Page 36 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
And youknowI don’t know,I couldn’t stop myself from thinking.I can’t hide anything from your oily worms.
Lexington’s face twitched once. Before he could lecture me, I continued, “As you heard Steeler say, he’ll be back tomorrow night at the same time to give me another pill, and I can’t… I don’t think I can debilitate him, not by myself. So I need—”
“No.”
Lexington picked up Rodhi’s abandoned mug and drained its contents in one gulp. Then he leaned back in his chair to cross his arms.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“No,” Lexington repeated, his jaw ticking. “We can’t help you.”
I looked around the room to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating this entire conversation. Every Wild Whisperer in here was still craning their necks, forced to look away.
“But the pirate breaches. The attacks. The danger to—”
Lexington wiped his mouth with the edge of his cloak.
“Listen, you idiot girl. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have hired you to perform this task in the first place. But as it is, our leader—” Something flashed in his eyes at that “—well, she is the only woman on this island more powerful than me. Too powerful for me to influence.”
He flexed his fingers, and I suddenlyknew, as if the residue of him in my mind had let it slip, that Kitterfol Lexington had tried to take Dyonisia to bed. And failed. And every time he spied on something intimate, every time he creeped and crawled over someone else’s private moments, he was imagining himself doing those things toher.
The next second, Lexington closed his fingers into a fist and wrenched that residue of himself out of my mind.
“As I was saying,” he said coldly, “our leader believes you are capable all by yourself. And she has ordered for none of us to intervene. You are to bring Coen Steeler to uswithouthelp.”
I was sure my face had gone slack from the shock as all thoughts about Lexington’s personal love crisis faded in comparison to this news.
Dyonisia Reeve had ordered the Good Council to… to stay out of this? I’d been so sure I was simply the bait, the temptation to lure Steeler in… but what if I wasn’t? What if this was all just a test?
It’s a thigh sheath. I had the best of my blacksmiths in Belliview tailor it especially for that knife of yours. So that when youdomeet up with Coen Steeler, your weapon of choice will already be on you.
And:
A well-aimed blow—perhaps to his undeserving brand… it might hinder his magic as well as his strength.
Was Dyonisia, perhaps, trying to test out her mutilated brand theory with Steeler and me? If so, why couldn’t she just cut up someone else’s brand herself and see what happened? It would be cruel, yes, but… well, shewascruel.
It didn’t make sense for her to use such a serious mission as this one to experiment with the destruction of magic.
Lexington, of course, heard every one of those thoughts as they darted across my mind. And I was sure he felt the accompanying pain throb in the back of my skull, because his lips curled in a hideous smile.
“Whatever her reasoning,” he said, leaning forward again, “I can assure you that she has infinitely more patience than I do. She might be okay with sitting around for another few months and watching you fail miserably, butIam growing bored of you and your cold, empty mind.”
He didn’t say his next words out loud.ThoseI heard in my head.
Punish yourself.
My hands flew up to my own neck and clamped tight.
I gagged soundlessly, but couldn’t budge them. Couldn’t—
Tighter.
Now my hands pushed in treacherously, digging into my windpipe until bright spots dappled my vision, and everyone wasstilllooking away, and the pain in my head flared with heat.
Tighter.
