Clover’s entry was short. It said, “Puppy, seventeen weeks, trained as LM by KR, not intact, damaged, extremely poor condition, recommend disposal.”
Reynald looked at me.
“Someone dumped Clover on Derog’s doorstep half dead. Her condition was so bad that Lasa actually argued for letting her die. For some reason Derog kept her alive.”
Only Derog could overrule Lasa.
“She’s been here for almost two months. You can still see the bruises on her face.”
“What about LM and KR?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. She doesn’t seem like a noble or a merchant’s daughter. I think she might have been employed by a wealthy family.”
The way she’d been standing when Derog asked her about Kaiden was practiced and demure.
I could tell by Reynald’s expression that he understood what was left unsaid. Whoever had employed Clover had punished her and then sold her to Derog. This went beyond simple theft, incompetence, or household politics. This was rage.
“I will help her in any way I can,” I said.
These two children had gone through more suffering in their short lives than some people endured during their entire lifetime. And the worst part of it was, I knew it was real.
I’d read those books cover to cover, and there was no mention of Clover or Kaiden, yet here they were. They existed just like the other random people I had met: the bakers, the inn clerks, the landlords, the Garden attendants . . . Each of them had a life, a past, and hopes for the future. They weren’t abbreviated characters; they were actual human beings. The amount of detail in the city itself, the people I met, the lives they led, it seemed impossible to have come from one person’s mind. It was too much.
Technically, yes, I could’ve just fallen through some dimensional hole into a pocket world imagined by the author in greater detail than he was able to record. Maybe he was a supergenius and knew the location of every rock and the story of every one of the three hundred thousand residents of Kair Toren.
Except that it didn’t feel like a fictional world. Itfeltreal. I had been sure of it ever since I looked into Reynald’s eyes on the roof terrace. The books might have described and recorded the events that happened here, but this was its own separate reality. It existed independently of the fictional series, and it was headed for a cliff at breakneck speed.
Several months from now, Hreban would manufacture suffering on a mass scale. He would do it out in the open, without fear of retribution. There would be no Justice Chamber to stop him because he would be running it. Nobody would escape unscathed.
Thinking about it made my stomach churn. What would happen to Reynald and the kids? True, I’d helped them for now, but it wouldn’t last. Their lives would turn into nightmares, and I was the only one who knew about it. I hadn’t saved them. I’d just postponed the torment. I’d given them hope, and then Hreban would set their world on fire.
What was the point of being thrown into this world and watching it all burn?
“Will you try to get Matheo out of the Tower?” I asked.
Reynald stirred. “Yes. He is my son. I promised my wife . . .”
“At her grave. I know.”
He looked at me and shook his head. “What will you do after we return the children?”
“I’m going to destroy Ulmar Hreban.”
The moment my mouth shaped the words, something changed. It felt right, as if I had blundered out of the woods onto a path. Almost like a bell tolled somewhere.
Reynald raised his dark eyebrows. “You’re going to destroy the richest man in Rellas? The head of a Great Family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I will not let Rellas burn.”
Reynald and Matheo, Clover and Kaiden, Galiene and her daughter, Solentine, the bakers, the nameless handpie seller, I would give them all a different future.
Just wait, Ulmar. You thought you could murder people left and right as if they didn’t matter. I will fix you right up. Fucking watch me.
Reynald pondered me. “How are you planning to go about it?”
