The box had been heavy. “What else was in there?”
“Gold. A solid gold bar,” he chewed on his thumb nail. “And fabric to pad everything so it wouldn’t make noise.”
Gold was the second most valuable ore next to smelted Starshells. A solid gold bar would be worth a small fortune. There was no way Henrik had enough time outside the Reformatory before the Mistrun to legitimately earn his way to obtaining something so valuable. Why would he have given me something so precious?
The logical conclusion had heft to it when it brained me. Him insisting on us gambling during Haburi, the gold bar, his fixation with the Starshells we’d seen during lessons, Yeshar’s contact list, his sloppy attempt to steal the horn. “How much debt are you in?”
“A lot. Okay?” He slammed a fist into his desk with a thud, shaking his hand out.
“To Yeshar?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, tipping his head back. “Yes.”
He hadn’t been trying to cover for me when Yeshar had brought up the missing Sentinel. It had been a happy accident. He’d been trying to convince Yeshar that he’d have more money coming in soon from recouped debts, like the potentially fictitious one he’d claimed Nikolach owed him.
Which was something only the incredibly stupid or desperate would do.
What a pair Henrik and I made.
Yeah, a pair of morons.
A hoard of emotions crowded together in me, each vying to take over. Disillusionment and betrayal at him for what he’d done. Frustration and anger at myself for trusting him. Ijammed them all into a box inside myself and shut the lid to deal with later.
“Who knows about the contact list?” I asked.
“Just you, I swear.” He pounded the desk again, cursing. “I needed that gold as a show of good faith to Yeshar on the rest I owed.”
“Who did you steal the gold from?”
“Some rich Ascendancy asshole. He won’t miss it.”
I doubted that. “Why give the box to me?”
“I didn’t know who it was at first, but Yeshar has had someone watching me since I left the Reformatory. I needed to put some distance between myself and the box because it was my last resort if he called in my debt. Assurance that I’d repay the rest, and leverage against him if he wouldn’t accept that. But if his enforcer found it, they’d take the gold for themselves, return the list to him, and I’d have nothing.” He kicked at a leg of the desk, which shuddered from the impact. “Now I really do have nothing.”
He’d used me as an unwitting accomplice to his own crimes to try to cover up his trail. The gold bar was definitely stolen too. Zevrial was right about one thing, Henrik was an idiot. His grand plan had been to just leave the evidence a few doors down with the only friend who’d come to the outpost with him.
He and Orin were fronds from the same palm. They’d both step on the backs of others to climb just a little higher themselves. And if those others weren’t already on the ground, they’d push, punch, or kick them until they were.
Like he’d done to me.
I had been right about one thing too, Henrik was an opportunist. A far more ruthless one than I’d realized.
He’d slipped up and made a mess by getting into debt, then followed that up by mucking things up even further bydealing with Yeshar to try to get out of it. Even worse, he’d stolen from him to try to protect himself with collateral. Henrik had seen a chance to use me as a life raft so he wouldn’t drown in the mire of his own making, and without hesitating pushed me face first down to drown.
Asking me to take the box had been the first thing he’d asked me to do when I rejected his offer to be roommates.
There was a persistent high pitched ringing between my ears, and I had the brief insane notion that it was the sound of our friendship screaming as it died.
Right now I needed more information, because he’d set up an incriminating trail of breadcrumbs to my doorstep, and left me looking like a fool. I needed to understand the situation he’d put me in, and clean up as much of the shit he’d covered me with as I could.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said you didn’t know who it was at first. Who was watching you?”
“Orin. That’s why I tried to get you to be my roommate, I knew he’d insist we bunk together otherwise.”
