“He wanted to know about the grimoire.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He knew we have it. That’s why he hesitated to kill me.”
“How did he know about it?” The only ones who had known were him and Thea. He hadn’t even told Demos about it. His general would be livid when he realized what a liability it was.
The grimoire had been useless. Without the necromancer, it was a relic faded into myth.
If the Witch King wanted the grimoire, then he at least suspected the necromancer walked again.
“He mentioned a spy. It must have been Titus,” Samara said. “I left it hidden in—”
Raphael quickly pressed a finger to his lips, and she fell silent. The rooms were enchanted for silence, but after today’s events, Raphael wasn’t about to let his guard down.
“If he asked, then the knight was almost certainly working with the witches, as you said.”
“Do you think they’ll make another attempt?” she asked, nervous.
Cataloging the attendees of the Skyflame Festival, he doubted any would get close enough. Admittedly, he didn’t pay closeattention to faces. Normally, he sent Thea for this kind of thing, but Ferro had been the only witch of note. The Witch King was ill liked by most other species.
“It’s unlikely. But with any luck, they’ll try.”
Samara startled. “Why would we want that? To ask them questions about their purpose?”
There was nothing warm in Raphael’s smile. “So I can have the pleasure of ripping them limb from limb and demonstrating what happens when someone attacks you.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Samara
I was handling everythingrather well. I’d given Raphael a factual account of what I’d seen. I hadn’t screamed, hadn’t thrown a tantrum. I’d pushed all the horror, the violence of the moment, into a tidy little box and shoved it away.
And then, after he left me with three guards in the room to go speak with the king directly, I’d retreated to the bathroom.
The water had gone cold some time ago, but I couldn’t move from the bath. I wrapped my arms around my knees, sitting low in the water, all the while the scene with Ferro played over and over in my mind.
It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill me, after all.
But it was the first time I’d killed another human.
Did he have to die? Could I have stopped drinking, just weakened him? In the moment, it hadn’t occurred to me. There’d only been the need to survive. The instinct to put my life above his.
Millions dead at my feet . . .was this how it started?
The prophecy eddied through my mind, swirling through the scene. What if I just hadn’t gone with Ferro? What if I’d never asked him about his armor? What if I’d been faster, smarter?
What if, what if, what if?
A gentle knock at the door barely stirred me from my thoughts.
“Samara?” Raphael was back. “You’ve been in there for hours.”
Hours? I peered over my knees at the water. It didn’t seem that long.
“Is everything all right?” he pressed when I didn’t answer.
Yes,I should say.I’m fine. Or if I couldn’t get those words out, something simple. A deflection:I’ll be out soon.
I parted my lips, but no sound came out.
“I’m coming in.”
