To care about one…
All he would have had to do to put my ass in a vise was to secure Helena’s soul himself and deliver it to Sir White.
At the end of the day, did it matter what Cedric hoped to accomplish with the note?
“Maybe I fucked up,” I told him as I carried the lantern to the desk. “But you fucked up worse. By screwing with me every chance you got. If you hadn’t hounded me so much, followed me around like a sniveling dumpster rat, right at this moment, Imightbe tempted to believe you’d really grant the life you’d get by taking up my scythe to Helena. Too bad I know you. And how you’d sooner snatch her spirit out of her first thing while I watched… right before sendingmeto hell.”
The light from Cedric’s soul died down to a soft glow, the orb inside going still.
But maybe he wasn’t throwing a fit because he understood—finally—there wasn’t any use.
I opened a drawer, shoved the lantern inside, then shut it sharply, sealing Cedric away in the dark, too wary he’d find a way to tip himself over, bust out of the lantern, and rejoin his form. Go after Helena again…
I certainly wasn’t willing to risk rejoining his serpent’s soul to his physical form just to interrogate him. Especially not when I was unlikely to get honest answers anyway.
At the same time, I needed to park him here just in case hewasworking with someone else. Like Mephistopheles. Or another bad actor he might have made an alliance with.
Johann never hazarded to leave the Netherworld, and only Flora, Cedric, and I had clearance to come and go. So now, if Cedric didhave an accomplice, at the very least, they wouldn’t be able to get to him.
The only problem was, if therewasa coconspirator, or even a separate conspirator independent of Cedric, then Helena was still at risk.
Clenching the note tight in my hand, I swept from the office and through the cavernous, dimly lit library with its towering book-lined walls and rounded, balcony-lined floors that climbed to oblivion. Halls of more books connected to the main chamber, a good portion of their numbers readable only by The Few.
Could the book Helena had in her possession have come from this same chamber, pulled and planted by Cedric himself? Or had someone else placed it for her to find?
The only other being who could have planted the book was Flora. Unless the bookhadn’tcome from the Hallowed Halls.
Flora wasn’t the clandestine sort. She spoke her mind, and the two of us trusted one another because we had to. There was nothing I could conceive of for her to gain from such an action, either.
No matter the case, something was afoot, and the only person who could provide me with any answers to help clarify what that was just so happened to be the one being, the one woman, I’d already sworn to myself I would stay away from.
I kept forbidding myself from doing things regarding Helena. Those promises—the ones that tied back to theoathI’d taken—kept flying out the damn window every time I interacted with her.
But I had to know where she had gotten that book. Because she would have said something before now if Cedric had been the one to hand it to her.
Maybe none of this mattered. Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie.
The Jenga tower currently stood, after all, and we—me, Helena, Flora, and Johann—were just waiting for the trigger event to occur so we could all play our parts in a controlled demolition. So it wouldn’tdo well for me to go mucking about trying to get answers to a mystery that was likely not a current problem.
Unless it was…
Until this latest discovery, it hadn’t occurred to me that there could be additional enemies at play. Perhaps even a broader conspiracy to subvert and depose all three of us.
Or, at the very least… me.
If silence and solitude were my main companions in this role, paranoia was too often a special guest. But what was that old saying?
You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you…
Helena could clear this up in one conversation. By approaching her again, I’d only be tying up a loose end. Or else discovering a new proverbial bomb to dismantle.
Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to see her again, speak to her.
Ask her why she’d done what she had. Kissed me like that…
Then again, this whole note thing wasn’t a stone I could afford to leave unturned. Not if Mephistopheles or another entity happened to be pulling strings.
Not when it was more than just Helena’s life on the line. Her soul had become caught in a trap—one that looked more and more as though it had been designed to baitme.
