Page 69 of Truth's Blade

“I wouldn’t trust a deal with him under any circumstances,” Jacinta murmured, and Vivi had to agree.

There was going to be no fair play here.

“The key and free passage for your friends, in exchange for you, little girl.” Perhaps their silence had emboldened Marchant, because he sounded more sure of himself now. As if he imagined them in here, frightened and huddling. “I’ll give you a few minutes to consider my offer.”

The sound of boots on gravel told them all he was leaving, or at least moving away.

The moment he began to retreat, Melodie was crouched on the floor again, painting. The first of her hand tongs had just shimmered into existence when thecrunch crunchof the stones alerted them to Marchant’s return.

Theo’s arms bunched as he snapped Caro’s shackle, then he took up position as protector as Ivan grabbed the next one, and began working on Jacinta’s ankle.

Theo crouched and tried to look through a crack in the door for some clue as to what Marchant was doing, and after a moment he swore, and jerked back.

“He’s run up to the corner of the building and set something up against it.” He moved to the door again, and when he turned to look at Melodie, his mouth was a grim line. “I think he’s setting up some kind of magical barrier in an arch around thebuilding, corner to corner, and . . .” He put his eye to the crack in the door again. “Three more in a semi-circle.”

Melodie finished a hand tong painting, set the paper in what was now a much narrower strip of light, and stepped up to the door. She leaned against Theo, and Vivi saw his arm come around the back of her legs, as if supporting her.

But she didn’t really need support.

Vivi’s mind turned it over.

Maybe he just liked touching her.

Shewasbeautiful. Her hair fell in a thick plait down her back, dark, glossy brown with fine threads of gold and red woven into it, and she radiated competence and intelligence, two things Vivi knew that Theo found almost irresistible.

“Whatever it is, it’s spelled.” Melodie shrugged without turning around. “I mean, he wouldn’t be bothering otherwise, would he?”

“No,” Theo sighed.

“What’s the proposal, old man?” Melodie called out.

Vivi saw Theo’s grip on Melodie’s leg tighten, and then he forced himself to open his hand. He lay the flat of his palm against her thigh.

Melodie glanced down at him. “No choice. The tongs won’t get the children out of the cell.”

“He can’t be trusted.” Gallain was rubbing his ankle.

“I know.” Melodie stepped back.

“I thought my little fence would force you to speak.” Marchant chuckled. “The proposal is, you give yourself into my hands, and I’ll let the others go.”

Melodie turned her head so her voice would carry through the door. “The counter proposal is you let the others go, and then I give myself into your hands.”

“Why would I agree to that?” He sounded so smug, Vivi wanted to hit him in the face the way he had hit her.

“Because every moment I’m in here, and you are standing watch out there, is another moment the Kassia and Cervantes army draws closer to Warven.” She leaned against the wall near the door so he could hear every word she spoke.

Marchant was silent for a few minutes.

“The whole army?” He sounded like he was trying out the words on his tongue.

Melodie laughed. “After the horrors of the Chosen camps, what did you think the reaction was going to be from the Turncoat King when four of his baby soldiers were snatched?” She clicked her tongue. “Maybe you weren’t thinking at all.”

There was another silence, and Vivi didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she thought it was electrified.

“Who would have even known they were gone so soon?” he asked at last.

“You know who, stop stalling, old man. There were two of us who came into Warven the night you took my colleagues around the camp fire. And your spy, who I followed here from town, already told you one of us left at first light this morning, headed back to Illoa. We were just the advance guard. For our children, we would burn down the world. Don’t you remember that from the days of the Rising Wave?”

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