Page 40

“Thanks.” Mira was starving and currently not picky. “Your scroll sounded alarming.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. Oliver just told me what he found out about Dawson.”

“And?”

Ella opened her mouth and closed it when she saw the waitress approach with a tower of different baked goods and a platter of pancakes and waffles.

“Two breakfast specials,” she said in an overly excited voice and placed the food in front of them.

“Perhaps one special would have been enough,” Ella said, staring at the mountain of food.

Mira smeared some butter, whipped in the shape of a crown, on a hunk of crusty bread. “You were saying?”

“Yes, Dawson. Oliver doesn’t have access to his file because it requires the highest clearance level.”

It didn’t surprise her. He was the heir of the Dawson fortune, after all.

Ella pulled on her earlobe several times, the way she always did when she was uncomfortable. “But people talk. Apparently, he was offered a pardon, though with substantial conditions.”

“What were the conditions?”

Ella played with her crystal necklace. “Oliver says he is working for the council.”

That made no sense. Especially given his disdain for it. “Doing what?”

Ella leaned in closer. “Officially, he is a high-level demon slayer.”

“But unofficially?”

“Some say the condition for his probation was that he help them find cells of Wielders who were connected to Mercer and eliminate them.”

She almost dropped her kingly bread. “As in kill them?”

Ella nodded. “After the war, there were several cells…mostly former soldiers of Mercer…the council deemed dangerous but they didn’t have enough proof.”

They couldn’t break the rules, but Dawson could. “You think he became their unofficial executioner?”

Was that what he was doing when he disappeared? Was that why Dark Magic clung to him? Did he regularly overspend his magic and that’s why he was in agony?

“We don’t know anything for sure. There is no need to assume the worst at this point.”

Mira had a propensity to do just that.

“He was a soldier of Mercer’s,” she said, and Ella froze, the cup of coffee not quite meeting her lips.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Ella swallowed hard. “Perhaps what Oliver told me is true, then. His sources at the council say Dawson is rumored to be one of the most prolific assassins with one of the highest death tolls. He didn’t provide me with an exact number.”

There was always a certain danger about Dawson, but Mira didn’t believe him to be a monster. Or was he? She had seen him kill without remorse.

“I wouldn’t trust Oliver’s word on this fully,” Ella amended. “He doesn’t exactly like Dawson. Oliver lost his brother during the war, and I think he holds Dawson’s family partially responsible because Arthur Dawson helped fund much of the war effort.”

Mira had forgotten her Shadowflame was exposed and quickly hid her hand under the table.

“Regardless,” Ella continued, “I think his opinion of Dawson means he believes every terrible story he hears about him.”