“She locked me in a cell.”
I raised a brow, remembering it well.
“It looked more like a dungeon,” I muttered.
“True. Dungeon is probably more accurate.”
Gideon sat back down.
“Anyway,” he went on, “the Priestess has a terrible habit of assuming people will behave exactly the way she expects them to.”
His mouth curved faintly.
“I rarely do.”
“So you escaped,” Nova said.
“Eventually.”
He glanced down at the table for a moment, as if replaying the memory.
“The lock wasn’t particularly magical,” he said. “More intimidation than craftsmanship. Took some patience, but I got out.”
Bella shifted slightly but didn’t interrupt.
Gideon continued.
“Once I was free, I didn’t waste time wandering the halls. I went straight to her office.”
I nodded, willing him to go on as Nova’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew where it was?” she asked.
“I had a good idea,” Gideon said. “But I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for.”
He looked back at me.
“I figured if the Priestess had something powerful enough to keep Shadowick under her thumb, it wouldn’t be lying around in a broom closet. Plus, I’d heard about the stone.”
“Reasonable,” Twobble muttered.
“So I searched,” Gideon said. “Drawers. Shelves. Cabinets. Every ridiculous locked box she had scattered around that room.”
“And then?” I asked.
“And then,” he said quietly, “I found it.”
The room seemed to tighten.
“In a drawer,” Gideon said. “Nothing special about it and not particularly well hidden, but she had it in a drawer.”
His gaze flicked briefly to Keegan before settling back on me.
“So I took it.”
“That easy?” Skonk asked skeptically.
“No,” Gideon said.
