Topp turned a corner.In another life…in another life, it would have been them. Him working with animals. Her slung over his shoulder, screaming like a lunatic as he carried her off to their favorite spot in the Lovestone Woods. She could have been a journalist. Put her godsdamned nosiness to good use.
She was a pain in his ass. The best friend he’d ever had. And she was proving to be a nightmare to get over.
Dim lights wavered in the air, drawing his eye.
“I might be an asshole, but at least I’m trying,” he muttered to himself.
A dry voice responded from much closer than he had expected. “And all these years I thought you had no idea.”
For fuck’s sake. Topp shook off the temptation to pick Rollie up by his shirt and throw him into the nearest wall. Might take the damn place down if he did.
“Rollickus.” The name came out more growl than greeting.
“Crown squinch.” Turning away, Rollie strode off into the soft flickering candlelight. He didn’t bother to look back as he spoke. “Why are you here, and how do I get you to leave?”
Topp prowled close behind. “You know this place isn’t long from collapsing, right? All the animals are gone.”
“Of course, I know.” Haughty as ever, Rollie’s nose might as well have been in the air.
Topp’s teeth ground together. He was trying to benice. Fixing his voice, he tried again. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“No.”
Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair, grimacing as dirt clouded into the air. “You haven’t even heard what I’ve got to say.”
“Once a squinch, always a squinch.”
Topp’s nostrils flared as he lost the battle with his temper. “Rollie, do you want to die down here in the fucking tunnels like some kind of vermin, or do you want to help me warn as many rulers as I can about my father?”
With white hair and pale skin, Rollie looked ghostlike in the dim light. “I know this might be too complicated for your tiny royal brain, but how iswarningpeople that a deranged ruler is going to tear out their magic and ravage their lands going to do any good? Doesn’t really stop it from happening.”
Topp decided right then that Rollickus Timmons was the human equivalent of a sliver in your asshole. And considering that Elysia was no longer his girlfriend, he wasn’t sure he had any reason not to throttle the infuriating and precocious man.
His tone was chilling. “Do you have abettersuggestion? Should I let them be completely blindsided then?”
Rollie marched into his lair. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” There were stacks of books everywhere, like he had pillaged a library.
“Yes, I have a better plan than that.” His tone made it sound obvious.
Topp shoved his hands into his pockets lest they got any ideas. Like squeezing Rollie until his eyes and tongue popped out.
“And that would be…” he drawled, pushing his irritation down.
Rollie gave him a hard look and spoke slowly as if to a child. “Tell the rulers if it makes you feel better, but they’re not the ones you need to speak with.”
“And who would you speak with?” he pressed, curiosity overriding his annoyance. Rollie was the smartest bastard he knew, and he’d known it’d be easy enough to provoke him into laying out a better plan. The key was not killing Rollie before the wisdom was imparted upon him.
“The ones who follow the paths of the undead gods.”
Topp’s heart skipped a beat, and his voice went low.Thiswas why he had come here. “What makes you say that?”
Rollie slammed a thick worn-out book down onto the table between them.“Because if you want to get shit done, then you’re going to need to make them notice.”
Topp ran a finger beneath its title,The Histories of the Undead Gods.“Make the gods notice?” Skepticism rang through his words.
“How do you not know any of this? Did you not learn anything living in other kingdoms?”
