Cassian wakes with violence. He’s upright in a blink, feet on the floor, hand closing around the scythe-made dagger on the nightstand before his face even finishes forming an expression.
“What the hell?” he snaps.
Talon jolts awake a beat later. “Jesus. What is it, Little Grim?”
Nathaniel comes awake last. Only his eyes open, and then he’s razor-focused, like someone flipped a switch. He sits up and looks at me without saying a word.
“Rhea’s inside the perimeter,” I say. “I called her. Earlier. Outside the wards. I didn’t realize the invitation carried through. The wards don’t stop someone I invite.”
All three of them go still.
“We need to sweep the grounds,” I say, scooping their clothes off the floor and throwing them at them. “I can feel her but every time I think I’ve got a lock she slips.”
Nathaniel catches his clothes mid-motion and starts dressing. Talon drags on his pants swearing under his breath, yanks ahoodie from his wardrobe and pulls it over his head without checking if it’s the right way around.
Cassian doesn’t move.
“So what that she’s inside?” he asks. “She can’t kill the couple herself. If she could, she would have done it before she recruited us.”
He’s right. That logic holds. But it doesn’t cover everything.
“She’s not here for them,” I say. “She’s here for us.”
He looks at me.
“I told her I won’t follow through. I told her revenge won’t give her what she wants. And she lost it, Cass. Completely. I can feel what she wants right now and it’s not justice. She just wants to hurt me now.”
That does it. Cassian gets up and he’s dressed before the other two are.
“Then I’m going to go kill them right now,” he says. “Give her what she came for. Problem solved.”
“No.”
“If it keeps you safe, I don’t care about the rest.”
“And then what?” I step toward him. “You hand her two bodies and she leaves? That’s not how this works. You know that. Whenever we do things that are against the rules it comes back to bite us in the ass.”
His jaw flexes.
“So your plan is to let her stay inside the wards and hope she calms down?”
“No. My plan is to deal with her directly.”
“Handle them how?” Cassian asks.
I stare at him.
“I don’t know yet.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “Great.”
“I’m figuring it out as we speak,” I say, which is a total lie. I’m not figuring out anything. I was not prepared for this and my capacity for improvising seems to have run dry.
I only know what I donotwant. I don’t want to be a ruthless jerk and kill people anymore.
I’m sure there is some kind of a pacifist solution here. If there’s a way through this that doesn’t end in blood, I’m going to find it, even if I have to build it from nothing.
All three of my men stare at me.
