Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
My heart hammered, and I covered my mouth with a palm to hold back a scream.
“What’s this, Sophie? You’re supposed to be starting the nightly chores.” The man who spoke wasn’t Damien. This voice was deeper. I thought I knew it from somewhere.
“I was told to deliver this here. Right away.”
“By whom?”
“I…” She fumbled her reply. “I need to deliver the wine… urgently.”
My heart squeezed painfully. The screech of a chair echoed through the office.
I heard a loud breath not far away. “Well.” The man sighed. “Let’s break it open, shall we?”
The crate was shoved to the side, the top flying off, throwing me from the box with a hard shove.
I lay sprawled on the tile floor of the office, beneath a chandelier of wrought iron.
While I still held possession of the die, I siphoned a strength to compensate for the fear in my bones, willing my limbs to move. To fight. To run.
I didn’t get very far before the barrel of a gun was shoved in my face.
“Sophie, take the relic from her.”
I stared up at a man who was—not Damien at all.
Dressed in a starched shirt rolled up to his elbows, a man stared down at me with his hands clutching the head of a cane. A man beside him held a gun to my head. He was thickset and scarred in the face with inky images all over his exposed skin.
I gave the one in charge a quick study, trying to clock him.
His hair was chestnut and waxed into a fine style, while his inset eyes had gray shadows beneath them, likely from deep exhaustion.
He had a wide jaw and a thin mouth, but there was nothing remarkable about his features.
I didn’t recognize him—the voice, however, seemed familiar.
Light spilled between the cage of his fingers, like the bulbous handle of his cane was made of a kind of electric light—a relic.
The man with the weapon didn’t wait for Sophie. Instead, he snatched me by the wrist and twisted my arm painfully, peeling open my palm until the die fell free. Even as he scooped it up, he held my arm tight against my spine, pushing upwards.
“Now, why would you be carrying such a thing?” the man with the cane murmured, taking the die himself.
“I suppose we should add this to the rest of them,” he snapped, and another man, much like the thug at my side, emerged from the shadows.
I was surrounded by a trio of them, interrupting a meeting or something. “Take her to my chambers.”
“Wait. This isn’t right. You don’t need to—”
“Were you looking for someone else?” He smiled slowly before turning his back to me.
“Leave us, Sophie. Tell no one she’s here.”
“Yes, sir.”
They dragged me away as his question went unanswered, through a pair of doors that connected to the office. Sophie lingered as I was pushed away, sparing me a quick glance. When they shut the door behind us, he took a seat in an armchair, pushing it so that it faced the bed instead of the hearth.
“Strip her. Make sure she’s not hiding anything.”
“I’m not—”
“And put something over her mouth. It’s hard to focus when they beg.”
They ripped off my jacket, tore my shirt open until I had nothing but a bralette to cover my chest. I fought and resisted as much as I could, but the pair of them overpowered any resistance.
The first man, who’d been eager to hurt me, threw me on the bed, his hand around my throat, while the other pinned my legs down so they could remove my trousers.
I tried to fight. Tried so hard not to cry. My fingers tore the skin of his forearms as I clawed him away. But the thug only stuffed something silky into my mouth, then taped it shut.
They were efficient in apprehending me, while the man in charge let them do all the grunt work.
This wasn’t their first time. Everything they needed was within arm’s reach.
When I was down to my underthings, they slapped silver cuffs around my wrists, looping the chain around the metal headboard to link me to the bed.
My heart throbbed against my ribs so hard Max might have heard it beyond his buzz at Ronny’s.
Every muscle in my body trembled under the weight of their attentions, their sinful stares, and the main man’s casual lounge as he sipped a glass of wine.
If I hadn’t been gagged, I might have vomited all over the bed.
Max once said I could be the most powerful person on the Continent. But if my magic could be stolen from me, if I needed artifacts to use it, then how powerful was I really?
Men like these—wicked and devoid of morals—they had true power, because they knew no ethical restrictions to hold them back.
And that was all that ever mattered in the world.
Not money or magic. Just the ability to make people do what you wanted by force or by influence.
This was the order of things. The enforcers and the vulnerable.
I’d faced death before and knew true fear, but this panic, this threat to my body, carved a fresh terror inside me.
“I know you,” the leader said then. “Nina Veyr. The one framed for Therell’s death. Daughter of a defected engineer.”
It was a strange way to state my crimes. I’d never heard anyone else say that I was framed. What did he know about Therell’s death that I—that the rest of the city—did not? I couldn’t ask, and I doubted he would have entertained my questions.
“Did you come here to kill me?”
I shook my head.
“Did you come here to sabotage me?”
Again, I denied him. I didn’t know who this man was—his face, at least—but I shut my eyes as I listened to him, trying to place his voice.
He thought longer, canting his head. “Did you come here for him? To take back his dice?”
I swallowed as bile burned the back of my throat and nodded. He hummed a sound of appreciation. A smile flickered on his thin lips.
He gestured to the mantel above a marble fireplace, where two dice glowed in the gas lamps.
“There they are. Now I’ll have the whole set, thanks to you.
I expected one of his friends to sneak into my chambers to get them back.
In fact, I had an intuition that he would try to take them himself before the duel.
” He leaned forward in his seat, staring me down.
“But you’re surprising, Nina. I underestimated you. ”
I took deep breaths to calm the race of my heart, but when his eyes lingered over my skin, I felt an overpowering urge to tear them out of his head.
He continued, “Damien tells me you know about the bodies, which makes sense if you were caught with Therell. I’m assuming you and Max were the ones who murdered the dealers out on the canal?
They tell me you could smell their bodies burning for miles. ”
When I gave him no reaction, he placed his glass on a nearby table and crossed the room.
His boots clicked across the hardwood until they met the rug.
In one quick motion, he ripped the tape from my face and pulled out the gag.
“Talk, Nina. Were you the one sending dead descendants down the canal? Is that where you ran into Max? In the Flooded Fissures, of all shitholes?”
“How do you know Max was in the Fissures?” I hissed.
“Because if you are…” He ignored my question, sitting beside me. “Then, unfortunately, you are a threat. Valveron could be safe and prosperous, Nina. We could be thriving in the years to come, but you and your abomination have stuck your noses a little too far into my business.”
His business. The bodies. The voice. Bloody Architect…
“You’re… you’re the buyer?”
He laughed, too harshly to be truly amused. “I’m the Governor of Valveron, my dear. Leader of the fucking City of Progress. I don’t pay for anything.”
A void filled the ache in my chest. The Governor who made announcements daily on that wretched speaker system. Pierre Dupont. What was he doing involved in this?
“Where is my mother? What have you done to her?”
A shock of pain exploded across my right temple. He’d struck me with the top of his cane. “You will not ask any more questions.” He leaned forward so only I could hear. “In fact, you might want to be a little more concerned for yourself and what I have planned for you.”
I ignored the innuendo woven in his words. “If you’re not the buyer, then you at least work for him. Damien’s card led me here. Why else would you be working with him and trying to get rid of us?”
Dupont pushed his sleeves higher, leaning forward until the mattress dipped between us. “Everyone works for the buyer, Nina,” he murmured.
He wouldn’t admit anything, not with the current power dynamic so much in his favor. But I was close to figuring him out—which was why he was certain to get rid of me.
“Now explain, while I’m still interested.” His finger trailed the underside of my arm, following the bend of my elbow. “How are you able to use Max’s dice?”
“I can’t—”
“I don’t like liars, girl.” The Governor pulled a knife from his sleeve, pressing it to my pulse. “Damien saw you. Are you Cursed? It would explain how you compelled Sophie.”
The sensation of metal skating across my skin sent a shiver through my bones, but I bit my lip to keep down the truth. Damien and this man were close, then.
“Fortunately for you, I also hate getting blood in my bed. Sophie can never get the stains out.” He sighed, returning the switchblade to his wrist. “I’m going to leave you here for a bit while I run some errands. We’ll see if a little time alone loosens those full lips of yours.”
Dupont moved away from the bed at last, joining the two thugs still watching us.
Before he left, he placed the Vitalis die on his mantel, where the others sat on display.
“Sophie can get you a pot to piss in if you need it. I won’t be back until late tomorrow, so make yourself comfortable, Nina.
You’re going to wish you’d never pried into my business, and Max is going to wish he’d never returned to the Districts. ”
“Why are you doing this?” I said, hating how my voice trembled.
He looked over his shoulder briefly, smiling. “You’ll know soon enough.”