Page 47 of The Stone Survival
And a shedim lived in Ivor’s body now. Yes, he finally understood the truth of it.
“We need your help,” Serath said. “We need to get Ulrickson alone, somewhere secure.”
“I could call him,” Levi said. “But if he’s with the faction, they may be watching him. He might be followed. We can’t be sure.”
“Is there somewhere completely secure that we could speak to him?” Orix asked.
Lionel mulled this over for several seconds. “The list you’ve shown me might not be complete. And everyone on it is in positions of power, so this web could be much larger thananticipated. I’m afraid that there may not be any truly secure place to call him.”
“What about our Asteria residence?” Selas said.
“And how would we justify getting him there?” Orix said.
An idea formed in my mind. “Levi, what about your mother? Ulrickson’s still carrying a torch for her, right?”
Levi made a face. “So it seems.”
“Then it wouldn’t be strange for them to have dinner together, right?”
“Viola’s in Asteria?” Serath said, picking up my train of thought.
“Yes! And if anyone is watching Ulrickson, they’ll soon get bored and chalk it up to him being on a date.”
“Then we somehow lure him to the house?” Orix said. “But how?”
“The existence of the elite residence isn’t common knowledge,” Serath said. “We acquired it ourselves. It isn’t on any official books, so if Levi’s mother takes Ulrickson there, then they’ll simply believe the two of them are…um…liaising.”
Levi groaned. “I get it. I’ll speak to her.”
“I’d like to be there when you question Ulrickson,” Lionel said. “I need to know what could possibly make him turn traitor.”
I had an inkling. A feeling that it had something to do with what happened with Serath’s parents, but I’d keep my mouth shut on my suspicions for now.
“We’ll need a way to get to the house without arousing suspicion,” Shar said. “If the faction wants Serath, then the tower is probably being watched.”
“Which means they’d have seen Selas arrive,” Touron said tightly.
“They would have seen me arrive too,” Lionel said, chewing on his cheeks. “All right, hear me out. I’ll report in saying thatCameron called me when Selas arrived here wounded. I’ll say that Selas is hurt and confused and seems to have no memory of how she got here. I’ll check in with her father and assure him that his daughter is safe but seems to have experienced some memory loss from a head wound she must have sustained on her journey.”
“Perfect,” Orix said. “That’ll buy us time.”
“We still need to find a way of getting to the Asteria house without being seen,” Shar said.
Lionel snapped his fingers. “A port from inside the tower. I have someone I trust implicitly who can create an orb for us. He created the port to the elite trial.”
“Doran?” Orix said.
“Yes. I had him personally vetted.”
“But the port was compromised, wasn’t it?” Shar said. “We got stuck there.”
Lionel shook his head. “Doran was responsible for the port to the elite trial location. Another member of port management was supposed to get you out. They went missing. The authorities are looking into it…apparently.” He didn’t seem too convinced about that. “In the end, we called in Doran to open a port to the location, and that’s when we discovered what had happened. I’ll need the coordinates to the house, and he can prepare the orb.”
“We can do that,” Selas said.
“Good, then I’ll make a point to check in on Selas tomorrow evening.” Lionel smiled. “It would be the responsible thing to do.”
“Okay,” Serath said. “Then we have a plan.”
