Page 96 of The Stone Curse
“They drugged us,” Curi said. “I didn’t even know it was possible to knock out a goyle.”
“They have my mother and Serath,” Levi added.
Serath had been in my arms when the drug hit. “We have to get out of here and find them.” We needed Derek. “Derek? Derek, can you hear me? I need you.”
“If he could be here, he would be,” Shar said.
“I know. I just…fuck. What are we gonna?—”
The clang of metal on stone froze the words on my lips.
“Someone’s coming,” Curi hissed. “Get back from the bars. Just in case.”
We all complied, pressing our bodies to the stone wall at the back of our cells.
Bootfalls approached, and a figure finally came into view.
“Hello, Cameron,” Ignus said. “It’s so good to see you again.”
“You!”I glared at Ignus, incensed but strangely relieved also.
Ignus looked me up and down. “Yes, me. It seems I’m making a habit of saving your life.”
“Thisis Ignus?” Curi raked him over, clearly unimpressed.
Ignus offered him a mock bow. “The one and only. And just in case you missed it, I saved your lives.”
“Doesn’t make you a good guy,” Curi countered.
“No,” Ignus said. “It doesn’t. But where you’re all concerned, I’m the best guy. The guy that is here to lift the veil from your pretty eyes and reveal the truth about what you’ve gotten yourselves into.”
“I’ll settle for you revealing what you’ve done with my mother and Serath,” Levi said.
I took a step forward. “Where are they?”
He held up a hand. “All in due course.”
“If you’ve hurt them…” Levi left the threat hanging, but Ignus’s attention was on me.
“Do you believe I would hurt them, Cameron?”
The first time I’d met him, he’d tried to kidnap me. He’d used an invasive power to try and subdue me, and I’d been terrified, but the next time, he’d saved me and now there was no malice or threat radiating off him. I had to admit that it seemed his motives aligned with keeping me alive.
“I don’t think you’d hurt them, Ignus, but keeping us locked up in cells hardly gives a good impression.”
“It’s a precautionary measure until you’ve learned and accepted the truth.”
“And you’re going to tell us that truth?” Sharniza asked.
“Some of it. The rest will be imparted to you…later.”
“So what can you tell us now?”
“I can tell you that we are not your enemy, and I can tell you that the true enemy is hidden in the gargoyle ranks. They call themselves the faction. I can also tell you that the graynites that attacked you were created by the faction.”
Levi made a soft sound of disbelief, but Curi hushed him.
“What do you meancreated?” he asked.
