“Wonderful, considering I shoved a battle orb up the ass of a vampire this morning who thought it’d be funny to call me short. He ain’t gonna be sitting for a few weeks, that’s for sure.”
“You’re so evil,” I replied with a wicked grin.
“Well, justice is blind and all that.”
Charlie let out a laugh, until Oberi nudged his knee. Alistair sat back and asked, “So what’s up with you two? Learn anything new?”
“We found outThe Assassin’s Destinyis the name of the ship Amalie and Dante sailed to Darke Island on,” Charlie said in a low voice, but his tone was hesitant. Charlie and I never told Alistair about Mazur, because we couldn’t trust Alistair to keep a level head.
“What about the Elves?” Alistair pressed. “What else do you know?”
“We told you everything,” Charlie insisted. “We don’t know where the Elves were moved yet. Thaddeus found out the records we need are sealed in Cellblock 9.”
“You’re such a fucking liar, Charlie. You know how I can tell when you’re lying? When your mouth is moving,” Alistair sneered.
“Hey, don’t say that about my man,” I snapped.
“How did Thaddeus get his hands on this information in the first place?” Alistair asked. “I know you’re keeping it from me.”
Charlie’s shoulders sagged.Maybe we should tell him, pidge, he said through our bond.I would want to know who had information if you were missing.
Yeah, and you’d go off the rails if you did, I replied.
I think Alistair’s just looking for some peace,Charlie argued.It’s wrong to keep this from a friend.
All right, but I hope you know what you’re doing. Alistair’s going to be a wreck.
Charlie took a breath. “Thad was trailing Mazur. She was the one in charge of moving the Elves from the concentration camp.”
Alistair’s expression betrayed no emotion. “Really.”
“She’s been helping the Warden run the camps secretly, from inside the prison,” I explained. “We’re not sure how, but Mazur’s giving the orders on where to send people and when. We’ve tried confronting her, but she won’t tell us anything about where she sent Eddie.”
Alistair gave a slow nod. “I see. Thanks, guys. For telling me.”
He got up and walked away. Pig followed, trotting at his heels.
“Wow. He handled that better than I thought,” I said.
“Should we go after him?” Charlie asked.
“He needs some time alone. That news about Eddie was hard to take,” I said. “We should leave him be. Oh, look, the game’s starting!”
The crowd cheered as the two different teams rushed onto the field. Kallie was at the head of her team, carrying the ball. Chancey jogged beside her, and I heard Ivy give a cheer from the top of the stands. I spotted Marcus among a group of girls, wearing Institute colors and performing a cheerleading routine.
Marcus had joined the cheer squad. He’d said it was because he was bored, but I was certain it was more because he wanted to watch Kallie at football practice and needed an excuse to be around without looking creepy.
I still hadn’t forgiven him for our argument. In fact, I was pretty fucking pissed he was making Thaddeus stick around to do our dirty work. We’d talked about joining the cheer teamtogether, because I’d been head cheerleader back in high school, and I somewhat missed it. I was sure the squad could come up with adaptations for me to do the cheers. Marcus and I had discussed making it a friend activity, but now that we weren’t getting along, I’d lost interest… not to mention he’d signed up for it behind my back, without telling me. So obviously he didn’t want me there.
He glanced at me, but I pointedly looked away. Marcus scowled and went back to performing the cheer routine.
Whatever. I didn’t care that we weren't talking right now. He wasn’t a very good friend if he was forcing Thaddeus to stay here when he wanted to cross over.
The two teams squared off in the middle of the field. I watched the game closely, recounting the details to Charlie.
“Kallie’s team won the coin toss. Her team’s running the ball, but they couldn’t get past the forty-yard line. She tosses it, it’s a miss, ball bounces out of bounds,” I told him quickly. “Third down, Kallie runs the ball, they get back to first down, start up the play again— oh, shit, I missed what happened there, sorry.”
“What’s going on now?” Charlie asked.
