Chapter 3
THE TRAITOR
Ijust stood there, for who knows how long, staring at the exact spot where Kato and Conner had been just before they disappeared. I might have continued standing there all night if a squad of commandos hadn’t burst through the door.
“Savannah Winters.”
That snapped me out of it. I looked at the commando who’d spoken. He wore a black beret. He was huge—at least half a meter taller than me. And he had a funny mustache.
I gave him and his fellow commandos a wary look. “Why did you come here?”
“For you.”
The commandos moved to surround me. They had swords, but they didn’t draw them. Instead, they held ropes in their hands. So they were here to capture me, not kill me.
Oh, no. Not this time. Not today. I’d been through far too much crap lately to be captured by a squad of muscle men.
They had ropes. So what? Whoopty-flipping-doo. I had ropes too.
I clicked my tongue. The vines outside the building stirred.
They shot through the windows of the library, shattering them.
The vines, each one as thick as my arm but far more pliable, snapped around the commandos’ arms, legs, torsos...
all the way up their faces. I stopped the vines just short of their eyes.
Then I strode toward the commando with the funny mustache. “Who sent you? Who are you working for?”
He made a few incomprehensible noises. Oops. I’d forgotten to remove the vine around his mouth. I did that now.
Then I met his eyes. “Who sent you? Who are you working for?” I asked again.
The commando’s wide eyes tracked the moving vines. “Melanie Meyer.”
“Governor Meyer sent you to abduct me?” I said, shocked.
“Yes.”
“Governor Meyer is the one who’s been working with Fenris?”
“Yes.”
We’d known there was still a traitor out there, someone high up in the Gaian Government, but Melanie Meyer? No freaking way. I wouldn’t have guessed that, not in a million years. She was just so…nice.
Melanie Meyer had helped Fenris. She’d traded the Apprentices to him in exchange for a few supplies? My brain was having trouble processing that. Melanie Meyer had helped me. She’d protected me from the General.
Or had she? Maybe she’d only kept me from being thrown out of the Apprentice Program in order to maximize the number of Apprentices she could sell to Fenris. Fenris’s mercenaries had tried to abduct us all from the Conference Center. Melanie Meyer must have told them where we were.
Jeremy Rubin, the storage facility site manager. Senator Gaines. They were nothing but puppets. They were working for Melanie Meyer.
“What does she want with me?” I asked the commando.
“She wants to sell you to the Order of Kings. You are the prize they want most of all. You are the Polymage they lost, the key to figuring out how to turn people into Polymages.”
“Why now? And why here? The Castle is swarming with Knights tonight. Why risk it?”
“She’s desperate. Fenris’s scheme unraveled, leaving her vulnerable.
The Court has Fenris. They are questioning him about his misdeeds, even as we speak.
It’s only a matter of time before they find out about her involvement.
She needs to make her escape before it all comes back to her.
She thinks that if she brings you to the Order, they will give her sanctuary. ”
So this was about saving her own skin. And she didn’t care who she had to sacrifice in order to do it. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. She had sold teenagers to Fenris.
I was seeing everything in a whole new light now.
Melanie Meyer had made a deal with Fenris.
She’d told him where to find the Apprentices.
She’d given him their files, which had told him everything the Government knew about them.
When I’d escaped Fenris’s fortress, Melanie Meyer had sent Senator Gaines to silence me because I knew where Fenris was and what he’d done.
She’d realized that if the Court got their hands on Fenris, it was all over for her. He would tell them what she’d done.
And that’s exactly what had happened. Now the Order of Kings thought she was incompetent. They had the power to help her flee Gaia, but they wouldn’t. Not if she didn’t prove herself. Bringing me to them was how she planned to prove her worth.
That wasn’t happening. This scheme ended now.
I looked at the vines, commanding them. “Bring them.”
I started walking. The vines followed, dragging the commandos along with them.
“You’re going to help me expose the traitor in our Government.”