Chapter 13
Benedikt Thorne is dead and I taught him to use shadows ten years ago.
He was twenty-two. Kept flinching when darkness touched him. Took six months before he stopped apologizing for kills. "Sorry, boss. I know I'm not supposed to feel bad about it." Standing over corpses like they were spilled milk.
Now he's face-down in water magic defending the kitchen where yesterday he learned to julienne carrots.
My office is missing a wall. Blood on what's left of my desk. The list in my hands is damp—water damage or blood, both probably. Joss wrote the names because my hands won't stop shaking.
Seventeen names.
Tomás Dreyven—quick blade, hated suffering. Kept his daughter's sketch in his pocket. She's four.
Asha Korvaine—went down fighting. Just started writing poetry after Olivia's therapy sessions. Terrible poetry. She was proud of it.
The tremors aren't shadow poisoning. This is rage making my darkness writhe around the room. They keep forming shapes—faces, water spears, her hands asking about mops.
Worse is how they pull. Constantly. Toward wherever she is. Iron filings to magnet. Twenty-seven years of control and now my shadows lean toward her warmth.
"Boss." Grimm in my doorway. What's left of it. "The prisoners."
Right. Enemy combatants. The ones who killed seventeen of mine. Time to extract information.
I follow him through halls that smell like wet copper. My shoulder throbs where her fingers adjusted my collar four hours ago. Before everything went to shit. Ghost touch, gentle and sure. Makes me want to punch through walls.
The compound's bones are showing—water damage exposing years of rot. Should have maintained better. Should have seen this coming. Should have done many things that don't involve letting civilians close enough to matter.
The interrogation room is lower level. Still intact. Drainage system down here was designed for blood. We descend—four flights because Vespera's builders thought torture needed ambiance.
I hear her voice before I see her.
"—just needs to stay elevated."
My body responds before my mind. Heat, unwanted, because even now—blood-covered, death-surrounded—my traitor body remembers her thigh under my palm. The soft waist. Her breath hitching.
I push through the door. My interrogation is in progress with modifications.
Olivia stands aside, not interfering exactly, but she's gotten medical supplies down here.
Harwick—Tide Runner leader, killed two of mine personally—is conscious and glaring as planned.
But there's a bandage on his head that wasn't.
The teenage boy from earlier sits eating soup. Where did she find soup? The kitchen's underwater.
"Shadow King." Formal, careful. Playing roles. But there's a tremor in her voice. She's standing just out of reach. Afraid now. Good. Safer.
My shadows immediately reach for her.
"I was ensuring the prisoners remained conscious for questioning. As you requested."
I didn't request that. We both know it. But she's giving me an out while keeping these people from bleeding out. When did she learn to navigate this?
"Efficient," I say coldly.
Joss watches from the corner. That calculating look—ten steps ahead, doesn't like the destination. She's noticed how my shadows bend toward Olivia.
"He brought soup," the teenager offers. Waves his bowl. "The guard did. Said you ordered it."
My shadows spike. But Olivia's already stepping back, hands clasped, playing obedient civilian. She passes close—lavender and blood and burnt sugar healing magic. My body remembers exactly how she felt twenty minutes before people started dying.
"Leave us."
She nods, starts to go, pauses. Quiet: "They'll be more useful alive. Your hands are shaking. There's bread in your office."
Her breath ghosts my neck. Every shadow lurches toward her.
Then she's gone, leaving confused prisoners who expected bleeding, not feeding. But they're conscious. Alert. Ready for proper terror.
"Now," I tell Harwick, ignoring my shadows trying to follow her. "Let's discuss who sent you."
Standard interrogation after that. Threats, necessary pain, information extracted. But I keep thinking about her tremor. The careful distance. How she protected my authority while protecting them.
"Corvus is coming," Gray Streak appears an hour later. "Says he found something. About the leak."
The leak. Someone sold us out. Someone I trust.
"Watch them," I tell Joss. Her smile says she's been watching me. Watching my shadows betray me every time Olivia's mentioned.
Corvus waits in the ruined kitchen. Water damage revealed old bloodstains in the beams. This building's soaked in death.
"Talk."
"Found communication logs. Hidden sub-basement. Someone's been feeding information for weeks."
"Who?"
"Can't say certain. But." Pause. "Writing looks like Aldric's."
Aldric. Eight years with us. Just healed by Olivia. Thanked her with tears. Learning to make bread.
"Sure?"
"Seventy percent. Could be copied. Could be planted." Shifts. "Two hours left on the deadline."
I know. Feel every minute. Need decisions. Execute on suspicion? Wait while the real traitor escapes?
"Bring him. Quietly."
He disappears. I stand in my ruined kitchen where yesterday she taught killers to dice vegetables. They smiled. I ate soup and felt human for twenty minutes.
There's bread on the counter. Still warm. She wasn't lying. My shadows curl around it.
"You look ready to murder someone."
Her voice behind me. Didn't hear approach. Getting sloppy. Or my shadows are happy and didn't warn me.
"That's my default expression."
"No, your default is 'controlled menace.' This is 'uncontrolled fury.'" She checks something in a salvaged pot. Hip brushes my arm. We freeze. "Are we evacuating? People are anxious."
"Within the hour."
"Someone should coordinate." She pulls out a list. Of course she has lists. "I've catalogued surviving medical supplies. We'll need bandages. Infection treatment—"
"Not now."
"When?" She faces me. Alone, so masks drop. Red-rimmed eyes. She's been crying. "Your people are scared. Half think you'll execute them for failing. The other half don't know what to think."
"They follow orders."
"Syl lost her training partner. Finn keeps asking about people who aren't answering. Ridge found Tomás and won't stop shaking." Voice cracks. "I taught Tomás to knead dough yesterday. His grandmother used to bake. Now—"
She stops. Breathes. Controls.
"When did you last eat? Your hands are still shaking."
She's right. Tremors from overuse, from healing, from my magic choosing her.
"Eat the bread. Then handle crisis. You're useless if you collapse."
She leaves. Lists my dead with more tenderness than I managed. My shadows writhe, reaching after her, and I hate them for it.
But I eat the bread. Because she's right. Because I need steady hands. Because it tastes like caring and I'm weak.
Grimm appears. "Evacuation ready. New location secured."
"Good. Start moving."
"The woman?"
"What about her?"
Shifts. "Ridge and Finn are packing her supplies. Syl found her a better transport crate. Tooth offered to carry her things."
They've adopted her while I wasn't looking.
"She comes."
"Boss—"
"She comes."
Evacuation is chaos pretending organization. People throwing belongings, arguing essentials. Someone's moving the weapons collection. Someone's saving the good chair. Olivia directs traffic.
"Medical in blue crates. Food in red. Yes, all of it."
Ridge hovers protective. When someone bumps her, he blocks. High shelf needs reaching, Finn's there. They've closed ranks without orders.
"Who put her in charge?" Tooth mutters.
"She did," Syl signs. Complete sentences now. "She knew their names. All seventeen."
I watch her organize my killers like they matter. They obey not from fear but because she makes sense and someone needs to care about the good knives.
"All of them," she tells Finn. "Every knife."
"These are throwing knives."
"Then we'll throw them at vegetables."
The new location is worse than expected. Abandoned warehouse, factory district. Our old compound looks luxury by comparison. No windows above ground. Cold that settles in bones. Smells like rust and decades of decay.
Everyone feels the downgrade. Standing lost in the main space, realizing we've gone from barely functional to actively dying. Water drips from ancient pipes. Floor's uneven, puddled with not-quite-water.
But Olivia's already moving. "That corner gets airflow—medical there. Kitchen near the old furnace for heat and cooking. Sleeping quarters upstairs where it's warmer."
Making hellholes livable. My guild watches with something like hope.
I find her later in the medical corner. Organizing nothing into something. Salvaged bandages on crates. Four bottles of medicine lined like soldiers.
She looks small. Lost. Today's weight crushing. Shaking—cold or shock or both.
"Hey."
Doesn't turn. "Seventeen people died today."
"Yes."
"Because I painted you."
Want to say no. Would've happened anyway. Probably lies and we're past those.
"Benedikt just learned proper tea. Asha was showing me her poem tomorrow. Tomás had a daughter." Whispers. "And I'm worried about clean sheets."
She knew them. Days, and she knew them better than my years.
"Seventeen people," she repeats. "And I'm worried about sheets."
Something in her eyes has cracked. Optimism meeting reality's wall.
I reach without thinking. Shadows surge to comfort. Catch myself. Pull back. She doesn't need the Shadow King's darkness.
"Boss." Aldric in doorway. Trembling. Corvus behind with enforcers. "I didn't. Swear I didn't."
Moment breaks. I'm the Shadow King, not the man who wants to wrap her in shadows.
"We'll see."
Leave her with salvaged supplies and nowhere to go. Don't look back. Can't. Shadows scream, trying to stay. Have to force them to follow.
Aldric sobs innocence. Maybe lying, maybe not. Someone betrayed. Someone dies.
But I hear her voice behind me. Talking to supplies or rats or walls.
"Clean sheets. Someone knows where to find clean sheets. People need dignity here. Especially here."
After everything. Still worried about sheets. About dignity. Making frozen hellholes bearable.
My shadows pull toward her hard enough to hurt.
Traitors later. First, sheets.
Because apparently I'm the Shadow King who sources bedding for women destroying me with kindness.
The Shadow King whose magic chose her.
And the worst part? I'm already calculating which safe houses might have decent linens.