“He knew I wasn’t dead.”
“That is true.As the years passed, he was the only one left to insist you were still alive somewhere.”
“He looked for me?”
“To the exclusion of anything else.”
“He was obsessed,” Rafaela said.“Made him practically useless.”
“Teo wasn’t useless,” I said through clenched teeth.
When Rafaela got a faraway look, Alonso said, “No, he wasn’t.Of course he wasn’t.”
“Well, either way, he’s dead now,” Rafaela said, stare lost in the settling smoke.Slowly, she faced me.“You look awful, worse than when I found you on those grimy, filth-ridden streets.”
Worsebecause I didn’t have my power.Most everything might be overlooked so long as power was the reason.
“Tell us your story.Don’t leave anything out.”Rafaela kicked off her shoes—wickedly spiked heels—and extended her legs on the settee across from ours.
Since it seemed the easiest path to securing all the information I needed, I rubbed at my puffy eyes and began recounting how I’d woken underwater, escaped, succumbed to bloodlust, and was then arrested.
While Alonso’s face was an animated mask of continual sympathy, Rafaela only reacted once, to news my power had been “dampened.”Her only follow-up question was to ask how long it would be until my power was restored, her only comment to reavow that she and my father would avenge me.
When I finished, Alonso’s eyes were red, Rafaela’s distant.
“Now, who killed my brother?”
Rafaelatsked.“You must be patient.You never learned to be patient.The only skill you lacked as my envoy.”
Envoyinstead ofher assassin, when she’d been the one to insist I become what I was.
I faced Alonso.Immediately he began shaking his head in refusal.
He was the head of this kingdom—or used to be, anyway—but she was the neck that turned the head any which way she wanted.
“I can’t,” he protested.
I reached for his hands, held them in mine with my broken nails and bloody nailbeds.“I must know.”
When Alonso only shook his head, I said, “It’s Teo…”
His head stilled.He swallowed.
As if Rafaela weren’t right there with us, he whispered.
“Alobaz Hawxley.That’s who killed our Teo.”
Chapter13
That Confidence Is Mostly Deserved
Alobaz Hawxley accepted the ale Ed thumped in front of him with an automatic smile so tight that she hesitated, her hand still wrapped around the frosted mug’s handle, next to four empty ones like it.
He sighed inwardly and forced his eyes to light up with what he hoped would pass as genuine enthusiasm.“Thanks, Ed.Just what I needed.”
The ale made from fermented olvidian root was neither what he needed nor wanted.For starters, it tasted like water that had steeped a day-old sock.But Ed grinned so wide she revealed her missing molar that a pygmy ogre had knocked out over a month ago and still hadn’t grown back.Though she was the largest and most muscular of the two females in his trusted inner circle, she lacked the brimming confidence of the rest of his crew.That confidence was mostly deserved, sure, but still stupid as fuck.They had a whole host of enemies that would love to knock any one of them down.Even more, their enemies would love for them to stay down.
He—he had the enemies, not them.
