One crisis at a time.
Starting with finding enough mops for this disaster.
After all, what else am I going to do? I'm guild property now. Might as well make myself useful.
Chapter 13
Benedikt Thorne is dead and I taught him to use shadows ten years ago.
He was twenty-two. Kept flinching when darkness touched him. Took six months before he stopped apologizing for kills. "Sorry, boss. I know I'm not supposed to feel bad about it." Standing over corpses like they were spilled milk.
Now he's face-down in water magic defending the kitchen where yesterday he learned to julienne carrots.
My office is missing a wall. Blood on what's left of my desk. The list in my hands is damp—water damage or blood, both probably. Joss wrote the names because my hands won't stop shaking.
Seventeen names.
Tomás Dreyven—quick blade, hated suffering. Kept his daughter's sketch in his pocket. She's four.
Asha Korvaine—went down fighting. Just started writing poetry after Olivia's therapy sessions. Terrible poetry. She was proud of it.
The tremors aren't shadow poisoning. This is rage making my darkness writhe around the room. They keep forming shapes—faces, water spears, her hands asking about mops.
Worse is how they pull. Constantly. Toward wherever she is. Iron filings to magnet. Twenty-seven years of control and now my shadows lean toward her warmth.
"Boss." Grimm in my doorway. What's left of it. "The prisoners."
Right. Enemy combatants. The ones who killed seventeen of mine. Time to extract information.
I follow him through halls that smell like wet copper. My shoulder throbs where her fingers adjusted my collar four hours ago. Before everything went to shit. Ghost touch, gentle and sure. Makes me want to punch through walls.
The compound's bones are showing—water damage exposing years of rot. Should have maintained better. Should have seen this coming. Should have done many things that don't involve letting civilians close enough to matter.
The interrogation room is lower level. Still intact. Drainage system down here was designed for blood. We descend—four flights because Vespera's builders thought torture needed ambiance.
I hear her voice before I see her.
"—just needs to stay elevated."
My body responds before my mind. Heat, unwanted, because even now—blood-covered, death-surrounded—my traitor body remembers her thigh under my palm. The soft waist. Her breath hitching.
I push through the door. My interrogation is in progress with modifications. Olivia stands aside, not interfering exactly, but she's gotten medical supplies down here. Harwick—Tide Runner leader, killed two of mine personally—is conscious and glaring as planned. But there's a bandage on his head that wasn't.
The teenage boy from earlier sits eating soup. Where did she find soup? The kitchen's underwater.
"Shadow King." Formal, careful. Playing roles. But there's a tremor in her voice. She's standing just out of reach. Afraid now. Good. Safer.
My shadows immediately reach for her.
"I was ensuring the prisoners remained conscious for questioning. As you requested."
I didn't request that. We both know it. But she's giving me an out while keeping these people from bleeding out. When did she learn to navigate this?
"Efficient," I say coldly.
Joss watches from the corner. That calculating look—ten steps ahead, doesn't like the destination. She's noticed how my shadows bend toward Olivia.
"He brought soup," the teenager offers. Waves his bowl. "The guard did. Said you ordered it."
