"Rey," I said softly. "What are you doing?"
He fixed me with a stare that made my skin crawl. Something was different about him. His eyes were full of determination, and his voice was serious. "Protecting us. Protecting our future."
Paul shook his head and tried to squirm away, but Reynard held him firmly in place. "You can't do this. I'm a muse! It's against the law!"
"Don't worry, Muse. I'm not going to kill you."
I didn't want to contradict him or argue in front of the muse, but the whole plan had just been to come over here and ask Paul to give me back my creativity. Maybe ask him to stop stockpiling people's emotions and abilities so they were blocked for ages on end. Not to kidnap him.
I kept quiet as we went down the elevator. Right before we exited, Rey said, "If you say anything to alarm the doorman, I will kill you, king's orders be damned."
What was going on? Rey could be unpredictable, sure, but this was like a side of him I'd never seen. And I didn't like it, not even one little bit.
We went past the doorman by walking close together. Paul nodded at him, and I blocked him from behind. Once we were in the parking garage, Reynard muscled him up into the truck. As soon as the door closed behind the muse, I grabbed Rey's arm. "Hey, what are you doing? You're freaking me out."
He turned and looked at me with eyes that were, frankly, terrifying. They were a clear amber, with no more emotion or humanity than the rocks they resembled. "We have to do this. We have to protect the world. He's dangerous. He's been stealing people's creativity and emotions. He has to be stopped."
I stepped back, unsure of how to proceed. I was scared of Rey at this moment. He’d become my friend and I'd started to fall for him, but he had also been a bit of a wild card, which had been hot. Now I was seeing what he was capable of, and I wasn't sure I liked it.
Could he have been hit with that virus? Maybe that was it. But that made them aggressive and feral, not this cold predator. It frightened me to be near him, even though I knew he cared for me.
"Okay," I said finally. "Let's do it. But let's try to be as careful as possible. And don't hurt him."
Rey nodded, and we drove to his house. I stayed turned around, watching the muse the entire time. "Don't try anything." I nodded toward Rey. "He's in a weird mood and I don't know how far he'll go."
Paul looked a little alarmed, but nodded once and sat back. "I'll behave."
When we arrived at Rey's house, he yanked Paul out of the truck. Paul hid the ground with an audible thud and then moaned.
"Rey," I hissed. "What is with you?" That had been kind of cruel. Paul had stolen my creativity, which was wrong, but it was a major pain in the ass. "It's not like he kicked my butt or, like, forced himself on me or something. I think you're overreacting."
"He's fine." Rey hauled Paul to his feet and pushed him into the house. "Up the stairs."
"What's going on?" Rissa asked, coming out of the kitchen. "Who is that?"
"The muse. Can you talk some sense into your boss?" I asked. "He's acting crazy."
She hurried up the stairs after Rey with me hot on their heels. Rey stopped in the middle of the long upstairs hallway and put his hand on the wall. A doorknob appeared out of thin air.
"What the heck?" I breathed.
"That's been there a while," Rissa said. We followed Rey and Paul through the door and up another flight of stairs into a large attic room, where Rey looked around as his face grew darker. "The chair is gone."
"The chair?" Rissa and I said at the same time.
"The one Roma put Franklin into that made him disappear forever?" I hadn't even realized the chair was here at Rey's house. "What do you mean it's gone?"
"I was keeping it here in the room that only Rissa and I knew about." He glared at her, and she stepped back.
"Stop it, Boss. You know I didn't tell anyone. It was probably another bug."
He nodded once, accepting her explanation as likely. "Well, I was going to put our muse into it, but now that's out of the question."
With his hand still tightly clutching Paul's arm, He moved over to the enormous windows. "How did I not realize there was a third floor?" I wondered. I'd even seen the huge window in the back of the house, overlooking the gardens.
Rey opened the window, which was big enough for him to walk out of. If he had, he would've fallen to the flagstone path below.
Instead, he shoved Paul out. I screamed, Rissa yelled, and we both ran forward, but it happened way too fast.
