Page 96 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

We follow the path toward the entrance. Astin lands swiftly ahead of us, doing his own thing, while Alad follows behind and listens to every word, digesting it all.

“I placed her in our interrogation room,” he says. “She tried to flee once I mentioned your name.”

The driveway narrows as we reach the front. Pine trees fade, and boxwood hedges line every few spaces until we reach the stairs.

“Interesting. Bring me to her,” I say.

Senri eyes me. “Are you going to kill her?”

I shrug. “Depends.”

His brows furrow. “On what?”

I nudge my head toward the menace beside me. “If she gets to her before I can.”

Pandora beams a smile at Senri Toshiharu’s perplexed look.

Amai Toshiharu bows deeply when we enter the foyer, but her unsettling blue eyes linger on Pandora, and I deem it suspicious. The hundreds of children the family keep fucking popping out watch from a distance through weary dark eyes and short dark hair.

“And who is this beautiful young woman on your arm, Prince Reen?” Amai Toshiharu says her focus never leaves Pandora’s sight.

Alad steps forth and says, “This is Prince Reen’s girlfriend, Pandora Averis. She is accompanying us on this journey. Is that okay?”

Amai Toshiharu smiles warmly. “Of Course. Does she want to stay with me while you do your business?”

Pandora shoots me a glare, causing me to chuckle. “My partner will have my head if I do. She’s fine with me. You can even say that we are a lot alike.”

With a roll of her eyes, Pandora huffs a breathy laugh.

Senri’s wife leaves with her children, and he lures us through his luxurious castle. My focus lingers on the floor-to-ceiling, oval-shaped fish tank in the centre of the spiral staircase, dipped in black-and-white marble. I linger on the colourful fish swimming without a care inside, and it causes my stomach to plummet at the memory of going to the fish markets with my mother.

To make matters worse, the one who killed her links her hand with mine, but the more I am around her, the more I understand her fucked-up reasoning when I don’t want to. She killed my mother—the last piece of my past. Sure, I can understand her motives and where she was coming from, but I will never be able to forgive or forget.

I tell Alad and Astin to stay put while Senri leads us to a metallic red door, reminding me of crimson oozing down my hand whenever I slam my fist into someone’s chest. He presses his hand on the keypad off to the side, and it scans his entire hand before moving in and then sliding to the side. They go to great lengths to protect whatever they hide within their tall castle walls.

Lights blink on one by one down the cold, clinical hallway, lined with two-way mirrors on the right side and stainless steel walls on the left. An antiseptic bleach smell overwhelms the air. I have only entered the Toshiharu interrogation rooms a handful of times.

We move past the first room with a blindfolded man, his arms tucked around his knees, rocking back and forth, sobbing into his knees.

“Is that who you hired me to investigate?” I ask.

“Yes. He’s part of an organisation that drugs unawakened elemny children and women, and they sell them at large auctions and functions,” Senri says. “I’ve been told there’s a function happening in a week, and I wanted you to see if you can find and track down their leader.”

“What information have you gained from him?” I say.

“Nothing. We have starved him for over a week, and he’s still refusing to talk.”

I grimace.

Pandora touches my arm and says, “Let me interrogate him.”

“No.”

She glares at me. “I used to…” Pandora eyes Senri and then looks away. “You know my past. I can do this.”

I weigh up my options. On one side, I can see how the Commander of the Crystal Guard trained his daughter, and on the other, I can handle it myself and leave her out of this. Even if I decline, I can see Pandora ignoring me and convincing Senri that she can get answers from him.

“You have five minutes, then we move on,” I say.