My cager and betrayer.
“I’ll gild whatever you want,” I tell him, “unless you lock me away again.”
The ultimatum lands like a star falling from the sky and exploding on the ground. The fire in the hearth burns low, a soft orange glow to compete with the shadows between us.
He watches me for a long time. Just the two of us staring at each other like strangers. I’ve never not given him everything he ever asked for or bent to his will. The bastard can’t say the same for me.
Finally, he lets out a sigh and shakes his head. “Oh, Auren.” His tanned hands come up to bracket his hips like he’s bracing himself. Yet there’s condescension on his face, and I wonder if he would look at me like that if it were still daytime. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.”
He digs into his pocket and then holds his palm out, revealing a small golden piece of grimy metal.
I frown down at the guard pin, eyes tracing over the bell emblem. “Why are you showing me that?”
“You don’t recognize it?”
Wariness paints over my face. “It’s the pin all the guards in Highbell wear.”
Midas lifts it up, rolling it between his finger and thumb like a god holding the world in a threatening pinch. “You told me you thought your guard died with the Red Raids.”
My mind races.
Stumbles.
Rolls down a cliff, scraped and scattered and left to fall.
For a moment, all I can see is a flash of red in the snow and sweet blue eyes. All I can hear is, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
His name yanks out of me like the dagger pulled from a chest. “Sail…”
But Midas shakes his head, and I tear my eyes away from the pin to look at him. “No. Digby.”
My free-falling mind slams to a stop. Dots of black appear in my vision like a starless sky ready to swallow me whole. I physically stumble back, barely catching myself on the bedside table as my knees threaten to give out.
“Digby?” It’s a whisper, a plea, a bewildered breath. “What…I don’t…I don’t understand.”
Something glimmers behind the depths of his muddied eyes. “I have him, Auren.”
The gut-wrenching gasp that rips out of my chest leaves my heart to gape out in the open. My lip quivers, ribs squeeze, fingers dig into the table to keep myself standing. “What are you talking about?”
He’s cool and calm again. Calculated. Just that look alone fills me with dread.
“It was meant to be a gift, you see.”
I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment, my head shaking as I try to comprehend through the shock. “Wait, wait. Are you…are you saying Digby is alive? He’s here?”
“Like I said, he was going to be a gift for your return. I knew you were fond of the old man. Although, he had to be punished, of course.”
Digby. Alive. He’s actually alive? I can’t—
“Wait,” I rush to say, shaking my head. “What the hell do you mean punished?”
Midas shoots me an annoyed look at my curse word. “He allowed the Red Raids to capture you, and then subsequently, Fourth’s army. I couldn’t let that go unanswered.”
Horror crashes over me like a sudden flood to knock me into its violent path. “He’s alive and you’ve kept that from me this whole time? You’ve punished him?”
His eyes flicker knowingly. “He didn’t do what he was ordered to.”
My teeth gnash against the double meaning. The threat. That I’ll be punished if I don’t follow his orders too.
I cross my arms in front of me. “I want to see him.”
Midas clicks his tongue. “Therein lies the problem. I was going to let you do just that, but in your current state of mind and overemotional hysterics, I simply can’t allow it.”
Can’t allow it?
Fire flares in my chest and sears through my eyes. “Let me see him. Right. Now.”
The dark warning in his face sharpens against an edge of satisfaction. “When you improve your behavior and your mood, I will.”
My lips pull back in a sneer. “You son of a bitch.”
Again, with his clicking tongue, a sweep of reprimand like I’m a child to be disciplined. “That’s certainly not the way to go about it, Auren.”
Hot tears fill my eyes, but I hold them back. “You’re lying. You don’t have him.”
Midas looks at me with pity. “I do. But even if you think I’m lying, are you really willing to bet his life on it?”