Chapter 33 #3
Anees shot over her shoulder, “Suck it up, Grivor. You’ll be smelling much worse during your thornling months.”
That earned the phantom a chuckle. “I’ve smelled much worse in Elixir classes,” Jarek deadpanned, and Lory couldn’t help but glimpse a flash of white teeth in the near-darkness as she glanced back to check if Jarek was about to bolt.
With a shallow breath, Lory led them around the cremator.
“You can’t tell anyone, Jarek, or I’ll have to kill you.
” She’d debated that threat the entire elevator ride and wondered if she’d regret bringing Jarek along rather than dash past him in the hallways and pray he wouldn’t try to stop them, or ask questions, or do anything else that would raise suspicion, make noise, or draw attention in any other way.
So she’d hazarded with her gut instinct and brought him down here.
When he didn’t respond, Lory amended, “Please, Jarek. I really, really don’t want to kill you. ”
When she checked over her shoulder again, Anees had her dagger at Jarek’s throat.
The woman requited her look of horror with a shrug.
“Just in case he can’t make up his mind about his babbling.
” She grinned, a thing of beauty and terror, and Lory knew that Anees wouldn’t hesitate to slit his throat should Jarek fail to make that promise—and keep it.
He merely huffed a breath. “I don’t know what is going on, but I assure you, I know how to keep a secret that could get you killed. Adding one more won’t make a difference.”
A silent exchange happened between him and Tabi that made Lory wonder what else she’d missed during those days she’d been locked in the leonthor’s cave, during the weeks she’d trained with the phantoms and with Khayrivven, before Tabi, Jarek, and Thal had been upgraded to thornling.
She didn’t ask what the secret was, no matter the sting of feeling left out. She’d kept her own secrets after all.
Anees didn’t lower her blade. “Do you swear it?”
Jarek rolled his eyes, surprisingly calm in the face of pending death. “On my life, on my sister’s life, on the life of the woman I love.”
With an eyeroll of her own, Anees pulled back her blade. “I didn’t need to know that last part,” she merely said as she sheathed her dagger.
When he was freed of Anees’s scrutiny, he asked, “So what are we up to?” A glimmer of excitement had entered his eyes, and Lory wondered if perhaps he knew more about what was going on than he let on.
He took a limping step forward so he was closer to Lory.
“Is this what you’ve been up to all this time when you disappeared with the captain? ”
Lory already regretted having brought him along for a different reason than she’d feared. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
“So what have you been up to?” He hobbled to her side, ducking under a beam.
“Nothing I could share with you. Lenya would tear my head off.” She didn’t mean to put any bite into the words, but the most recent experience with Lenya’s vengefulness made her look over her shoulder twice.
The only reason she’d risked this rescue mission was because she knew Lenya was the one to take Khayrivven to the Amrin Mountains, and that the Master of Whispers’ attention was bound elsewhere.
After all this time of seemingly arbitrary moments of reprieve from Lenya and his spies, she had begun to identify patterns and no longer needed Khayrivven to tell her if it was safe to talk about certain topics.
Almost like a different sort of instinct had come to life inside of her.
“So why are we down here in this… Is that a cremator?” He stopped to ogle the steel oven at the center of the room.
“It’s where the dead ashlings get burned,” Anees responded. “And some of the students whose ideologies the Triad doesn’t approve of.” This last part, she amended more softly, her tone probing, as if she were waiting for Jarek to expose what side he stood on.
He didn’t respond with more than a nod.
“There’s someone who needs Tabi’s help,” Lory continued. “Someone, whose name you don’t need to know, of whose existence you weren’t supposed to know. Because if you ever tell anyone—”
Jarek waved a dismissive hand. “I thought we were past all distrust and need for threats.”
Because he was her friend. And he had a sister who’d been close to Narica Hayley, the Criu ashling who’d shouted rebel paroles before her execution.
Lory hadn’t even considered it until now, her mind too occupied with the mysteries of Aiden’s notes, of her training, and missions, but if she put two and two together—
Andromeda Behuli had been next, Narica’s friend. The same as Maes.
“Are you a rebel?” She whispered it so softly that no one else could hear.
A flickering beam of light fell on Jarek’s face as they reached the back of the room, stopping by the hidden door. Jarek winked at her. “Let’s help that someone first. There will be plenty of time for questions later.”
Lory stifled a chuckle of surprise, dread, relief, she couldn’t name it, and watched Anees open the door.