’s focus on leaving this place with as much loot as we can carry. We’ll need that device your former friends wanted—the Doras Àlainn. Where might that be?”
“It’s on the third floor, in the room where I left the two observation spheres. I wedged it behind a cabinet.”
The sawing motion against my ropes stops.
I attempt to get my wrists free, but the ropes are still secure. They haven’t been cut yet. So why did he quit?
“Ravager?”
He’s rising from the floor. Moving away from me. I can hear him shifting the packs and the box away from the hole I blew in the wall.
I told him the location of the Doras Àlainn. And now he’s leaving.
