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A horrible thought hit him.“What if Baba Yaga lied about us finding the killer here?”What if he’d left his father unprotected in the human realm with that monster on the loose?
“No, Baba doesn’t lie.She evades and manipulates, but she doesn’t outright lie.Finding our killer here makes sense.She would come here if she’s collecting the amethysts.But…”
“But what?”He wouldn’t let her hide anything.Not now.
“She was more ruthless, more savage than I could ever be, even if I embraced the berserker violence I inherited from good old Dad.Which I won’t.I can’t.Not without risking everything.The killer tore that man apart with calm, lethal calculation.Impaling him seemed an afterthought.”
His stomach rolled at the visual image.“Then we’ll have to think like the killer.Alexei pulled rap sheets for the men she murdered.Two had dismissed child abuse charges.The rest?Nothing connected them except the amethysts.So we must’ve missed something that links them together beyond the stones, something she’s avenging.Or she would’ve killed so many more based upon your tracking of where those amethysts have been.”
“What if we missed other victims?”
“Possibly.Thenotknowingmakes me crazy.”One of the backpacks they’d brought thumped across the table, moving all by itself.“Speaking of crazy.”
“The book.It must be.”Vori hurried to unzip her bag, and a purple flash flew into her hands.“Huh, it changed colors.Purple instead of red.Gold lettering instead of black.”
“Maybe our trip through the glass fried its magic?”
She flipped through the chapters to the end.“No, I don’t think the change was a spell wearing off.More like the book’s magic morphed it.”She slipped an envelope between the pages and whispered to the book.“Hey, little one, hold on to this for me until things go wrong, okay?”It snapped shut around the envelope and zipped to the bookshelf.
He stared at her.“Did you just talk to a book?
“What?Me speaking with a magical object can’t be the weirdest thing you’ve seen so far in this trip.”She waved a dismissive hand.“Your powers—do they still work here?”
“They should.I can feel the pulsing below my skin.Too bad your little friend can’t tell us about the killer.Anything else—”
The doors crashed open, banging against the stone with a deafening boom.The electric lights stayed the same, but those eerie glowing rocks brightened.Guards dressed in black uniforms thundered into the room like a dark swarm.
He moved to push Vori behind him, but she didn’t budge other than to glance his way.Cute, her look said.
Right.Goblin princess who could slip her skin and outfight, outrun, and outrank him in every way.Except one.
His mouth went dry, and sweat beaded on his forehead.Why else would guards break into the room in the middle of the night if not to drag them before the throne?Or worse.
His powers surged, burning through him in a rush, an energy dump of all the magic he’d been working to suppress since they arrived.His heart thudded in his chest as though the electricity had jump-started it into hyperdrive.
Vori grabbed his arm, her hand clammy against his hot skin.
“The king,” she whispered.
