Every part of Viri wanted to snap back at him, but with so much at stake, she swallowed her pride—and her tongue—and said, “Please, Reeve. We don’t have long.”
Whether it was her plea, the urgency in her tone, or the possibility of escape, something finally got through to him enough that he dropped the rock and rose to his feet. Impossibly, he looked no worse for wear after a week in prison. If anything, he seemedrested, which was hardly fair. His dark clothes were somewhat rumpled, and his black hair more tousled than usual, but otherwise he looked—he looked—
Don’t think about how he looks,Viri scolded herself, hating that someone so evil could be so physically appealing. He was like one of Wynter’s experimental poisons—beautiful, but deadly.
“Hands,” Viri said as he approached the barrier. She gestured to the small square cut into the fortified glass that was just large enough for objects to pass through, things like food—and wrists.
He did as ordered, not even flinching as the ellixen-suppressing wards bore down on him, indicating he’d done this in recent days, likely numerous times. But while his other visitors would have slapped him with nullicuffs—magic-nullifying handcuffs—Viri had something else in mind.
“Do you remember this?” she asked, uncoiling her golden weapon from her forearm.
“Your parents’ fillium,” Reeve said, eyeing it thoughtfully, a slew of emotions playing out across his face before he schooled his features once more. “How could I forget?”
“Do you remember what it does?”
“Which part? The magic suppression, or the truth detection?”
“Both,” Viri said, satisfied with his memory. If she’d been less unbalanced during her last visit, she would have thought to use it on him then, if only to find out how much of what he’d said was a lie and how much the truth. It couldn’t force answers out of him, so it wouldn’t help her get the information she required, but itcouldoffer the reassurance she needed to risk going through with her plan tonight.
Binding one end of the golden cord around Reeve’s wrists in a figure eight, she looked straight into his silver eyes and asked, “Is your bargain genuine? If I free you, will you answer my questions? All of them?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes to the first, yes to the second, and yes—within reason—to the third.”
She frowned. “Within reason?”
“I’ll answer your questions about the Priest, as promised,” Reeve said, before a trace of a smirk touched his lips. “But if you want to know about anything else, including my personal life, you’ll have to earn it.”
“Good thing I don’t care about your personal life,” Viri said.
His smirk grew. “Still lying, I see.”
She indicated her own hand touching the fillium. “This proves I’m not.”
A dark laugh left Reeve. “It proves nothing.”
Viri stilled, before forcing herself to relax. He couldn’t possibly know the golden weapon had never worked on her—she wouldn’t have been able to wear it long-term otherwise. While she might have yielded almost all of her ellixen during herImpartation as a child, the fraction she’d kept would object to being constantly suppressed, leaving her in a perpetual state of exhaustion—something Reeve would soon start to feel himself, though the fillium’s draining power wouldn’t hit him as hard or as fast as it would a reaper who had recently siphoned. Still, it wouldn’t be long before he began to feel its effects. Viri, however…her immunity was a mystery. Despite the fillium being a family heirloom, neither of her parents had been impervious to its magic, so they’d always limited their contact and taken turns using it during their hunts. Viri didn’t have that problem, something she was eternally grateful for.
“We don’t have time for this,” she said, moving them on. “One more question before I decide if this is worth it.”
“For you or for me?”
“Me, obviously.” Viri arched a brow. “Did you sell your brain along with your soul when you became a reaper?”
“Is that your question? Because would you believe I never actually—”
“No—just—ugh, shut up,” Viri cut him off, angry at herself more than him for wasting precious seconds. “My question is: Do youactuallyknow where the Reaper Priest is and what his plans are, or are you just using me to escape?”
“I know more than you do,” Reeve answered. Before Viri could demand a better response, he added, “And what I know, you’re going to want to hear. That’s all I’m saying until you get me out of here.” A slash of a grin. “Time to choose, Little Shadow. Will you bargain with a reaper?”
Half certain she was making the biggest mistake of her life, but also aware that she didn’t have time for doubt, Viri pressedher free hand against the panel embedded in the tunnel wall beside the barrier. Normally, that was all that was needed to open the Underlock cells, her hunter’s mark being recognized by the wards and allowing her to release any inmates, but Reeve’s prison apparently required more than that. Thankfully, she still had half of Wynter’s powder left, and she used the last of it to disrupt the magic, just like in the elevator.
It took mere seconds for the transparent barrier to dissolve, the glass vanishing along with the magic that had kept the ellixen ward in place.
And then, suddenly, there was nothing but air between Viri and Reeve.
He stepped forward, and she instinctively stepped backward, before giving herself a mental slap.
His lips quirked, his voice low as he asked, “Scared?”
