Eliana stayed silent to see what he would do.
After a moment, he untied her wrists, discarded the bindings, and stood. “Well?”
She calculated how long it would take to kick him, send him staggering, grab his revolver, and shoot. She’d never used a gun—they were rare, expensive, and she never let herself spend the money on them—but pulling a trigger seemed simple enough.
Five seconds. Perhaps six.
She could do it. She rose.
And then she saw Harkan.
He was coming in from the kitchen, his body dipped in shadow, his favorite dagger in hand. Behind him, Remy watched tensely from the kitchen.
Harkan’s gaze found hers, held firm. I’ve got you.
“I’ll help you,” she told the Wolf slowly, “but only if I can take my brother with me.”
Remy’s eyes widened.
“The little baker’s boy?” The Wolf frowned. “You can’t be serious.”
Eliana kept her face blank. Just how much did he know about her? “I assume we’re stealing something from the palace, then delivering it somewhere. Some piece of intelligence? Wherever we’re taking it afterward, Remy will come. You’ll get him safe passage to Astavar and do nothing to harm him. Or we’ve no deal.”
He glared at her. “That wasn’t my offer.”
“Yes or no, Wolf.”
He tilted his head. His eyes caught the moonlight and made him look like something from one of Remy’s more fanciful tales—a night creature, made of secrets and sharp edges. An Empire monster for the Sun Queen to slay. “Only those who are frightened of me call me that. And you aren’t frightened of me. Are you?”
Harkan approached through the shadows—one step, two steps.
“Not even a little bit,” she lied. “So what shall I call you instead?”
He inclined his head. “You can call me Simon.”
“Fine. Simon. And one more thing: my friend, Harkan, will come with us as well.”
Behind Simon, Harkan raised his dagger to strike.
Eliana flexed her fingers.
Simon’s mouth thinned, the only warning. A turn, a shove, and then Harkan was flat on his back on the floor, Simon’s boot pressing into his throat, his weapon in Simon’s hand.
“Him?” Simon pointed at Harkan with the dagger. The look he threw Eliana was one of profound disgust. “Your lover?”
Eliana shot Simon a rakish smile. “Jealous already? Let him go.”
“El,” rasped Harkan, struggling to breathe, “we can’t trust him.”
“No,” she agreed. “But he can’t trust us either.” She held out her hand for Tuora. “Release him, or no deal.”
Simon paused, then returned Tuora to her and stepped away.
Eliana slipped the dagger into the holster at her belt, knelt at Harkan’s side, and helped him sit up. “Tell me more about this mission of yours, Wolf.”
“Information only as you need to know it, little Dread,” Simon said. “Until then, do as I tell you, and I’ll help you find your mother. You have my word.”
“The word of a rebel doesn’t count for much.”
“And what about the word of a fellow killer?” He took off his glove and held out his hand. “Have we a bargain?”
Eliana hesitated. If she accepted his offer, her life here would be forfeit. Lord Arkelion did not deal with defectors lightly, and Rahzavel would not allow her to disappear into the night. By doing this she would be endangering not only herself, but Remy and Harkan as well.
But if anyone could help her find her mother, and get all of them to Astavar and to safety, it would be the Wolf, with all of Red Crown—the very people she had spent so long hunting—at his disposal.
If she played this right, she could keep Harkan and Remy out of the Empire’s grasp for a few more years. She could elude Invictus, stay with her loved ones, find her mother, and keep them all safe.
She searched Simon’s eyes for lies and found only cold steel.
“Eliana, don’t agree to this,” Harkan rasped, glaring up at Simon. “We’ll find Rozen another way.”
But there was no other way. Eliana stood and clasped Simon’s hand.
“We have a bargain,” she said and tried to ignore the way her skin shivered at Simon’s touch—like the sensation of being watched from the shadows or the simmering charge of a storm she could not outrun.
9
Rielle
“The seven saints combined their powers and opened a doorway into the Deep with wind and water, with metal and fire, with shadow and earth. And when Saint Katell, last of all, let fly her blazing, sunlit sword, the angels fell screaming into eternal darkness.”