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“It could be no other,” Malik snapped, more upset than Seth had ever heard him. “I need to return to my workroom and see if I can locate—”
“You need to conduct an interrogation,” Rahim told him. “Neither the book nor the arcanist are as important as the assassin.”
Seth’s breath caught at the word. Assassin. Raider. It couldn’t be.
Could it?
They reached the guarded dungeon entrance without further incident. The guard opened the heavy door. They descended the steps, Seth dripping and Rahim limping, and came into the open space outside the cells.
Raider was the only prisoner. Still wearing the rose-colored shalvar pants and sleeveless white tunic, he sat at the back of his cell against the stone wall. His knees were drawn up, his forearms resting on them. If he was worried, it didn’t show. He was utterly still and looked, if anything, resigned.
Clearly, Raider wasn’t surprised by this.
Seth’s hope dimmed, but he still said, “Tell me it’s not true. Tell them it’s not true. They’re saying—”
“You killed Emperor Hassan,” Rahim announced, striding past Seth. “Admit it.” When Raider didn’t respond, Rahim snapped his fingers at Malik. “More of the serum! He will talk.”
“It’s too dangerous to go in there with him,” Malik argued. “Half an hour of smoke and he’ll pass out, then I can dose him again. In the meantime, I’ll attempt to track—”
“The Curator can do it.” The prince’s eyes glinted, triumphant.
A jolt of fear got Seth’s sluggish thoughts churning past the point they’d been stuck on: hearing Raider, finally, explain himself. But that was a bad idea if Raider was guilty. Rahim was a prince, a distant cousin of the empress—and he was far too thrilled by all this.
It wasn’t a desire for justice or even revenge that had Rahim’s eyes glinting like that. The prince saw advantage in this, advantage for himself.
Scattered memories fitted themselves together into a new picture. The prince’s touchiness about his remote post:
I suppose you did not expect such richness amid the Gold’s wasteland.
The exchange between Malik and Rahim as Seth had been waking groggily in the workroom:
Might we focus on our success? You have, at last, the means of commanding Zarina’s attention—
You make me sound like a child.
Then there were Rahim’s varied and extravagant possessions. His beautiful slaves. His feasts. His clothing. His arcane toys such as the flying-carpet litter.
The prince craved status. Significance. Attention. And having the emperor’s assassin in his hands could give him all of that.
Seth jumped when Malik handed him a syringe. Fuck. This was really happening.
Seth could refuse. But if he did, they would resort to the smoke, subdue Raider, and dose him anyway. And Seth would then have broken their trust.
But if he walked in there and injected Raider with drugs against his will, he would break Raider’s trust. Seth hated that idea, even if Raider had broken Seth’s trust first. Unless, by some chance, through some explanation, none of this was true.
Malik unlocked the cell door and pulled it open. Raider made no move. With his quicksilver, he could have.
Hell, with his quicksilver, surely he could have already broken out of here?
Seth stepped into the cell. Raider’s amber eyes tracked his movement, but Seth couldn’t read those eyes. They were so carefully neutral.
The cell door clanged shut.
As Seth approached, Raider remained still, so damn still. Even when Seth crouched beside him, Raider didn’t react.
But when Seth picked up Raider’s left arm and rotated it to expose his vein, Raider closed his eyes and shuddered. And, this close, Seth could perceive what Raider had been trying to hide. His short, shallow breathing. His racing pulse, visibly fluttering in his neck.
Maybe it was the confinement bothering him. Maybe it was dread of what was coming. Maybe it having Seth be the one to approach him with that needle.
