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But not with a broken leg.
We can still do this, Ivy,Julita says, but there’s a wobble in her voice.I know you can find a way.
Wendos saunters up to the crumbled edge of the platform to gaze down at me. There’s no hint left in his tense face of the supposedly concerned guy who implored me to turn to him if I needed help.
As he takes me in, his eyebrows rise. He makes a scoffing sound. “You. How the hell didyoufind me?”
I scowl at him. “You aren’t half as smart as you’d obviously like to believe you are.”
Wendos lets out a low chuckle. “And yet somehow no one other than me realized Julita had noticed our activities. I took care of her before our past association became a liability with my colleagues, and I’ll take care of you too. The others will never even have to know.”
Oh, he thinks so, does he?Julita sneers.
A shiver wriggles down my spine. I bite my tongue against the urge to throw Wendos’s bragging remarks back at him, to tell him he never managed to get rid of Julita entirely.
The less he thinks I know, the more chance there is that he’ll give me an opening.
I still have two knives—one at my right hip and one in my left boot. But I can’t risk reaching for them while he’s looking straight at me.
The pain in my shin throbs on. Unwanted tears sting behind my eyes.
“What’s happened?” one of the armless figures mumbles, turning her sightless face. “Are we—”
Wendos doesn’t even look back at her as he snaps out his answer. “I’ve got it under control. Go back to focusing on your gift.”
I lever my body carefully so that my legs are parallel with me on the same step, giving me a more stable position. “The gifts aren’t reallytheirswhen you and your ‘colleagues’ convinced them to make their sacrifices for your purpose, are they?”
I pitch my voice so the slouched figures can hear me too. If I can make them rethink helping him…
I can’t see them from here, but none of them says another word.
Wendos gives no indication of concern. “It’s their purpose too. It’ll be better for all of us. Even you, no matter what Julita told you before she died. Who are you really?”
I edge my hand a little closer to my hip. “A friend. Unlike you.”
“As you apparently knew from the start.” He bears his teeth in an unnerving grin. “That’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”
His gaze sweeps over me, lingering on the blood streaking through my underskirt from my broken shin and how gingerly I’ve angled my leg. “I don’t think you’re walking down all those stairs, so you can stay right there until I’ve finished the important part. Then I’ll deal with you.”
He starts to turn away.
My heart lurches. I can’t just stand here and watch while he compels a horde of daimon to ravage all of Florian.
The men can’t bethatfar behind me, can they? With the Crown’s Watch at their heels?
Simply delaying him might be all I need.
I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head, desperate to interrupt his work. “How is destroying the city good for anyone?”
Wendos lets out another chilling laugh. “Sometimes you have to knock a few things down in order to build something better. Even the All-Giver knew that. The Order of the Wild will put things right.”
He brushes his hand down his front in a three-fingered tap… as if he thinks the divinities wouldapproveof this madness. I barely stop my jaw from dropping.
Julita’s voice has turned faint.He’s gone even more insane than he was before.
“The Order of the Wild?” I ask, but Wendos ignores me, walking away. I can’t even see the tufts of his stupid shaggy hair from my current position.
“Let’s continue,” he says to his accomplices, and picks up his previous muttered chant. I can make out the syllables now, but they’re no words I know.
