Page 109 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“All right. Let me indulge you for a moment. What is it you want?”
“I want these cuffs off,” Maurice says, “and I want you to set Njáll free.”
“He won’t have time to save the wolf.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything at all.”
The fae around the room are tense, too, though I can’t imagine why. They all have to be powerful in their own right, and Maurice and I are hardly threats to them.
“And if I take my time? Break every bone in your vampire’s body?” Meilyr tilts his head, sending his wave of hair tumbling to one side. “There are a lot of them. You would not endure it.”
Maurice leans forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. “Andyoudon’t know all that I do, or I would not be here. You don’t know the scope of it. You won’t be able to tell if I’m lying because you aren’t capable of it.”
“Then I cannot trust you even if I let him go.”
Maurice hesitates. He licks his lips. “There’s a spell. Magic. You can’t compel me to tell the truth, but you can verify it.”
Meilyr blinks. Perhaps it is something that has not even occurred to him. He has been wherever it is the fae live until a few weeks ago, and if no one there can lie…
Why would he have use for a spell like that?
The silence holds, tension stretching to breaking point, until Meilyr finally sits back in his seat and waves a careless hand. “Unfasten his cuffs.”
The large fae by the door strides over and unfastens Maurice’s cuffs with short, sharp movements. Maurice rubs each wrist—they are red and chafed—and sits back in the chair. He does not look at me.
“And the other condition?”
Meilyr looks between us both. “I suppose if you do save the wolf, it matters not,” he says, sounding almost weary. “It will not be that difficult to deal with you all.” He looks at the large fae again. “Take him outside. Let him go.”
Is he actually…? I can hardly believe it, and I believe even less the way Maurice does not look at me as the fae grabs me by my left arm and drags me over towards the door.
I want to call out to him. I want him tolookat me, to see that I will come back for him—I’ll find the Hunt, whoever I can, and I’ll do my best to save Quinn, but Maurice… Maurice is…
The fae drags me into the hallway, and several things happen all at once. A fae standing by the front door opens it, and the fae with me yanks me to a halt because—
Asher.
Asher is standing on the other side, and before the fae holding me can make a sound, a knife flies through the air and embeds itself in his throat. He kills the fae by the door as I stagger back into the wall, and a dark shape blurs past me—Vlad?—and into the living room.
Asher spares me a single glance as he strides past. I turn, looking into the living room. Maurice may not have his blessing, but he is holding his own against two of the fae. Meilyr and Vlad grapple on the other side of the room, and Maurice shoves one fae away, punches the other in the throat before he races over—
Meilyr snarls, shoving Vlad back, but Maurice is faster than he’s expecting. His knife—and, oh, he must have stolen it back earlier, when he tripped—plunges into Meilyr’s side, and Meilyr cries out, letting go of Vlad before he falls back against the wall.
Maurice tugs his knife free and leaps away when Meilyr lunges at him.
“You—” Meilyr growls. “How did you…?”
There were screams throughout the house a moment ago, but now it all falls silent, and I draw in a ragged breath. Was that…Was thatallAsher? Meilyr seems to hear it too; he pales, though his expression remains defiant.
“I will have this world yet,” he says, and the air goes heavy, pressure squeezing my head until I have to close my eyes, and when I open them again, he’s gone.
“Well, fuck,” Maurice says.
I rest my forehead against the doorjamb, my arm throbbing in time with my pulse. He just—They—
We’re safe. Well, sort of. Not about to die this moment, at least.
“Are you all right?” Vlad asks, but I don’t think he’s talking to me, so I say nothing. I need to stop resting. Stand, get out of here, get to Deacon’s pack house…
