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“Whether she would do it or not for her friends is irrelevant,” Zes said. “She has feelings for Kal. She can ensure he doesn’t receive a fate worse than death at the hands of the sand serpent. That is why she will continue with her mission.”
Not George Clooney might not understand human emotions but Zes certainly did.
He must have seen from the look on my face that his words had struck home. He must have known I couldn’t betray Kal. Not after we’d already developed our powerful connection.
Surely it was a ruse? An act? He was a double agent sent in deep undercover? Zes wouldn’t betray the family he had been working to protect his entire life, would he?
But that would mean he knew about me all along. And that meant Kal did too. And if he did… why would he string me along and play with me like a kitten with a ball of yarn?
He wouldn’t do that. His emotions and feelings for me were real. You couldn’t fake that.
I didn’t believe it.
I couldn’t believe it.
And that could only mean one thing.
Zes really was working for the Changelings.
“Why are you doing this?” I said.
“When a Taw lord betrays the people, he betrays us all,” Zes said. “He doesn’t deserve to be the Lord of Taw.”
“He’s more honorable than you’ll ever be!” I spat. “Why don’t you just kill him? You must have had hundreds of opportunities over the years.”
And then I saw the reason in his eyes.
“You won’t kill him because the Taw name still means something to the people,” I said. “If you slay him in cold blood, the people will rise against the Changelings and drive them back.”
He smiled.
“Very astute for an undeveloped species,” he said. “Perhaps one day when I am lord I will have my own human female to please me. Perhaps even you.”
He raised a hand to touch me but I backed away.
“The time has come for you to make a choice,” Not George Clooney said. “Will you help yourself and your friends to return home and aid the Titan lord in avoiding a fate worse than death? Or will you allow everyone to die for your vanity?”
It was no choice at all. It made me sick to my stomach to admit that. I lowered my head in defeat.
“What do you want me to do?” I said.
Not George Clooney grinned in satisfaction. Zes’s smile was smaller but just as bent and corrupt.
“We know he’s been receiving messages,” Not George Clooney said, “but we don’t know how. We thought they were coming electronically, but that’s proven not to be the case. We want you to discover how someone has been leaving messages on his desk without anyone else knowing.”
I thought back to when I was in his study, to the breeze I’d felt on my sweaty palm.
“The bookshelf,” I said. “I felt a cool breeze coming from it.”
“A secret passage?” Zes said. “We’ve mapped the passageways. None lead to the study.”
“Then there must be one you don’t know about,” I said.
Zes appraised me. I hated the way he looked at me—like a whipped dog. It was how I felt too.
“Is what she’s saying true?” Not George Clooney said.
“We have the blueprints from when the castle was built, and the various tunnels that were added later,” Zes said. “But it’s possible we don’t have all the plans. Some might have been stolen, lost, or deliberately burned.”
