He hadn’t let anyone catch wind of the past day he’d spent since getting on this ship puking up his guts. Partially from the withdrawal to the Viper Queen’s venom, but also from sheer disgust at all he’d done, what he’d become.
Ariadne had been sold off, the gods knew where. To whom. And fine, she hadn’t been technically sold, because the Viper Queen hadn’t owned her, but … she’d left to avoid having to kill Holstrom. Or so the Viper Queen had let her believe, getting the advantageous trade while planning all along to put Sigrid in the ring against Ithan.
If there was a level below rock bottom, Tharion had found it.
He forced himself to stop grinding his teeth and concentrate on Sendes. She stood in the center of the bridge, taking a report from one of her soldiers.
None of the other technicians or officers on the bridge spoke to him. None even looked his way.
At least no one here called him a traitor. But they all knew he’d defected from the River Queen. And given how little she was liked on this ship, he knew it had more to do with the fact that he’d defected from the mer. From them.
He wanted to shout to this whole bridge that if he could, he’d defect from himself.
Sendes turned at last when she’d dismissed her soldier. “Sorry about that.”
Tharion waved her off. Considering how much they owed Sendes and this ship, she never needed to apologize to him for anything. “I feel like this is all I say these days, but I wanted to ask for a favor.”
She smiled faintly. “Go ahead.”
He braced himself. “If I wanted to get in touch with the Ocean Queen, arrange a meeting between her, me, and Hunt Athalar … could you facilitate it?”
Sendes’s throat bobbed. Not a good sign.
“If it’ll put you in a weird position,” Tharion amended, “don’t worry about it. But I told Athalar I’d ask you, and—”
“You’ll get your wish,” she said ruefully. “The Ocean Queen is coming here tomorrow.”
Tharion swallowed his surprise. “Okay,” he said carefully. “You sound … worried?”
Sendes tugged at the neck of her collar. “She wants to see you. All of you.”
His brows rose. “Then problem solved.”
“I got the sense from her call that she isn’t … entirely pleased you’re here.” Sendes grimaced. “Something to do with the Viper Queen and the River Queen threatening war for harboring you?”
Well, shit.
38
Ithan lunged for the book that had somehow skittered for the office doorway, landing atop it with a thud that echoed through his bones.
To his dismay, the book squirmed under him, trying to wriggle for the door and the world beyond.
“Keep it down over there,” Jesiba growled above her typing.
Ithan grunted, pressing all his considerable weight onto the errant book—
“Enough,” Jesiba snapped, and the book stilled at the command in her voice.
Yet Ithan didn’t move until he was certain the book had fully obeyed its mistress. Uncurling to peer down at the blue leather-bound book, he tensed, then reached a hand for it.
But the book just lay there. Dormant. Like any other book—
It snapped for his fingers, and Ithan lunged again.
“Lehabah was much more effective—and ate far less. Where does all that food go, wolf?”
Ithan couldn’t answer as he again wrestled the book into submission, wrapping the tome in his arms. Clutching it to his chest, he eased to his feet, then stomped toward the shelf where it was supposed to have stayed while he unpacked yet another crate—
“I said enough,” Jesiba snapped again, and the book froze in Ithan’s arms. He shoved it back on the shelf before it could get away. Then gave it another shove as a fuck you.
The book shoved back, as if it’d leap off the shelf and go at him for round three, but a golden ripple of light shimmered down its spine—a barrier falling back into place. Wards to seal the magical books in. The book thudded against it—and could go no further.
Jesiba said from the desk, “I thought I’d outsmarted it with the previous ward, but let’s see it try to get through that one.”
As if in answer, the book again rattled on the shelf. Ithan flipped it off, then faced the sorceress.
He’d been working nonstop for the past day, unpacking crates, inspecting the goods, cataloging the contents, rewrapping the artifacts inside, attaching new shipping labels … Busywork, but it kept him occupied.
Kept him from thinking about the blood on his hands. The body he could only hope was indeed on ice somewhere in this subterranean warren.