“Someone familiar enough with his hand to replicate, but it is not a fully faithful impression,” he agreed.
“So the question becomes… who lured Nikos here?” Riordan mused aloud as he turned to stare around at the ransacked apartment as if looking for clues. “And why.”
“The why seems simple enough. Maybe someoneistrying to kill him and thought they could get him and your father at the same time,” Orion suggested.
“Or they wanted you to find him here and think Nikos is the one behind your father’s abduction,” I pointed out. “Unless it was usual for your father to request his letters to be burned after reading them, then it is strange that the sender would ask for the evidence to be destroyed.”
“It is unusual,” Riordan agreed reluctantly as his eyes narrowed on his cousin again in thought. “My father was not hiding his presence here, nor would it be strange for him to have requested to see his nephew. There would be no reason for him to ask for this letter to be burned.”
“How do you know he did not plan all of this just so?” Orion demanded. “Removing our forces from the outposts is the reason the Fuath were able to amass as they have, and he is the one who gave that order! He is a powerful magic user, perhaps even strong enough to create a spell to repel your magic, and he has—”
“You think I could repelhismagic?” sputteredNikos, his gaze shooting to Riordan in shock and fear.
“—the sympathy of some members of the council,” Orion finished with a glare at Nikos who scowled back.
“Need I remind you that it was the King’s Council who manipulated me into this very situation in the first place?” Nikos demanded in exasperation.
“Riordan?” Orion prompted, his hand tightening on the hilt of his blade as if he were aching for the command to dispatch the other griffin.
“It all makes such perfect sense. Like a carefully laid trail of breadcrumbs leading straight to him,” mused the king as he stared down at Nikos with growing clarity.
“And?” Orion prompted with impatience.
“Nikos is not smart enough to orchestrate something at this level of intricacy,” Riordan admitted. He ignored his cousin who gaped in offense and turned to me to nod.
“Why did you order those outposts to be abandoned?” I asked my mate’s cousin when I realized what Riordan was suggesting.
“I already told you there was unrest in the Rookery!” Nikos hissed in frustration at Riordan.
“You were too stupid to check on the report yourself, or you would have quickly deduced as I did that there was no unrest in the city,” Riordan said. He advanced on his bristling cousin who immediately began to cower again. Riordan grabbed Nikos by the front of his robes to hoist him up to his feet. “Who told you there was unrest?”
“No one! Everyone,” Nikos corrected, so flustered and confused that he looked ready to cry. “The report came in from multiple sources. I had no cause to question it!”
“Do you think someone may be attempting to use you as a scapegoat?” Riordan demanded impatiently.
“I would have said as much earlier if you were not such a brute—”
“Then stop trying to defend yourself and tryto help me figure out who is doing this,” Riordan commanded.
Nikos glowered as the king released him, but then he stood up straighter, regaining some of his composure as he tugged his robes back into place.
“As I said, I had no reason to question the report as it had come in from multiple sources,” he reiterated.
“Elaborate,” Orion commanded with a growl.
“Multiple sources!” Nikos yelled at us in frustration. “City patrols, sentries in the watchtowers above the city, even guards in Ergastiri reported a suspicious increase of activity among the Ktínos. I took the informants at their word and acted as best as I could with the information,” Nikos insisted, rolling his eyes.
“With no small amount of prejudice,” Orion reminded him resentfully.
“What do you want me to say? We both know Ktínos and Imítheos could never work together!” Nikos stated.
“And yet they do for Riordan,” I pointed out.
“Do they?” Nikos scoffed unkindly. “I have not been in the city of late, but it seems to me that you now have an insurgency of dissenters on your hands.”
Orion moved toward Nikos threateningly, but Riordan calmly held up his hand to stop him.
“He is right. And he is going to help us,” said the king, looking expectantly at Nikos who gaped at him.
