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Still, I wanted to take a look around before King got here. I remembered he had a ring that kept a person from dying. Might come in handy if the man decided to slice my throat the moment he walked in the door instead of finding our son.
“I’m going to check out the stuff upstairs,” I called out to Ansin, who was already off exploring another aisle. This had to be like a candy store for him. So many goodies with power.
“Do not touch anything,” Ansin said. “King will have laid traps.”
“I know.” I went to the back of the warehouse and up the stairs to take a quick look. The stench grew stronger. The moment I got to the second floor, I realized what was causing the odor.
Ew. Ew. Ew. King had owned a collection of living heads in glass cookie jars. He claimed they were rapists from a few centuries ago, and as punishment for their crimes, King cut off their heads and kept them alive in some horrid liquid. Somehow the jars had cracked, and the heads—no longer alive—were sitting in the middle of the floor. His creepy stalker plants with eyes that followed me the last time I was here were all dried out, too.
“What happened to this place?” I asked.
“The objects are disintegrating.” King’s voice came from behind me.
I froze and swallowed hard. This was it. The moment of truth. Ansin claimed that King had been about to kill me six months ago in the delivery room because he believed I was Hagne. From our conversation earlier, King hadn’t changed his position.
I slowly turned, and the moment my eyes fixed on him, my soul wept. King looked more beautiful than ever in his tailored black suit—no tie, shirt unbuttoned partway—with his pale gray eyes, smooth olive skin, and godlike chiseled features. He was everything hard and elegant. Terrifying and entrancing.
“Hi,” I said in a meek voice.
“Jeni.” He dipped his head of short black hair. “Or shall I call you by your real name?”
“I’m Jeni. I’ve always been Jeni and will always be Jeni.”
He narrowed his eyes and then stepped toward me under the beam of the light. He reached past me for a small box on the shelf, causing me to flinch.
He opened it and looked inside. “Useless.” He tossed the box to the floor.
“What’s going on?”
“Like that blood compass, the objects here are losing their power.” He turned with his arms slightly extended. “It’s all rotting.”
I didn’t know what a blood compass was, but I guessed he’d wanted to use it. “Do you know why it’s happening?”
“It appears your arsenal has been rendered inoperable, King. Useless garbage just like you.” Ansin appeared behind him.
King flashed a poignant look at Ansin. If looks could kill.
Ansin ignored it and strolled up beside me.
“Is this the Seers’ doing?” I asked King. Before he died, he had been trying to appease the Seers by undoing the damage his footprints had left on the world. It was partially why he took out Ten Club. He’d also claimed to have disposed of the most dangerous items in his collection, to avoid them falling into the wrong hands. But maybe that hadn’t been good enough for the Seers?
“The Seers I know are not skilled enough to remove the power from so many objects,” King replied. “But clearly someone has done it. They even removed the wards protecting this place. It is how you were able to walk right in.”
“Who did this, then?” I asked.
“I do not know,” King replied, “but it will severely hinder my ability to find Draco.”
I let out a sigh of despair. Had we really just flown eighteen hours for nothing? “So there’s absolutely nothing here to help us locate him?”
“Not anymore. On a brighter note,” King added, “whatever the fuck they’ve done to this place is still working.” He pointed to the tribal collar tattoo peeking through the opening of his white dress shirt. The ink was fading from jet black to a pale gray. “If I am killed, I will die, and you will not be able to pull me back.” From his tone, he wasn’t complaining.
What the hell? The hex on this place was draining his tattoo as we spoke. “King, you can’t leave. We have to—”
“Do not worry, Seer. I plan to find my son.” King looked directly at Ansin. “Then I am going to kill you.”
“And what about me?” I asked.
“You must pay for your crimes against my family. But if I find our son, I will consider allowing you to live, Seer. For his sake.”
Otherwise, he saw no point in allowing me to live after everything he thought I’d done to his family.
“King, you can’t trust a thing those Seer women say. I am not Hagne. How can you even think for a second I’d kill a baby? Or a pregnant woman?”
