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I shiver.
“That’s how dangerous Roanac is,” North growls. “This man would rather die than risk the possibility of facing Roanac again, or Roanac getting any information out of him.”
“He was so ashamed of what he did that he punished himself,” Cain observes. He sounds sad.
I put my hand on Cain’s arm. I get it. It’s depressing, honestly.
Raven looks over at me, a question in his gaze, and I draw myself up. I made Alexei a promise. And I’m going to keep it. If I wasn’t already determined to take down Roanac, this would’ve sealed it.
“I’m keeping my promise,” I tell the others. “I’m going after Roanac. He can’t do this to anyone ever again.”
I swear it.
CHAPTER10
There’s not really much to do. We bury Alexei. It seems like the polite thing to do, and I don’t really want one of his neighbors to stumble across it.
They’re going to be confused that he’s missing and that his house has vanished, but I suppose confusion and wondering is better than the horror of finding your neighbor in a weird hovel and his purple, bloated body just on the ground.
After that’s taken care of, we open up a portal back to an in-between place, and then back to the safe house. I hold my breath as we step inside, waiting to see if there’s going to be an attack, if we’ve been compromised.
The men are all wary too, looking around, seeing any sign of trouble.
Nothing.
After a moment we close the portal and relax. It looks like nobody’s here to attack us.
Raven stalks around, checking everything, examining all of our belongings closely.
“Checking for traps or signs that someone was here and moved things,” Cain explains quietly. “Just because nobody’s here now doesn’t mean that they weren’t here earlier and left an unpleasant surprise or were trying to find out information.”
That’s fair. I watch as the men sweep the safe house from top to bottom. There’s no sign of anything.
Raven starts cooking us dinner without a word. I feel like he’s still upset even if he doesn’t say anything and seems to be mostly back to his usual self. He’s still not oftenthisquiet.
I feel pretty quiet myself, though. What is there to say when you’ve just witnessed something like that? Even after everything else I’ve seen in regards to Roanac, even my vision, the idea that someone was so ashamed and scared that they would rather die than live any longer and take the chance of Roanac finding them is somehow the most horrifying thing of all.
We eat in silence. Not even Cain really says anything. What can anyone say to this? Not even Cain could think up a joke, I’m sure.
And the sad truth of the matter is, I don’t get the same out that Alexei did. Alexei was only good while he was alive because of his magical skill. But I’ll be valuable whether I’m alive or dead. Killing myself won’t stop Roanac. He can still take my blood even if I’m not alive.
That’s depressing.
We finish eating and clean up, then settle in the living room area to talk about what Alexei said.
“If he can only be stabbed through that chest wound,” North says, “we need to get close to Roanac to kill him.”
“That’s not a fun prospect,” Cain says. “You sure we can’t just plant a bomb or something?”
“What’s the guarantee that it would get any shrapnel or whatever through his wound?” North counters. “We need to get back into his fortress.”
“How?” I ask. “That’s going to be incredibly hard, and I’m a thief, it’s my job to get into places. And out of them. How’d we even get in when he has an army of shades with him? He has an entire castle. I know that we didn’t get to see all of it, he has to have more shades than just the ones we saw, and those are plenty. And what about others, any other magic users that he might have helping him there? Alexei was sort of abandoned, he ran away, but he can’t have been the only person who’s ever helped Roanac. Donovan was in his debt. There are probably others.”
“We need to go on the offensive,” North points out.
“But not like that.”
North nods, conceding my point, and we fall into silence again.
