“I’m glad to see you. I was hoping you’d come back,” he says, winking his good eye at me.
Damn that wink. “I thought I might see you at the Festival of Sport registration,” I say. “Are you not competing?”
“No, I’ve had enough of all of that.” He gestures at his scars. “But I was hoping to know if you saw Vesper there. She’s good with a throwing knife.”
I ignore the tinge of jealousy that hits me when he talks about Vesper. “No sign of her at the registration, although I’m not sure I would have known her if she did show up. She still hasn’t turned up, then?”
Soren drops his gaze to the dusty ground, slowly shaking his head. “No. I’ve asked around in every tavern, inn, and watering hole in town. And even some beyond Faros’s walls. And worse, she’s not the only shadow-born missing.”
Dread cuts through me. “More of yours?”
“One of them. Her name is Marcella, and I have a lead on her.”
That’s all I need to hear. “Where are we heading?”
Soren smiles grimly, taking my arm in his gentle, familiar way and pulling me off the market square into an alley. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. It’s going to be dangerous. I don’t know what they’re doing, but there’s a chance they’ve kidnapped these women.”
“Who? And where?”
“It’s an importer with a warehouse down by the docks. They deal mainly in spices and exotic goods. Someone saw a woman matching Marcella’s description being dragged into the warehouse.”
“Lead the way,” I say.
“Hazel,” says Soren, and I forget for a minute that it was the name I gave him. His voice is gruff, but the intimacy is alarmingly familiar. “We can’t just run in there, swords screaming. There will be a dozen people working there at least, many of them armed. Spices are expensive, and they’re sure to have them well protected. I don’t doubt that you’re capable—I remember what you did to Nico—but we need some kind of plan.Ineed some kind of plan. You don’t need to do this at all. It’s not your problem.”
“They’re like me. And even if they weren’t, how can you expect me to do nothing after you’ve told me this? I can help. You said you wanted to see me again. For what other reason if not this?”
“There were other reasons,” he admits, and something stirs within me.
Not now.
“The plan is I find a way inside and sneak in there and tell you what I find. Then we can come up with something—”
“Absolutely not. I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
“But I can move in complete darkness. I can stay hidden. You’ll be blind.”
“You led me out of the tavern.”
“Barely!”
Soren crosses his arms, standing firm. And tall. Standing taller than he ought to be able to with his shoulder injury. “You don’t know where to go, and I’m not going to tell you if you don’t agree to take me in with you.”
“Fine,” I snap. “But if you get us killed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“If I get us killed, I doubt I’ll be saying much of anything.”
“I will,” I say. “I’ll bribe Vahlo and haunt your reborn self from the underworld.”
The death god is choosy about who he allows to leave his domain. The best souls are reborn into a new life, but some of the worst are sent to haunt the living to remind them of what they’ll miss out on if they don’t behave.
“You don’t believe you’ll be reborn yourself?”
Not a chance. Not after I do what I’ve been sent here to do. “I’ll be lucky if my soul isn’t devoured.” A fate that awaits the very worst of us, those who fail Vahlo’s final judgment.
I only hope Vahlo understands that the ends justify the means.
“Let’s go,” I say, not wanting to discuss my anticipated sins any further, and I try to lead us off in a direction Soren still hasn’t given me.
