Page 20 of Song of the Heart Scale
I nodded, though I kept my lips pressed tightly together.
He shook his head, bewildered. “But everyone’s talking about it! ‘The Crown Prince and the Ryder Girl,’ and all that. I heard someone had already started stitching pillows with your initials. Monogrammed bedsheets. Embroidered towels.”
I grimaced. “Sounds like a nightmare.”
“It was an exaggeration,” he remarked dryly. “What happened?”
I looked around, even though we were alone in the room except for Maeve. I leaned closer and dropped my voice to a whisper. “The emperor is dead.”
The one-eyed warlock froze and the amusement drained from his face like someone had opened a vein. His one good eye locked on mine, hard and unblinking. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
He sat back slowly, the chair creaking under his shifting weight. His fingers tapped the rim of his mug once... twice... before going still. “How?” he asked quietly.
“Officially, no one knows. He was found in his chambers. There were no obvious wounds and no signs of a struggle.”
Garrick didn’t speak for a long moment. His eye dropped to the gold-trimmed table, but he didn’t seem to see it.
“You alright?” I asked softly.
He didn’t look up. “You know what they call me, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Garrick the Betrayer,” he muttered. “All because of that man—the emperor. Because I refused to play the role of his court lapdog. He took my eye. Battered my reputation. And the rest of the world... let it happen.”
“He’s an asshole, Garrick, and now he’s dead. He got what he deserved,” I said quietly.
Finally, he looked at me again. “You sure you’re not marrying into this mess?”
“I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
He huffed a laugh. “Honest. I like that.”
“Can you help me or not?”
“Depends on what you need.”
I reached into my coat and slid a folded parchment across the table. “Everything you can find on what happened in Dragon Valley over the last forty-eight hours. Who was there. Who was missing. I want names. Gossip. Ghost stories. I don’t care.”
He took the paper but didn’t unfold it. “That’s going to cost.”
“I figured.”
“And I’m not just talking coin.”
I arched a brow. “Then what?”
He leaned in, his grin returning with a hint of mischief. “A favor.”
I slowly exhaled. “I can’t imagine a gambler such as yourself wanting anything other than coin.”
“You’ve been milking this damn favor I’ve owed you for months. It’s about time you get a taste of it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Karma’s a bitch.”
“Precisely.”
