My ears prick up, and even though he isn’t looking at me, I know his words are meant for me.
“Your kind are in my control,” Mizikiel reminds him.
“Not all of them.”
“Maybe so, but they know better than to attack me. They are wise enough to know that they will lose. I have their king, after all. And you are not going anywhere.” He smiles thinly. Satisfied. “I’ll be back soon, and the next time I’ll have Leela with me.” He turns away from Pakshiraj and the dome. “Come, Blue, we have an interrogation to make now.”
It teks everything in me not to curse him out and demand he leave my Leela alone. I’m proud of meself when my voice comes out normal. “Who are we interrogating?”
“A little spy I caught skulking on the castle grounds.”
My chest clenches. “Spy?”
“Yes, a pathetic looking creature, all skin and bones. I’m sure it won’t take much to make him talk.”
No…It couldn’t be. If Arpita’s spy was here, then it means Chandra escaped…or is close to it. But if he spills the beans to Mizikiel, then we are fucked.
Crimson tunnels morphinto crimson steps, pulsing with soft pink veins as if alive. Down, down, into a basement area of the palace we go. Cold, dark stone, damp air, and a godawful stench like death, despair, piss, and shit. Bile stings the back of my throat, the cheese from lunch threatening to come back up. I breathe through my mouth, scanning the gloom, lit by two wall sconces, as we glide past empty cells. How had I missed this place? And how is the evil fucker making tunnels to get around?
My stomach goes rock hard at the sight of the spy cowering in a cell. One side of his face is swollen around his eyes and cheekbone. His mouth is bloody, and his leg is at an odd angle. Broken.
He looks at me with his good eye and quickly drops his gaze.
A figure stands a few feet from the cell, and nausea rolls in my stomach when I recognize Joe. His blank face is speckled with blood. His fists are dark with it too.
He did this.
He hurt the little spy dude.
Sweet, kind Joe…Fuck. I can only hope he doesn’t remember this. Or any other horrific thing he’s been forced to do.
“Are you ready to speak now?” Mizikiel asks the spy. “Tell me who sent you and I will allow you to be healed. You will no longer be in pain.”
I don’t get this guy. He plans to end the world and everyone in it, but he’s offerin’ to heal his torture victim. He is one fucked-up dude.
“Well,” Mizikiel demands. “Speak now. Tell me what I need to know or experience more pain.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” the spy says softly.
“You will die here, then. There is no escape.”
The small man looks up, his eyes dark and filled with emotions that make my chest hurt. “There is no escape for me. I know that.” His gaze flicks to me for less than a heartbeat, and I know…I know what he’s trying to say. I know why he came back.
Mizikiel steps closer, and the spy cries out and clutches his head. “There it is,” Mizikiel says, “the fracture I need.”
My pulse races, and I clutch the bars of my cage harder. “What are you doin’ to him?”
“Don’t worry, Blue, this won’t hurt him any more than he’s already hurting. I just needed his shields weakened with pain so I can get into his head. I can find the answers I need now. All of them.”
The spy’s eyes go round.
Our gazes lock, and then the man grabs his own head and twists. There’s a crack, and his body goes limp, the life draining from his eyes as he hits the ground.
Dead.
“No!” Mizikiel’s bellow echoes around us, then dies.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the body.
