Chapter 25
Iwas up bright and early the next morning, full of energy and ready to track down the traitor.
Rylan was a little grumpy about being dragged out of bed before nine, but the idea of getting breakfast while it was still hot was appealing to him, so he dressed and showered quickly before heading down to the dining hall with me.
I had hoped to find Fenris sitting in his usual spot near the buffet tables, but he wasn’t there. I scanned the rows of wooden tables, filled with mages who chose to get their breakfast here rather than at home before starting work at the Guild. No sign of him at all.
“Maybe he’s sleeping in,” Rylan suggested as he wolfed down his third plate of bacon and eggs. “You know, like any self-respecting shifter would be.”
I shook my head. “Fenris is an early bird, like Iannis.” I imagined that even as a shifter, his old habits as a mage, and a Chief Mage at that, would be hard to break.
“Well, maybe not quite like Iannis, since Iannis is already at some meeting or another,” I amended.
“But he’s usually here this time of day. ”
Rylan nodded. “You would know,” he said easily, buttering a piece of toast. “Just as I imagine you would know where to find him.”
I sighed. “I’ll start with his room. If not there, he could be in the library.
” I’d found him there more than once in the past—Fenris liked to study magical texts discreetly, to keep up on his spell lore even though he wasn’t officially a mage anymore.
But the library wasn’t open for another ten minutes, so unless he snuck in, I doubted I’d find him there.
It was a little annoying, having to walk all the way back to the west wing after already coming from there.
Fenris’s room was located a few doors up from Iannis’s, on the same side as Rylan’s.
I sniffed the air as I knocked on his door, and his scent was strong enough that I was certain he was present.
“What is it?” Fenris called, his voice uncharacteristically irritable.
I frowned, really concerned now. Fenris was normally so unflappable, and he usually was the one calming me down. I wasn’t totally sure how to handle the role reversal.
“I need to get the list of suspects from you,” I said through the door. “Iannis said I should help you interview them.”
“Did he now?” Fenris asked, sounding downright petulant.
Okay, enough was enough. “Wait here,” I told Rylan as I pulled a set of lock picks from one of my pouches. I selected the right one, then unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hey!” Fenris snapped, tossing a sheet over his naked body as I stepped inside. To my surprise, he was still abed and looking very scruffy, with bags under his dark eyes and a serious case of bedhead. “You can’t just break into my room like this.”
“I can damn well do whatever I want,” I told him, kicking the door shut behind me. “After all, you’re too busy moping around in bed to stop me, aren’t you?” I grabbed his desk chair, then flipped it around so I could straddle it.
“Don’t be so overconfident,” Fenris growled, his dark eyes flashing. “I may not be a full mage anymore, but I can still wipe the floor with you without ever leaving this bed.”
“Then do it,” I challenged, crossing my arms over the back of the chair and meeting his stare without fear. “But until you either kick my ass, or tell me what the hell is going on with you and Iannis, I’m not leaving this room.”
Fenris glared at me for a long moment, then sighed and raked a hand over his hair.
The sheet dropped, exposing a muscular torso dusted with dark hair.
I didn’t know what Polar ar’Tollis had looked like under his state robes, but Iannis had made him damn good looking when he’d transformed him into Fenris.
Strange really that I’d never been attracted to him that way—he was more like a brother, or maybe an uncle-type figure, to me.
But as I looked at him now, so closed off, I wondered if he felt lonely.
He deserved someone to love, and for someone to love him.
Eventually, he dropped his gaze. “It isn’t what you think,” he finally said, staring down at his dark red bedspread. “Iannis didn’t reproach me for slipping up at the banquet. He came to check on me, and to reassure me that my identity is still secret.”
“Good.” Relief swept through me at that—I didn’t have to be angry with Iannis after all. “So if that’s the case, then what did the two of you argue about?”
A look of pain flashed across Fenris’s face, his fists clenching in the sheets. “About my leaving Solantha.”
“What?” I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep myself from toppling sideways off the chair. “Leave Solantha? What the hell for?”
Fenris finally met my gaze, and the pain and sadness in his dark eyes nearly stole my breath.
“I’m sure you can empathize more than most, Sunaya…
but I do not belong. I sit on the sidelines here, in the shadows, watching other mages walk freely in the sunlight, able to practice their magic without fear and pursue their ambitions and dreams. These past few years following my faked execution and transformation into a shifter, I’ve mostly focused on staying alive and out of the spotlight.
But I have had no real goals, no ambition, no…
direction in my life.” Fenris waved his hand in the air, a frustrated motion.
“I am not truly a shifter, as I have no clan and was not raised with their customs, and before you came here, I did my best to avoid real shifters. And I am no longer allowed to be a mage, even though I still retain some power, and all of my knowledge.”
“Oh, Fenris.” I abandoned the desk chair for his bed, then wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry.” A lump began to swell in my throat. “I’m sure this is very hard for you.”
It was easy to empathize with Fenris—after all, my own hybrid status had made me an outcast, and until Iannis had taken me under his wing, I’d lived every day under the fear that I would be found out and executed.
But at least those fears no longer plagued me.
I was still learning to integrate myself into mage society, but it was happening.
And if my lunch with Aunt Mafiela went well, perhaps I could find my way back into shifter society as well.
But Fenris wasn’t able to do either of those things.
“I know I said to you not so long ago that my place was by Iannis’s side, and by your side,” Fenris said roughly, his arms tightening around me as he returned my hug.
“But after nearly exposing my true identity in front of all those mages, I was reminded that my very presence here puts you both in grave danger. If it was ever found out that the two of you were knowingly harboring me here, and that Iannis had used illegal magic to transform me into a shifter, all three of us would be executed. You are my friends, and far too important for me to allow that to happen.”
“Stop this.” My nails dug into Fenris’s upper arms as I pulled back to glare at him.
“Fenris, you stop this bullshit right now. Yes, Iannis and I might be part of the Minister’s task force, but don’t think for one second that you haven’t been instrumental in everything we’ve done so far.
You’re important too, Fenris, and I fucking need you.
Iannis fucking needs you. The entire Federation needs you, even if they’re too blind and ignorant to know it.
” My voice broke a little as anger scalded my chest, and maybe a hint of fear too, at the thought that Fenris might walk out of our lives.
“I can’t stand to lose another friend right now, Fenris,” I whispered. “I just can’t.”
Remorse flashed in Fenris’s dark eyes, and his expression softened. “I understand,” he said quietly. “We’ve been through quite a lot recently, haven’t we?”
“You could say that,” I said tiredly, running a hand over my face. “I was just getting over Roanas’s death, and now I’m faced with the likelihood of losing Noria. I don’t know what I would do if I found out you were leaving too.”
“Knowing you, you would probably come up with some harebrained scheme to chase after me, and get yourself into considerable trouble that I would have to help you out of,” Fenris said dryly, a grin tugging at his lips.
I grinned back. “Well, that is what you’re around for, isn’t it?” I asked, smacking him on the shoulder.
“It would seem so, at least for now.” Fenris shook his head, his smile fading.
“I suppose that so long as there is still need of me, it would be a disservice to you and Iannis for me to disappear,” he said.
“I will stay then, and help however I can. But if there is any sign that my presence puts either of you at risk, I will leave, and you must promise not to stop me.” Fenris’s eyes darkened as he locked gazes with me. “Promise me, Sunaya Baine.”
“I promise,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible as the lump in my throat threatened to resurface. But what else could I say? “Now can you get your ass out of bed and help me get this list of suspects? We don’t have all day.”
“Yes, but it would help if you gave me some privacy,” Fenris pointed out. “I am far from decent.”
“What else is new?” I muttered, opening the door and walking out. Shifters didn’t really have a button on nudity, but as Fenris wasn’t born a shifter, I had to forgive him for being a prude. And I didn’t really need the image of his naked ass branded in my mind anyway.
“By Magorah,” I muttered as Rylan and I trudged back inside. We’d just finished questioning the head gardener, which had turned out to be just as fruitless as all the other interviews. “I’m starting to think you’re wrong, and the spy did flee the Palace.”
“Nobody ever said I was infallible,” Rylan admitted as we turned right, heading to the east wing. Fenris had taken half the suspects, leaving us with around thirty to question—and we’d just finished number eighteen. “It’s always possible the spy did bolt.”
“I really hope not,” I said as we headed for the guest bathing rooms. The next suspect on our list was Harun Zuric, one of the Palace’s handymen, and we’d been informed he was currently fixing a leak in one of the showers. “I’d rather not find out we wasted our entire morning on this.”
“It isn’t a waste,” Rylan pointed out. “Eliminating these suspects is important.”
I growled under my breath, but said nothing. He was right, but I was impatient to find my would-be killer now. I wanted to look him in the eye myself, dammit.
The sound of metal clanging against metal caught my ears as we rounded the corner, followed by the scent of sweaty male human.
I pushed open the door to the bathroom to find a balding, heavyset man leaning half-in, half-out of the shower.
His belt wasn’t doing a great job of holding up his workpants, and I wrinkled my nose at the sight of his hairy crack peeking out from beneath his powder-blue work shirt.
“Good morning, Mr. Zuric,” I called, and he shot straight up, banging his head against the metal doorframe.
“Dammit!” he cried, backing out of the shower stall as he rubbed his head. His eyes were wide as he turned to face us, and the sweaty stench emanating from his body turned sour with fear. “Couldn’t you knock first? You scared the hell out of me!”
“Is that so?” I smiled, my fingers grazing the crescent knives strapped to my right thigh as I walked toward him. “And what exactly is it that you have to be scared of?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly, his meaty hand drifting to his tool belt. “You just startled me.”
“I would think you’d know it’s stupid to lie to a shifter,” I began, and the man let out a battle cry. He charged me with surprising speed for his bulk, pulling a silver knife from his tool belt, and I moved into a fighting stance, ready to take him.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Rylan pushed me back, then twisted around to Zuric’s side and slammed him against the wall.
Several of the blue tiles cracked beneath the force of their bodies, and Zuric cried out as Rylan grabbed his knife arm and twisted it behind his back.
The knife clattered to the ground, and Rylan kicked it away as he hiked the spy’s arm up higher.
“Fuck!” the man screamed as his shoulder popped from his socket.
“I can do worse if you keep struggling,” Rylan said calmly. “Or you can give up, and let me restrain you.”
“Never!” Zuric hissed, then screamed louder as Rylan pulled again.
The sound of heavy footsteps outside the hall drew my attention, and I turned to see three more guards burst through the door. “Is everything all right, Miss?” the first one asked me, his sword already drawn.
“We’re good,” I said, gesturing to Rylan and Zuric.
The spy had stopped struggling. He was sagging against the wall, tears of pain streaming down his ruddy face.
“As you can see, my bodyguard has things under control.” I was slightly annoyed that Rylan had gotten to the bastard before I did, but I couldn’t fault him for it—he was my bodyguard.
And his reaction time had always been a shade faster than mine.
I was going to have to enlist him as my sparring partner—it had been too long since I’d done physical training with any real dedication.
“Actually, I would appreciate a hand from one or two of you gentlemen,” Rylan said as he restrained Zuric. “This man is a spy and would-be assassin who tried to kill Miss Baine with that bomb just a few days ago.”
“This is the spy?” one of the guards asked incredulously, looking Zuric up and down. “I never would have guessed.”
“Well, that’s why I’m her bodyguard and you’re not,” Rylan said with a grin as he spun Zuric around and shoved him into the guards’ waiting hands. “Now, let’s get this fat bastard out of here.”
“This isn’t over!” Zuric shouted as they led him from the room. “You may have won the battle, but the war is far from over!”
As we followed him out, listening to his shouted protests all the way, I couldn’t help but fear he might be right.