Lovely.
“It’s a risk we need to take,” Striker says from behind me.
After a moment of consideration, Slade nods. “Okay, then. I know a place. Follow me.”
Vanguard scoops up his sword. Striker and Slade keep both Vanguard and Jonah in their sights, walking to either side of them, while I bring up the rear.
As we walk, the realm changes around us, the air warming and the ground becoming grassy. Finally, we reach a set of wooden bench seats, past which the realm becomes glassy for me to look at. It appears to stretch further into the distance, but I identify this as an illusion.
Slade’s expression becomes remote before he refocuses on us. “From here, I’ll be able to step out into a busy nightclub, and from there, I can easily get myself where I need to go.”
I take note of the way he speaks vaguely. He won’t want to give away any details about his life that he doesn’t needto. I imagine he’ll have a helicopter waiting—the same one he probably used to travel to New York City from Boston. It will no doubt get him home faster than he can fly.
I snag his arm. “Can you please get a message to my sisters to let them know I’m okay?”
“I will.”
With that, Slade disappears while the realm remains.
I wait a moment for anything untoward to happen, but the realm remains fully functional around us.
Turning, I find Vanguard stepping off to the side, where he finds a seat, while Jonah has taken a knee in front of me, his head bowed.
“I’m ready for my punishment,” he says.
21. PEYTON PRICE
Jonah gestures to my whip, keeping his head bowed.
I arch my eyebrows at him, conscious of the way Striker, like Vanguard, also quietly finds a seat, neither of them interfering.
To Jonah, I say, “I’m not going to flog you.”
His surprise is so strong that it startles me.
“Why so shocked?” I ask. “Did the Furies you knew before have no mercy?”
“They did not,” he replies, suddenly stony. “They could not afford to.”
“Well,” I whisper, “luckily for you, I’ve decided on a different kind of punishment.”
He finally raises his eyes to mine, a wary light in them. “What is that?”
“You will answer my questions.”
His wariness increases. “About what?”
I shrug, a wry smile settling on my lips at the fact that he would rather be whipped than answer questions. “Whatever I like.”
Uncertainty. It is a different kind of torture.
I begin to circle him but murmur to myself… “What are you?”
What is it about him that makes identifying his species so hard?
When I discovered the true power of the students at the Academy, their powers came to me from all of the sensory input around me.
Like identifying that Lachlan was an enenra—a monster of smoke and darkness—from the scent of ash and smoke around him and the haziness at the edges of his form.
