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“Was I staring?” He looks around, his face turning as red as his hair. “I apologize, it’s just that…well, you don’t remember me, do you?”
I tip my chin, assessing him—his green eyes, freckles splattered across his nose and upper cheeks—but nothing about him rings a bell.
“Can’t say that I do.”
Harold pulls the chair on the opposite side of the table back, and I draw my gun out. He pauses halfway. “Mind if I sit?”
I press my lips but keep the gun on top of the table. I don’t know who he is. For all I know, he’s a distraction, and the woman in the room with Killian is too.
“Buckley’s Fight Club,” Harold says, and my eyes widen as I glare at him.
“What?”
“We met at Buckley’s Fight Club—well, it’s not called that anymore. Do you remember? I was the water boy. I fetched the pails, brought water back from the Ripple Hill Riverbank for the fighters. Oh, man, I used to love watching those fights! Especially whenyouwere in the ring! You’d really rein it in for those wins! Beating those bastards to mush!”
I stare at Harold a moment. Probably a moment too long because he begins to look uneasy, fidgeting in his chair. A disgusting feeling slithers down to my stomach, causing it to churn, and my jaw ticks.
“Look, I—I’m sorry to bother you. I—I’ll go now.”
I grip my gun, sliding it closer to me, ready to pick it up and point it at him. “Yes. You’d better.”
Harold skitters off, rushing behind the bar and into the kitchen. When he’s gone, I close my eyes briefly and draw in a breath.
“Guns on the table. Don’t you have any manners?”
My eyes pop open, and Manx stands in the center of the pub. His white hair gleams, and if I’m not mistaken, he looks younger. The wrinkles around his eyes seem to have faded—then again, he’s a jolly man. He never lets stress settle in his body.
“Manx. What the hell are you doing here?” I ask as he pulls the chair out at my table to sit.
“Oh, don’t you mind me. I’m here to see The Council. Apparently, someone ran off and eradicated Rami, and now I must testify since thatsomeonemade a stop in Whisper Grovebeforehand.” He leans in, smirking. “They believe I told you to do it.”
“That’s ridiculous. It had nothing to do with you. Besides, they saw me last night about it and we settled things. Why bother you?”
“I don’t know.” Manx sits back in his chair with a sigh. “Perhaps they’re just checking off a list of people to interrogate about it to make themselves feel accomplished.”
The waitress approaches my table, setting down my whiskey and toast. She asks if there will be anything else, I tell her no, and she walks off again.
“I know you killed Rami for her,” Manx goes on as I pick up my whiskey. I try swallowing the bile that built up in my throat from Harold’s conversation. It doesn’t go away.
“And how would you know that?” I ask.
“Well, why else would you have broken the Law of Monarchs, if not for her? Let me guess, she was your bait and it backfired?”
“She wasn’t bait,” I counter, despite the guilt gnawing at me. “She wanted to help.”
Manx chuckles. “You’ve never been one to accept blame.”
I bite into my toast, mulling that over. “You’re right, Manx. As I told The Council, I did kill Rami, but only to save her. He was forcing himself on her, and he had two members of my clan in his fight club. He was breaking two laws. I only broke one.”
“That isn’t the first time Rami has forced himself on a woman, and you know it.”
“It wasn’t just about that,” I mutter.
“No. Then what was it about?”
I look around before leaning in a bit and murmuring, “As you’re aware, she’s my Tether.”
“That she is,” he murmurs back. “And have you decided to accept it?”
