Strength bloomed in his limbs, his mind brightening with clarity.
He climbed up the muddy bank and to his feet, his senses wide open. He felt powerful. Invincible. Like he could take onfivetentacled Cryptics.
Tilting his head back, letting the rain splash onto his sweaty, bloodied face, he roared a laugh to the sky.
“I am Rolan Strider!” he bellowed. “Slayer of Cryptics! Defeater of monsters! Stabber of… uh, things that need stabbing!Yeah!”
He waved a knife over his head, before remembering that waving metal at a sky full of lightning probably wasn’t thebrightestmove.
Then, all at once, the secret seized his brain.
He fell hard to his knees, then pitched forward to his hands, his vision going black.
The city is restless and full of creepies tonight, oh yes. I hear them skittering in the nooks and crannies. Thieves, murderers, Cryptics. This is my time, the truthforsaken hours before dawn.I better do this quick and quiet, just like the others. All I need is the perfect spot…
Aha! The eastern jail. That’ll do nice. Right on the guards’ own backside, what a laugh!
I take the paper from my pocket, smoothing it down, flicking off crumbs. It’s a good secret, a nasty one. One of the guards has been stealing gold from his mates, blaming it on prisoners. This’ll be the end of his career, oh yes. He’ll be slapped into the same cell he’s been putting my friends in. I might just stick around for this one, see how it plays out…
Nah. Too risky. The job’s the job, it’s not a show.
I slather paste onto the bricks, then smack the paper onto it, fixing it at eye level. Then I step back and wipe my sticky hands on my coat, chuckling.
This is so good, I almost don’t even care if I get paid to do it.
Heh. Almost.
Sucking breath through his teeth, Rolan pushed himself upright. His vision returned to him in flashes, his head aching. He pressed a hand to his temple and groaned.
But the pain was overshadowed by the revelation of the secret.
Rolanknewthose hands. The memory of them smearing paste on the wall, hanging the paper with the secret scrawled across it…
He’d found the person responsible for posting secrets around the city and framing Luc. This man, with his greasy hands and the telltale split on his right thumb, was the one stirring the people into riots and causing a rise in Cryptic numbers.
And Rolan knew who he was.
He couldstophim.
But before he could take a single step, the Cryptic’s power left him, and all his pain and exhaustion and poison-induced fever came rushing over him at once.
Rolan plummeted face-first into total darkness.
- CHAPTER 29 -BANDAGES
Rolan woke with a start, a spasm of panic splintering through him. It was soon followed by a screaming chorus of pain. Wounds burned on every corner of his body.
“Where is it?” he cried, reaching for his knives, but they weren’t there. All he got was two fistfuls of coarse wool blanket.
“Stop thrashing!” Evaine ordered, putting a firm hand on his chest to keep him still. “You’ll tear your stitches.”
Blinking, Rolan felt the dark, chaotic blur of battle fade from his mind. He wasn’t on the riverbank, there was no storm, and there was no Cryptic.
He was in the apothecary’s kitchen, on his pallet by the stove, and Evaine was sitting beside him. Her face was lined with weariness and worry, and in a flash he understood what must have happened.
“You found me,” he croaked, his voice a dry rasp.
“Anaya found you,” she said. “When she went to gather brightleaf by the river, three days ago.”
