“What of the nobles?”
Their cries had quieted, which I assumed meant that they were suddenly safe … or that they were being sucked into walls, or already dead.
“Better to have Zi for that. Unless it’s really just blats. Check on the nobles first, but very fast, then go start on Terencia’s … mess.”
“And where will you go?” Ed asked.
“To speak with the phantom.”
My eyebrows arched.
“There may be another way to get answers.”
I nodded eagerly. Apparently, too eagerly.
“I don’t like this, Baz,” Ed said. “Why don’t we all go together?”
Félix placed a hand on her crossed arm, and Ed uncrossed them.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll meet you back at our common area.”
Baz didn’t wait around for more. He clasped my hand and stalked in the opposite direction. Several rooms closer to his quarters, where we should be able to find the ghost, Marina emerged from the shadows without a sound—and pressed a blade to Baz’s groin. That was a good height for the goblin, who was only as tall as my thighs. Not such a good height for a man packing as much bulk as Baz, making for a very easy target.
He froze, released my hand, and put both of his in the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy there.”
“You let Soravelle go and then I’ll take it easy,” Marina snarled.
My eyes dampened with pride.
“Release her from the Rillis rope,” Marina said, pressing the tip of her blade into his pants, slicing leather.
He hissed. “I can’t release her.”
“You can.”
“Okay, okay, fine. I can. But I won’t.”
Marina flicked her wrist. Her fingers might be gnarled, but her hands were plenty steady. She sliced along the edge of his dick, its outline marked, and a three-inch slash in the leather gaped open.
Baz hissed another time. “Now that’s not a place any man wants to be feeling a sudden breeze when there’s a blade in play.”
I leaned forward to look, of course I did. Sure enough, the underside of his cock was visible through the gap, as was the ball sack it rested against. He hadn’t been wearing underwear any of the times he’d had sex with me either.
“Do not cut me,” he said in a tone I could easily believe commanded legions. “I mean Soravelle no harm, I promise you.”
“Oh, I see. Then I shall just … let you go, shan’t I?” Her words dripped snark, and I had to blink back the sting of tears. She had grown a lot in the centuries we’d been forced apart.
Baz flashed angry eyes at me. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Something like … watch and enjoy the show?”
“No, not that. Not fucking that.” His nostrils flared. “I won’t hurt you and you know it.”
I studied him. Marina studied me studying him.
“You’ll help me get answers about why the phantom looks like my mother?”
“Of course I will.”
