Page 58 of Tell Me Why
“You can get along with anyone,” Isabella said dismissively. “I’ve seen it. You’re going out of your way to antagonize him because he’s easier to deal with when he’s riled. Don’t lie to me.”
“He knows me too well for those tricks to work on him,” Tell said.
“Tryharder,” Isabella said, then slid to past Tell to the ground. “I have to get back. If I’m gone from my party any longer, I’ll be missed. I assume you’ll be in your room again when Daryll comes to check.”
“You need to get me an angle,” Tell said. “And this is the only time I warn you. If you try to use Tina to your father’s purpose, I will burn your entire house down.”
Isabella paused, then nodded.
“I understand,” she said, then turned to go. Tell gave her a moment, then reached up to give Tina a hand down. She didn’t need it, but she didn’t mind it, either. Easier to be graceful, that way, and Isabella was a master class in grace to compare against.
Tina waited until the background noise was high enough that she was reasonably sure Isabella couldn’t hear them anymore.
“What use?” she asked. He grunted.
“Should have put it on the list from the beginning, but… I underestimate the lengths that Keon will go to, to get his outcomes.”
“What use?” Tina asked again.
“You are a sacrificial pawn,” he said. “If she’d needed to take you and hand you over to Daryll to prove her ongoing loyalty, it would mean that I would likely have failed and Keon would consider me to still be in his debt, but my value exceeds the sum of my parts, to him. You, on the other hand, would keep his daughter in good standing with her network, here.”
Tina rubbed her arm.
“Is life worth so little?” she asked rhetorically.
“If you want to run, I’ll make sure that you get away. Go back to Viella, go find Hunter by whatever arcane methods you might have for it, whatever. If you want me to abandon the whole thing…” He twisted his head away. “Yes. Yes, even that. I will walk away. Right now. If that’s what you want to do.”
“Did you notice that she got evenpalerwhen you threatened her?” Tina asked, and he smiled.
“I did see that,” he said.
“It’s a job,” Tina said. “Sometimes they get dicey. They aren’t all bennaxes and gargoyles.”
“No, they aren’t,” Tell said, his voice distant.
“And this is what you’rebestat,” Tina said. “The big, gnarly problems with people who think they’re too powerful to touch keeping secrets. Don’t run away on my account.”
“Don’t get killed on mine,” he answered, and she shrugged.
“Pinky-swear promise,” she said, and he laughed.
“Because you won’t be around for me to say I told you so if you’re wrong,” he said, and she nodded enthusiastically.
“Yup.”
The room felta little less small.
Daryll did come up to gloat to them about putting them in their place when they wouldn’t recognize it, and it was still maddening to sit there insilencefor so many hours, but at least now Tina was waiting on something tochangethat she knew was happening, rather than just hoping that the people involved didn’t intend to leave her here to rot indefinitely.
Hunter would be very upset to not be able to find her, when he eventually got back into town, but she didn’t think he had the means to track them, with the way that Tell had left. That had been the whole point.
Andindefinitelycould be a really long time, for vampires, apparently.
At the very end of the night, as the dawn was beginning to sap her will to be upright, a pair of women came in, one with yogurt and one with a tumbler of blood, leaving it on the table wordlessly and exiting the room again.
“Was probably a pretty good party,” Tell said with a wistful tone.
“Is he punishing you by withholding fountains?” Tina asked. “Or did they just decide you don’t need to feed every day?”
