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“That he’d get himself killed. He always talked such a big game, had so many plans.”
“We need to know about the rituals he was using to call the banshees. We need to make sure nobody else dies.”
“What’s in it for me?” she barked.
Adam looked to Argent.
“Leniency. Perhaps clemency, if you show you are repentant of your actions.”
“That’s the problem. I’m not. I did the right thing.”
Adam’s scars said otherwise.
“What were you going to use your wish for?” he asked, partly out of curiosity, partly because he was starting to wonder where Ian thought he’d get that kind of power. Adam didn’t like the answer that was creeping up on him.
“I was going to cure cancer. Forever. That was worth everything, and you screwed it up.”
She slammed the cabin door.
“Two down,” he said to Argent, who hadn’t moved. “What’s behind door number three?”
“Sonya,” she said, leading him away.
This cabin was smaller, made of something like concrete, and surrounded by snow drifts. It wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t comfortable, not if the occupant had been given the same clothing as the others.
Adam knocked and came face-to-face with the woman who’d posed as a maid and delivered him to Wilcox the second time.
“Hi. I don’t think we were ever fully introduced,” he said.
She started to slam the door and it vanished. Adam looked to Argent, whose slight smile could cause frostbite. They stepped inside. The interior was rough, but not completely barren of comfort. With a sigh, Sonya sat herself on the edge of a thin mattress. The wooden slats beneath it creaked, which Adam had to admit was a nice touch in the punishment department.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“No. We’ll ask the questions. What did you want?”
“Huh?”
“What were you going to use your wish for? The skulls of your enemies? A coat made of puppy skins?”
She scoffed.
“You don’t know me at all.”
“You’re right, and I don’t want to. So tell us what we need to know, and we’ll leave you to what I suspect is a cold, lonely existence.”
He went through the same song and dance, explaining about Cole and the empty people.
“He was a useful idiot, wasn’t he?” Sonya asked. “Helping Wilcox rope them in?”
“But not you?”
“No. I knew the deal.”
“That’s right. You called him Magus. He trusted you, at least more than the others.”
Her power was focused, intense. This wasn’t the gentle green craft Lauren wielded. It coiled inside of her like a snake. She definitely had more than him, and alone, without the sword, he didn’t think he’d fare well against her.
He saw her watch him read her. She smiled.
