He gave her a withering look. “I am showing you trust by bringing you here. I’m making a leap of faith that you’ll do as you say and not hand over those three and walk away with your freedom. And I wouldn’t be doing this if I had a choice. That’s more than you deserve after sending me back to the jungle when, if you’ll recall, Brina didn’t deny that I had been caged unfairly. I’m willing to do what it takes to get these three to a better place. My question is whatyou’lldo when faced with the decision of your freedom over theirs.”
She’d already told him her plan.
He could bite her boots. She was willing to fight to give these three a chance at life and freedom.
That had to be enough.
But she hadn’t survived to this point by lying down for anyone. “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know if a pantheon will ever consider a bunch of half-breeds. But if you think enough of those three Alterants that you’re willing to hand over your life to the Medb in trade, then why can’t you care enough to fight for the chance to be accepted as a true race?”
He dropped his head, staring down at the clover hugging the soles of his boots. “I have a lot more at stake besides these three.” He raised his head and his soul lay bare in his eyes. “When I can rest assured that everything that matters to me is safe, I’ll fight. But I’m not trusting anyone with what’s mine to protect until then.”
He turned and strode away. End of conversation.
She followed him. Who was he talking about that he had to protect? Now wasn’t the time to push him again, but she’d pry that clam open later when she had a way to keep it open.
He slowed as they neared another crossroads in the tunnels, then kept walking straight ahead where the path curved left, then right, then left for so long that Evalle thought for sure they’d gone in a circle.
Lights flickered along the corridor. She started to ask Tristan if he knew what that meant, when he held up a hand for her to stop and be silent.
She paused ten feet behind him and checked over her shoulder for brick walls, crazy guys with pitchforks or some new terror. When she turned back around, a figure wavered in front of Tristan, taking form little by little until it turned into a soldier, complete with a bayonet-tipped rifle, dirt-smudged Confederate uniform and a bloody rag tied around his head.
He looked to be in his early twenties until she took in his sad eyes, which had seen many years of hard miles.
Evalle remained very still to prevent disturbing the spirit. Nightstalkers like Grady were hard to rattle, but Grady was accustomed to dealing with humans and nonhumans.
She doubted that before meeting Tristan this soldier ghost had seen a human in the past hundred years. He’d probably never run across anything like Alterants or a Medb witch priestess.
Tristan asked the soldier, “Did you take my message to the witch?”
The young man nodded. He spoke in a sleepy voice. “She said iffin you don’t show up in a half hour she’s killin’ hostages.”
“A half hour from when?” Tristan asked.
The ghost stared off into infinity, then said, “Now.”
Tristan’s voice tightened with stress. “Where is the witch?”
“I kin show you, but she sent another message.”
“What?”
“She’s got a holt of four hostages. Says she’s goin’ to kill the new one last.”
Evalle had opened her empathic senses to see if she could detect something from the soldier ghost. She only picked up weariness and a sense of being imposed upon.
When Tristan asked who the fourth hostage was, the soldier said, “Petrina.”
Tristan roared,“No!”He raised fists with muscles bulging in his forearms. Bones popped . . . he was changing into his beast.
The ghost vanished.
TWENTY-SIX
Quinn grabbed at the air above his head.
Had to kill whatever was beating a spike into his skull with a sledgehammer. His fingers closed on empty air, hands hitting each other.
If he could just see it, but his eyes were shut.
