Page 17 of Shadow Warrior
I looked up at her innocently. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”
Brunner’s frown deepened as she studied me, searching for a crack in my armor. She wouldn’t find one. I would not lose it. I would not break down again. Harmon was lost to me. But Payne … There was still a chance to save Payne. A plan was forming in my mind.
Brunner’s body relaxed a little. “The Nightwatch council has granted my petition.” She stood and rounded her desk. A drawer opened and closed. “They sent me the key to your cuffs.” She retrieved a blue box and flipped it open to reveal a silver disc.
I sat forward. The key. My key. “I can be free?”
She smiled. “The cuffs can come off, yes. But the sentence still stands. You will complete your time here.”
I nodded mutely and held out my wrists. Just get them off already.
She pressed the disc to the left one. My wrist tingled, and then the cuff fell off with a clink. She repeated the process with the other one.
Where the cuffs had been, my skin was pale and alien. I rubbed my wrists. “Thank you.”
“You earned it, Justice.”
I stood and gave her a curt nod. “I should get going.”
I was almost at the door when Brunner halted me with a word.
“Justice?”
I paused, hand on the doorknob.
“Make wise choices.”
Yeah, from now on, every choice I made was going to be wise as fuck.
* * *
After the advanced weavers’classroom had collapsed, part of the Academy was under construction. Builders brought in specially to repair and reinforce the structure were hard at work. Most of the weaver wing, which made up the classrooms, was off-limits, but the accommodations were still accessible via a plushy carpeted staircase and an equally opulently decorated corridor.
Electric lights shaped like candelabras jutted out of the wall at regular intervals. It looked like an expensive floor housing apartments. Silence sat over everything like a shroud. Probably because most of the students had already left. Classes had ended yesterday, after all. Brady would be coming to see me in a couple of hours. I needed to get things with Kash sorted fast.
It was only when I got a quarter of the way down the corridor that it hit me: I had no idea which room was his. Shit? What to do? Knock on doors until someone answered and pointed me in the right direction?
Yep, sounded like a good plan in my head.
I knocked on the nearest door and waited.
No answer.
Okay, moving on.
Two doors later, I finally got a bite. A frazzled-looking woman with spectacles tugged open the door with a frown. Behind her, the room looked like a bomb had hit it; clothes everywhere except in the open suitcase that lay on the bed.
She followed my gaze. “Yeah, probably shouldn’t have tried to use magic to pack.” She looked more closely at me and then blinked in surprise. “Justice, right?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Hi, name’s Mel, I heard about what you did. Pretty cool.”
“Thanks. I was looking for Kash.”
She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting to see him there. “Not here.”
“Riiight. Do you know which is his room?”
