Though I meant no harm to the curera—it’d be pretty stupid to attack the one person presumably sent to heal me, or at least not hurt me—fingers out in front and curled into claws, I lunged forward and hissed like a serpunta.I jerked to a stop just short of shredding the skin from the guard’s face.
He leapt back with a gasp, knocking his lumoon, which bobbed away, and then the wall with a softthump.
Betraying the slightest quake of his lower lip, he sneered, then drew his wand-weapon and pointed it at me.It crackled in a burst of pale green light, the magic arcing toward me.
I retreated back to the wall.
He stretched the wand closer.It crackled again but its magic didn’t touch me.
“No wonder that parvtitlocked you up in here all by yourself.You’re a mean one.”
“You have no idea.”
“I’m gonna enjoy tying you up.”
“I highly doubt that.”My muscles tensed in the best readiness I had after their neglect.
A reedy voice wafted through the open door.“None of that will be necessary.I’m sure she won’t hurt me.”
A goblin stalked into my cell with her head held high, making her seem as tall as my hips, though she wasn’t quite.Her eyes were dark and warm in the now-gentle light of the lumoon.
“Will you?”she demanded of me.
I let my fists relax and drop to my sides.I met her eyes.“I won’t.”
“See?”she told the guard without turning.“We’re fine here.”
The guard scowled at the both of us.“Don’t look fine.”
“I assume the risk to myself.You’re off the spit.That will be all, sentry.”
His mouth hardened, then opened?—
“You are dismissed.”
His mouth snapped shut into a ferocious frown.Shaking his head, he turned and marched out, muttering under his breath: “Have it your way.It’s your death,shitling.”
The goblin’s slender shoulders drew back sharply as the guard pulled the door closed behind him with a loud snick, taking his lumoon with him.
Darkness conquered the tiny room in an instant.
The goblin slapped a long, dragon-like foot against the stone floor with a sharpsmack.“Apparently maturity isn’t a requirement of recruitment around here.Or decency, for that matter.”
A lumoon flickered to life in the palm of her hand, casting as much glow as shadow across her already ashen face.
At last, here was a creature I not only knew, but knew well.
“You really won’t hurt me, will you?”she asked.“You’re in for violent murder, three counts.”
My heart squeezed, though I didn’t know why—beyond Mateo, always Teo.“I won’t hurt you.”
She nodded.“Good.Now let me have a look at you.They wouldn’t let me bring my bag with me.Said I have to come check first.They don’t trust you.”
I stepped into the middle of the space with my arms out to my sides, then lowered myself slowly to the floor so she could examine all parts of me.“I don’t trust them.”
She merely harrumphed when it seemed she had plenty to say on the subject.After producing a second lumoon without any apparent effort, she illuminated me from two sides while she peered in my eyes, mouth, ears, and nose.
“My body’s fine,” I told her to see if she’d skip the effort.“Just … not quite as strong as usual.”
