Page 71 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

After I close the door, I step inside a small bathroom. I drag the curtain across and feel the wetness from someone who recently showered before I turn my attention to the small bin beside the toilet. I pick up a crinkled feminine hygiene wrapper, but there’s no sign of any used products. She likely threw them in the waste bin instead of letting them linger here.

“Those are mine,” Maya declares.

I arch my brow and say, “You come into the basement to fix yourself up?”

“A woman needs privacy in a house full of children.”

I drop the package and stand in front of Maya. She arches her chin and hitches her breath when I cup between her legs and feel nothing I could distinguish as a product used to prevent bleeding, at least not a pad.

I remove my hand, step away, and glare at the open window. “Maya, I’m not interested in that type of contract, and I will not spare your life as you want. I am not that generous.”

“It’s true what they say, then…” Maya steps away from me and sighs. “You don’t feel pleasure.”

I smirk. “Not in the way men usually desire. My pleasure comes from the thought of my hand sinking into another elemny’s flesh and watching them bleed out.”

“Very well,” Maya says. “I will tell you everything you want to know about Myra.”

“Myra…?”

A throbbing pain sharpens across my brain, and I wince, shying away from the memory of her pale hands pressing against my wound. Her pink eyes glisten with concentration and a hint of worry as she overlooks the deep wound seeping with crimson. She pushes snow against it to thicken the blood and prevent me from bleeding out and dying, leaning against the Sanctum of Glace, where Walkyer dances with Fross Hart’s eldest daughter.

I look away from Maya and glower at Pandora’s escape route before returning to Maya’s watchful gaze. “Where did she go?”

“I sent her to the Fountain of Silver. I told her there’s a passport waiting for her there, but I lied.”

“Why?”

“I sent out a hit on her. If she’s fled there by the time you reach her, she will already be dead, Prince Reen.”

I fold my arms and say, “Let me understand your motive, Maya. You told her where to get a passport. But let’s be honest for a moment, shall we? You could have created a passport for her here and sent her on her way to…where?”

“I told her that someone in the Kingdom of Cloud would take her wherever she wanted after August twenty-sixth.”

“But that wasn’t true.”

“No.”

“But she could find someone in the Kingdom of Cloud who works for Nancy?”

“Yes, but I didn’t contact them,” she says.

“You set up a hit instead because you want her removed, but not by your hands. You didn’t have the guts to remove this woman, so you contacted someone else?”

“I don’t want my hands dirty,” Maya says with a swift nod. “I was hoping you would come in a few days, and she would have been gone long enough to have no affiliation with her, but I underestimated your obsession when you’re hunting, Prince Reen.”

“You betrayed her trust,” I muse. “Fed her to the wolves when all this girl wanted was someone to help her.”

“We all do things to protect ourselves, don’t we?”

I shake my head. “No. Not everyone.”

I shove my fist into her chest and cup her frantically beating heart. Maya’s eyes widen, and spittle filled with crimson drips from the corner of her mouth.

“You know, I’ve never sold anyone out to save my skin because I can stand up for myself without betraying others. For family, yes…I’d even throw my life down to protect them. But what you’re saying, I cannot fathom. And I hate fake elemny the most, and you come across as one, Maya.” My hand tightens against her heart. “She entrusted you. She believed you would help her escape, yet you put her life in even more danger to save yourself when you have done nothing to warrant such protection.”

“You’re k-killing me,” Maya chokes.

“I am,” I agree. “You’re not fit to work with children. I believe we need an overhaul, don’t you think?”