The sharp click-click-click of heels on concrete shuts us both up. Warden Blythe materializes in the doorway of the examination room, her face carved from granite and twice as cold.
“Mr. Valgrave is right. We are behind,” she says.
Her gaze slides over me like a knife, those bird-of-prey eyes missing nothing behind her silver-streaked hair. She's ancient and somewhat terrifying.
“There is confusion on both sides of this war. Weakness,” shesays, circling the armored corpse like it's a disappointing science project. “We can either exploit it or sit around with our thumbs up our asses.”
“Warden, tonight was completely unexpected,” Corvin says.
“My intel's been solid until now,” I add. “I'll shake down my contacts, but if they didn't warn me, they were probably in the dark too.”
Or they played me. Wouldn't be the first time. Spy game's a bitch that way.
“It happened,” the Warden cuts through our excuses. “Any news of Esme and the dragon?”
Corvin shakes his head. “Negative. Trackers are inbound with nothing to show for it. We'll cast a wider net, but that drags us straight into clearblood turf.”
“You'll lead the search,” she tells him, not a request. “Those tracking skills of yours have gathered dust long enough, Commander.”
Corvin's jaw tightens. “With all due respect, Warden, we just got our asses handed to us. I can't exactly leave while our security's held together with duct tape.”
“Director Reinhardt and I managed Darkbirch before you were born,” she cuts him off. “We'll survive while you retrieve Esme and that overgrown lizard.”
“Great plan,” I mutter. “What's step two?”
Ask the fire-breathing death machine to pretty please join our team? Offer it a dental plan and paid holidays while the clearbloods have been imprisoning it for half a century?
“Step one is worth a shot,” she says, dead serious.
Corvin sighs. “Like Archer said, desperate times, desperate measures.”
BS. That's what this is. The clearbloods played with dragon fire, and now we're itching for our turn at the wheel. Same old dance, just with bigger guns. Except these guns can incinerate a magical aura like it's tissue paper. We're really sitting here plotting to weaponize the same nightmare that's been torching our people for decades.
Even I've got lines I don't cross, and this feels like one of them.
Blythe hobbles closer to the clearblood corpse, her bony vulture fingers tracing the dead golden runes etched into the armor. The smell of burnt flesh and metal makes my eyes water.
“We have at least one more like this, correct?” she asks, not bothering to look up.
Corvin gives a military nod. “Next room over. Four dead lieutenants are on ice down the hall.”
“Farrow examines them tomorrow,” she says, all business. “When your trackers drag their sorry selves back, brief them and saddle up another team. You leave at noon. Priority is finding Esme and that lizard. Something happened at Heathborne, and Reinhardt's chomping at the bit to see what new party tricks our girl's picked up.”
I'd want to assess those too. But I'm keeping my mouth shut about Brynn's new tricks. These Darkbirch vultures have a nasty habit of using Salem kids like disposable batteries—drain 'em dry, toss 'em out. Look what happened to Jax. And Esme? That girl's probably getting dissected by dragon boy as we speak.
“So what's my assignment while you’re out?” I ask.
“Revisit your sources on the other side,” Corvin says. “Find out if another clearblood attack is coming.”
“My sources just shit the bed spectacularly.”
“Then offer them more,” he snaps. “And keep training Brynn Salem.”
“For the trials?” I arch an eyebrow. Girl nearly dies from a Gaudian Pulse. The trials would eat her alive.
“Not ideal,” Warden Blythe exhales like she's disappointed in the weather. “But we're desperate. Every Salem counts.”
“Brynn is a scholar,” I remind her.
