Page 56 of Silvercloak

Saff gestured to the unmistakable blood spray. “Busy day?”

“Empty your pockets,” he muttered, ignoring the question.

“No.” Saffron’s hand closed around the roulette ball, but she didn’t pull it out.

He scoffed. “This is not worth your life.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, impatient, and Saff felt a tiny glimmer of satisfaction. She rather enjoyed making his life difficult. He was used to getting what he wanted. He wasnotused to her stubbornness.

“Why would you do this?” he asked in a low timbre. “Why would you risk yourself for a girl you don’t even know?”

She shrugged. “Are you going to collar me again? Or shall we skip straight to the part where you threaten or maim my loved ones?”

“You calculated the risk to your loved ones and acted anyway?” Levan frowned, as though he’d just heard one of her uncle Mal’s impossible riddles.

“If I were trapped in that ball, they’d take any pain to free me. Neatras’s daughter deserves the same mercy.” Saff gestured to her chest. “And clearly the brand doesn’t believe this to be abetrayalof the Bloodmoons, because I’m still standing.”

It was bold, to invoke the brand, but the Bloodmoons’ faith in its potency seemed unwavering, and she saw no reason not to leverage it.

Once again Saffron wondered whether a matching brand lay beneath Levan’s tunic. If it did … she couldn’t imagine going through that at the hands of your ownfather.It wouldn’t be an excuse for the cruel killer Levan had become, but it would be a catalyst nonetheless.

Nobody was born evil, contrary to what Captain Aspar believed.

“How is your wound?” he asked gruffly.

“Fine,” Saffron lied, hot blood simmering beneath the surface of the awful scab. She pulled the silvered eyeball from her pocket. The whites were mottled with spidery pink blood vessels, as though Neatras’s daughter had been weeping. “Any threats you want to level at me before I do this anyway?”

More bolshiness. He could easily overpower her, if he so wanted to, but she was banking on the fact he wouldn’t want to cause a scene in the middle of the gamehouse.

There was also a kind of wariness, a latent distrust, in his expression—as though he was remembering her startlingly convincing illusions, and wondering what sort of trick she might play next.

Or maybe he just pitied her. But she wouldn’t let herself entertain that idea.

Levan looked down at the roulette ball, betraying no emotion. “Go ahead.”

Victory dipped in Saffron’s chest, and she set the roulette ball downon the floor. She lifted her foot and brought down her heel as hard as she could.

The glass casing didn’t give. Didn’t evensplinter.

Instead, the ball skittered away in the direction of Levan’s own leather boots.

He knelt to pick it up, and Saffron desperately incanted, “Ans convoqan.”

But Levan’s fist had already closed around it, and her summoning spell was not strong enough to wrench it from his grasp.

There was a long, sprawling silence as he studied the roulette ball, like a jeweler examining an ascenpearl for imperfections. Saffron’s breath hung suspended somewhere in her throat.

Eventually, Levan gave a stiff grunt. “You’re right. The daughter’s suffering serves no purpose. I am what most would consider a monster, but I have a code.”

Saffron frowned. “You’re going to free her?”

“She cannot be freed. Her body has long been incinerated. But I can end her suffering.”

Saff searched the words for a catch—she had spent a lot of time observing interrogations, and had come to recognize the tiny tics that betrayed a lie, or an ulterior motive, or a trap about to spring—but found none.

Still he stared down at the roulette ball, deep in thought. But he did not move to act.

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