"Wouldn't you like to—" it begins in a whiny voice.
Maven moves far faster than I expect, ripping the knife out of the changeling's thigh and plunging it into one of its shoulders. It screams, but she does it again and again until?—
"Halfton! The lion shifter is in Halfton!" the changeling chokes out. "Room 17 of the Black Wing Inn! I—I left her suspended in a stasis spell so I can go back and finish off the rest of her memories?—"
Maven uses the flat side of the dripping knife to turn the changeling's face toward her. "Next question. Who sent you?"
It hisses instead of answering.
I brace myself for hearing more of the monster's screams in Maven's heartrending voice. But instead of losing her temper, Maven straightens and looks around the private dorm. It's a mess in here with a horde of stolen items, trash, clothing of all shapes and sizes strewn about, and a bizarre number of sex toys.
"Keep an eye on it," she mutters before rummaging through the filth.
Silas and I obediently glower down at the blood-drenched changeling. It pouts its lower lip at us in an expression Maven has probably never made.
I flip it off.
There's a soft swear behind us, and then I hear Maven digging through the dorm's small kitchenette. She's far enough away that she won't overhear, so I look at Silas and whisper, "What are we going to do?"
"To this monster, for poisoning our keeper? I'm still weighing the options."
"I mean about Maven. You heard it all, too. She went through hell to be turned into the fuckingEntity'sweapon, and she tried to kill the headmaster."
His crimson stare locks onto me. "Baelfire Finbar Decimus, if thedoing somethingyou're suggesting involves harming Maven in any way, I will shred you to pieces, turn you into jerky, and feed you piece by piece to Everett's pet dogs."
Seriously,whydid my quintet have to be made up almost exclusively of violently unhinged psychopaths?
I rub my face. "For being a brilliant prodigy, you really are a fucking dumbass. Why on earth would I suggest hurting my mate? I meant, what are we going to do to help her—should we tell the others all the horrible shit we just learned? How are we going to convince her to let us help her? Do we need to find a therapist she can talk to?"
Before Silas can respond, Maven returns and victoriously holds up a tiny bottle of bright reddish-pink powder, the outside of it streaked in dried blood. To me, it looks like any other random caster ingredient, but Silas is shocked.
“More nightshade root powder? How did it get that?”
“It must have talked to the same dealer I did," Maven muses, glaring down at the changeling. "Or at least, your master did. You used this on your sword to kill Hearst, but who gave it to you?"
The changeling clacks its teeth together in a show of inhuman annoyance. "You won't get more answers out of me. I know you'll just kill me anyway, so why drag this on?"
Maven's smile is chilling. "Because aside from sharing time, this has been the most fun I've had in weeks. So, what will it be? More fun for me, or a merciful end for you? You'll never see a single payment from whoever hired you, so why feign loyalty?"
The monster scowls viciously. But when Maven picks up the blunt knife again and trails it up Fake Maven's chest, settlingover the creature's heart with a ghastly smile of excitement, the changeling flinches.
"Fine!I was hired by the Remitters."
Maven looks over her shoulder at us curiously.
"The anti-legacy movement," Silas offers.
"That's just one faction of it," I add. "I've heard about them. My mom's dealt with a lot of Remitters trying to raid the Divide in huge groups to demand that legacies return to the Nether. They're the idiots who think that if we monster spawn return to that plane of existence, it'll stop trying to spread into this world."
"Idiots," Maven agrees before addressing the changeling again. "Why did you take Kenzie's appearance? You could have mimicked anyone you came across. There had to be a reason you picked her."
"I was told to."
"By?"
"Carter," it spits impatiently, angry to be answering so many questions.
"Harlow Carter?" I guess. I don't know her well, but I met her last semester because my wolf-shifter friend Cody had a huge-ass crush on her.
