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Grimm glanced at Teeny, who had remained silent all this time, apparently at a loss for words for once.
“We have new intel on the western slave camps, thanks to Yarn over there. He escaped the slave camp a few days ago and was rescued by us,” Grimm said.
I glanced over at Yarn, a skinny shifter about Phantom’s age who had a face like a rat’s and a nervous disposition to match. My heart went out to him. I’d probably looked the same after my rescue from prison.
What information had Yarn provided that would help the shifters?
Something about Yarn set my mirror off, and it shook in its pocket. I placed a hand over it to stop it, but that did nothing. Was it trying to tell me something? Once we left the council room, I’d find out.
“In consideration of your actions of late,” Grimm declared, “you are all confined to your quarters.”
What? The breaking point of patience tested me. More innocent hunters remained out there, forced to do my stepmother’s bidding. If we figured out how to free them, then it wouldn’t benefit only a few.
“You can’t do that,” I said, my teeth chattering from the rattling of my mirror. “You offered me sanctuary. Promised to help Shadow and Flare remove their collars.”
Grimm glanced at the floor. “That offer changed when you attacked the resistance’s men.”
“Grimm?” Teeny shot him a disbelieving glance. “They were knocked unconscious. They’re fine now.”
“We have a code,” Grimm growled. “We’re all on the same side. We work together, not against each other.”
“What about Shadow’s and Flare’s collars then?” I said, struggling to swallow, thanks to the mirror’s quakes vibrating through me. “They could have killed me, but they didn’t because they fought the magic. What about working together for them?”
“If you’d have cared to stick around,” Grimm said, “you would have realized we’d sent for a witch from Terra.”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“We sent word to her to return home after you left,” Grimm said.
Flipping hell.Desperation to free the panthers and the shifters was like a knife to my throat. We didn’t have much time before the collars choked Shadow and Flare. Now, we were officially out of options.
Grimm stepped closer, as if he meant to appease me. “The lives of thousands of shifters are at stake.” Each of his words struck like a hammer to my chest. “We only have a small window of time in which to break into the camp, during the delivery of new shifters, and we must take advantage of this opportunity.”
I recoiled. Nausea gripped me. Was I stuck in some horrible nightmare? Did he really just say that? Had he really just sentenced two good panthers to death? Shadow and Flare hadn’t asked to be collared and forced to do my stepmother’s bidding any more than the other shifters had desired to be enslaved.
Grimm tried to soften the blow with a less harsh tone. “Sometimes, we have to make decisions for the greater good.”
Greater good? Leaving Shadow’s parents without their son? What about the families of all the other hunters? They were dooming children to live without a parent.
Determination zapped up my spine. Grimm and the resistance might have given up on Shadow and Flare, but I hadn’t. Hadn’t even come close. The thought of losing Shadow, even though I hadn’t known him for long, left me with a dull ache in my chest. Last night, he had touched something deep in me. Changed me in a profound way. For that, I could not leave him to die.
My mirror jumped around like an angry spider trapped in a jar.
Grimm started to leave. “I will permit you to attend meals but always with a guard and never together.”
Reality crumbled to dust in my mouth. The panthers and I might have been able to mount an escape once, but the resistance would not make the same mistake again, assigning more guards to prevent us from leaving. What a fool I’d been to let myself believe I’d find a way to help Shadow and Flare. Now, Grimm had stolen my opportunity to fulfill my word to the save the shifters, too. My world balanced on the edge of a glass shard. It could tip so many ways, none of which would produce a satisfactory outcome for any of us.
“I’m sorry, Snow,” Grimm said from the other side of the table. “I wish there was another way to help your friends.”
“Fucking asshole!” I yelled as the guard dragged me out of the council room. He hauled me down the haul and shoved me into my quarters, the solid wood door locking closed, leaving an empty silence hanging in the air.
The manic rattling of my mirror stopped me, and I pulled away. What was going on? I removed it from my cape and glanced into the rippling glass. At first, it showed me a fresh scene. I watched as Phantom met a pretty girl in a bar, and she flirted with him. Behind his back, she spiked his drink with some sort of dust, which enchanted him, and under her spell, he followed her around like a lovesick puppy. A clueless Phantom then took her home, the woman forced him to sit on a chair while she raided his home, stealing gold coins. The spell began to wear off, and Phantom clutched his head, pacing his home. The scene skipped ahead to show Phantom making a stupid decision to visit some goons in town to borrow a pouch of money, and then later, after Phantom wasn’t able to repay the money, the thugs smashed furniture and belongings in his home.
Horrified, I pulled the mirror away, gripping my stomach.Sea God!How could Phantom have done that? When we’d first me, he’d told me he still had the ancient coins he’d dug up! Why had he lied to me? Betrayal tasted bitter on the back of my throat.
The mirror jiggled in my palm with more ominous warnings. I wasn’t sure I could handle discovering anything else about Phantom or the other panthers. Reluctantly, I glanced into it again, finding the previous vision, the one with the apples, followed this time by soldiers marching into battle. Was my stepmother planning something with the fruit? To deliver it to an enemy perhaps and hide soldiers in the carts for a surprise attack? Was the resistance at risk? Whatever the case, the unsettling feeling worming inside me told me it wasn’t good. For now, I pushed aside the revelation about Phantom. I had to deal with Grimm first.
I pounded on my door and yelled. “Hello. Can anyone hear me? Please. I need to speak to Grimm. It’s urgent.”
