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I try to keep my shoulders straight, my jaw stiff. If I’m going to take on Vance, I need to stay strong. I can’t let on that this is about Aisling.
But…it’s all about Aisling.
It’s about my jealousy, my pain, the fucking despair I’ve felt every day that she’s been gone. It’s about Vance’s lies—and my fear that he’s not lying.
That she used me.
That she was a whore.
I guess I’m not very good at schooling my features, because Rook suddenly reaches out and clasps my shoulder, squeezing gently. He opens his mouth, closes it again.
Then he lowers his voice.
“I need the two of you to promise me you won’t fly off the handle,” he says.
I frown, and Oberon voices what I’m thinking. “What…?”
“Promise me,” he mutters. “Use your words.”
“I swear,” I tell him. “I have no fucking clue what you’re about to tell us, but we swear.”
Oberon nods. “Same.”
“Good,” Rook says. “Then…you need to come with me.”
He steps away and tilts his head toward a door at the other side of the room, then starts toward it. Rook sheds his lab coat, black latex gloves, and safety goggles along the way, tossing them on a chair by the door before he puts in a code beside it. He’s got a raw tattoo on his arm, still seeping excess black ink, in the shape of a diamond.
“Keep your promise in mind or I’ll have to put you down,” he says—casually, as if it wasn’t a threat.
“You wouldn’t be able—“ Oberon starts, but Rook snorts.
“If you think this place isn’t rigged top to bottom and inside out with drones ready to end anyone who tests me, you’re off your rocker.”
Oberon shuts up.
And the two of us remember our promise.
The door slides open and reveals a smaller room with maps papering the walls, and Rook gestures us both through. The door closes behind us and Rook walks over to one of the maps, pointing at what looks like an island.
“I’m not worried about Luka because I know where he is,” he says, then taps the map once again. “Right here.”
Oberon steps past me, eyes narrowed as he looks at the map. “Which is…?”
“The location of the cult that’s producing eros,” Rook says. “Terra Vitae. The Rossis’ cult, the enemy we’ve been fighting for months now…”
“He’s on an undercover op?” I ask.
“Yes indeed,” Rook says. “And who better than our resident mystic?”
“I don’t see how this would make us crazy,” Oberon mutters.
“That’s what I’m about to tell you,” he says. “And remember to breathe, boys.”
On the contrary, I hold my breath.
“He found Aisling,” Rook says. “She’s safe. Alive. He’s with her right now.”
It’s like the bottom falls out of the room.
