Page 119 of Flames and Blood

She means it as a comfort. She means every word of it as a comfort.

Then she picks her pen back up, because she has letters to write.

“Go to bed,” she says. “You look terrible, and there are people here.”

I go out into the passage, and I stand there, pulling in long, slow breaths.

I have an enemy in this place. Maybe more. One of them watched me walk back into that hall alive, and has had time to decide what to do about it. And the only person who might help me just turned and walked away because I didn’t have time for him.

It’s enough.

I’m done arguing. I’ve argued with the council, with my mother, with my own dragon. It’s never gotten me anywhere.

So I’ll do it myself.

I’m going to find out who sold me. On my own, in my own house, with no help from anybody in it.

And I’m going to smile at every last one of them until I do.

Chapter 28

Crowe

Two nights of road put enough country between me and that mountain to stop watching the mirror.

I pull into a turnout an hour before first light, kill the lights, and call Odile.

She picks up on the fourth ring.

“You’re alive,” she says. “I had money on it. Thank you for that.”

“I need something.”

“No hello. No ‘you’re a marvel, Odile.’” A door shuts somewhere behind her voice. “You left the mountain.”

“Two nights ago.”

“Aurora thinks you’re driving back here with a report and a list of expenses. Ysabelle has been saying so out loud, at length, in rooms with people in them.” A pause. “You’re not, are you?”

“No.”

“Then tell me what you’re doing. I’m about to lie for people about you, and I’d like to know what I’m lying about.”

“I got her back safely, but I get a bad feeling about it.”

“Okay.” She drags the word out. “Why?”

“When Kalli disappeared, they found a body on the clan mountain,” I say. “Right height, right coloring, dressed for it, with her grandmother’s ring on the hand. Her own mother looked at it and said it was her daughter. They buried it. It wasn’t her.”

Odile doesn’t say anything.

“Somebody put a body up there that looked like her, and did it inside two days. Until I know who, she’s living in a house with the person who arranged it.”

“And Aurora would say that’s clan business.”

“Aurora would say the job’s closed.”

“The job is closed.” She waits for a second. “Go on, then.”