Page 105 of Suffer No Fools
He took little comfort in knowing Elsie wasn't a traitor. If she'd betrayed them, she wouldn't have been bound with wooden shackles and lashed to the main mast with thick ropes made from strips of saplings. He didn't understand why they had kidnapped her instead of killing her. He'd found her barefoot, with gashes lanced into her feet. Torture. Why would they torture a lightning weaver?
"I need to speak to Vadim," he said. He'd already told the death weaver his aunt was dead, but at least now he could share this bit of comfort.
Instead of searching together, Tovey forced Hugo to sit on their suite's sofa while Stan ran to find him.
"You're being too hard on yourself." Tovey offered him a glass of water from the pitcher on the table only after he'd taken a sip and determined it wasn't laced with poison.
"I couldn't have known," Hugo admitted, "but that doesn't make my action any less rash. I killed everyone aboard that ship without knowing who they were working for or what they wanted. I don't even know if they had the statue of the scales. I didn't see any tracks to indicate another party had beenthere. No landing space big enough for an airship. No footsteps in the frost but my own. Only Elsie connects them to Aquarion at all."
"Klaus said Elsie and the spectral weaver were together," Tovey said. "If she wasn't among the dead, and the statue wasn't there, we have to assume she has the statue."
"Which means Coryn has it." Hugo sighed. "She needs it to transform the stone monolith into a conduit for power." He shivered. How quickly would Coryn be able to draw all magic in the world into the monolith, and into herself? She would become the most powerful weaver in the world at the cost of everyone else.
"Hugo." Vadim crossed the room in three steps, and Hugo went to him, collapsing in his arms and sobbing against his jacket like he had when he was a small child and Coryn had scared him. He felt eight years old again. He wished Uncle Vadim would tell him everything was going to be all right, same as he had then, but they both knew better.
"I'm sorry I killed your aunt."
Vadim rubbed his back. "Shh. No matter what you learned today, it won't change our past. She tried to convince me to kill myself when I was a child, and she sided with Martiz when I tried to tell her what he'd done to me."
Hugo backed away from him with a gasp. His heart hurt for the man who had protected him like a father. "She what?"
Vadim nodded. "Aunt Elsie was not a good person. Whatever you have to tell me, it won't make me sad she's gone." Vadim's throat clicked as he swallowed, and he shrugged. "I know that makes me an asshole."
"No. It makes you human. I'm sorry for what she did." Hugo wanted to comfort him, but he didn't have more comforting words. Instead, he told Vadim what he'd found aboard the enemy ship.
"Tortured," he said. "That's horrible, even for her. That explains how they got Frost to drop the ice weaves." He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting that."
"Coryn's spectral weaver stole the scales. She also knows the spell to jump through space without leaving a trail. That's how she got away."
Vadim hurried to the door. "I'll talk it over with Klaus. If she uses the scales on Stony Eel Island, he should be able to see it."
Hugo had done everything he could, but it wasn't enough. The weight of his failure pressed in, and he sank onto his side on the couch.
"Up." Tovey grabbed him around the waist and hefted him over his shoulder in one move, before Hugo could shout.
"Put me down!"
"Not until you start acting like my emperor."
"I order you to put me down!"
Tovey laughed. "Not good enough."
"Fuck's sake, Tovey, put me the fuck down!" His head swam from all the blood rushing there, and his toes were starting to go numb.
"Stan, can you clear the room? Our swords are in the trunk."
Hugo could only see a small patch of floor and the glorious curve of Tovey's ass from his position, but he heard the rustle of air weaves moving furniture around the room, and the sound of their trunk opening and closing.
"Well done." Tovey smacked Hugo's ass, and he squealed from the pain. "You need to regain your confidence before we leave for Stony Eel Island. When your people see you at the prow ofStarlight Spectertomorrow, some will see you for the first time and pledge their loyalty to you."
"I don't deserve their loyalty."
"Yes, you do." Tovey yanked him back over his shoulder and set him on his feet. "You're their emperor, and a good one."
"I killed a woman who didn't deserve it."
"You stopped an escaping ship." Tovey cupped his cheek. "She and Frost are our first casualties of war. You aren't to blame. Coryn is. They kidnapped Elsie to fool us into thinking she was working with them, and you ended her torment."
