Page 14 of Forge the Blade

“So, where’s your father?” Lisa said from behind them. “Is he dead? Did you have to start over without him?”

“He gave up,” Sevastyan said. “He’s a liability. Could betray us at any time. Probably won’t because he most likely assumes I have copies of the records of what espionage he did before he chickened out.”

“So who else is with us?”

“Just us,” Rei said. “We’ve tried a few times. Sevastyan eliminated some minor players before he had me. The Merchari has always had resources to stop the investigations or gotten their important members off. Destroyed evidence. Killed the witnesses who were willing to testify.”

Sevastyan squeezed Rei’s arm to signal that he wasn’t going to run. He sat down, taking Rei’s chair, and picked him up, holding him sideways in his lap. He needed the reassurance and comfort.

“Just us.” Lisa blinked. His eyes unfocused. “You mean me, the—I can’t remember their name—the drag queen person, you, and Rei.”

“Ellisandre,” Sevastyan supplied the name.

“And Jun,” Rei added to the list. “We hope. That’s why Sevastyan reached out to Ellisandre now. We have a plan that might work.”

“That’s what you meant, yesterday.” Understanding dawned in Lisa’s eyes. “A life for a life. Gang Junseo, the guy you keep watching.”

Rei nodded. “We have the evidence. Documentation. Video tapes. Photos. Jun’s important to Damian, who’s important to Richard Reevesworth. They can talk to people we can’t. Ellisandre has taken down criminal rings before. This is the first time we might be able to take them all down. All at once.”

Lisa nodded, eyes hardening. He looked straight at Sevastyan. “I meant it. Even if you didn’t have something on this level, I would help.”

“Even if it meant killing Alexi?” Sevastyan spoke through a tight throat.

Lisa’s face paled but he didn’t look away. “What if you had to kill him?”

“He’s a monster,” Sevastyan said. “One I owe a lot to. But he’s bought and sold humans. He knows what the Merchari does.”

“I don’t want to pull that trigger,” Lisa whispered. “I owe him. I hate him and . . .”

“And he feels safe,” Rei whispered. “He lets you sleep and . . . he’s kind.”

Lisa nodded.

Sevastyan looked away, giving Lisa privacy. “If it comes to it, I’ll try to make sure it’s me and not you.”

“It’s wrong,” Lisa said. “In a world of monsters . . . he feels like my monster. But if they’re all monsters, so is he.”

“He’s someone else’s demon, even if he isn’t ours,” Rei whispered.

“You both may have to interact with him again,” Sevastyan said. “Put the thought out of your heads. You have to feel positively towards him. He’ll read it in you if your thinking has changed. And for now, he is a source of safety. I may even leave you both in his care, if it comes to it. No matter what else he may do, he values both of you enough to kill on your behalf.”

His own chest ached at the thought of severing the tie. Alexi had a set of standards he operated by. And he stuck with them. In a world of chaos and blind self-enrichment, Alexi valued order and beauty. And yet he had once been a director in the Yadro. And he traded in human lives. Never children. But lives all the same.

Ellisandre

Ellisandre opened their eyes to Ash standing over them. He had his arms crossed and he was wisely not standing close. There was a good six feet of space between him and the couch on which Ellisandre had thrown themselves early in the morning. But he was staring. Ellisandre dropped their arm back over their eyes.

“You’re sleeping on the couch.”

Ellisandre waved their fingers in a way that should signal complete disinterest. It was too early in the afternoon after a night of no sleep to explain.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

Ash moved away. Ellisandre slipped back towards sleep, visions of the way Sevastyan had been cradling the dark-haired younger man in his arms painting themselves on the backs of their eyelids.

Rei.