Nathanial stood as I reached the door. His eyes narrowed and the line of his lips all but screamed at me to be cautious.
After a moment, he said, “The house of cards I am building us is tenuous at best, particularly considering recent events.”
Right, negotiations weren’t going well. I knew that, and I’d be careful, but if I didn’t go in to see what Gil needed, she might just come out of the bathroom looking for me. I flashed Nathanial the same smile I’d given the guards. Then I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me. He didn’t stop me.
Gil was sprawled inside the tub, her legs in the air and the trash can attached to one foot. I twisted the sink faucets on as I passed and then grabbed the aluminum can, tugging it—and Gil’s plastic rain boot—off.
“What are you doing here?”
She twisted, trying to push herself up in the base of the tub, but she ended up flailing more than righting herself. I offered a hand and tugged her to her feet.
“The rogue attacked Bobby this afternoon.”
I nearly dropped the trash can. “Is Bobby okay?”
“He’s fine. He has the rogue contained,” she said, trying to untangle a luffa from her dark curls.
I frowned. If Steven had turned rogue, Bobby would have done more than ‘contain’ him.
Gil continued without noticing my frown. “Bobby wants you to come spend some time with him. He said that a Torin’s influence can often help stabilize tagged shifters.” Her scroll appeared in her hand. “How would that work?”
It worked the same way an alpha-pulse did. It was will and energy used to dominate beta shifters, but I couldn’t exactly go into all that right now. Could the guards hear us?
According to Nathanial, our room was supposed to be a sanctuary and they weren’t supposed to listen, but did that rule apply now that I was under house arrest and suspected of murder?
“Okay. Take me to him.” I doubted I’d be any help to Steven. I wasn’t a Torin. Hell, no matter what Bobby claimed, I wasn’t even Dyre anymore. But maybe Gil could do something to help combat Avin’s call, and I needed answers about Justin’s death before the Collector turned her attention to me. Actually, if Justin had died of suspicious circumstances—as in a supernatural was suspected—the mages were probably already investigating. “I need information about Justin Morgan’s death while we’re out.”
For once, Gil didn’t ask. She just nodded and reached for me, but a knock sounded on the door before her hand landed.
We both froze.
“Go,” I mouthed.
She vanished without me.
I let myself out of the bathroom and found Nathanial standing in the open bedroom doorway, talking to someone I couldn’t see. He made a small gesture with his hand which could have either been a ‘come here’ or a twitch.
I was betting against a twitch.
Moving silently, I joined him at the door. Jomar stood on the other side. His ever-present grimace deepened to a scowl when he saw me.
“The Collector requests your presence,” he said adding a small bow to Nathanial out of habit and clearly not because of any respect he held for him. “Both of you.”
I didn’t get a bow. Not that I expected one. It wasn’t a request. It was a summons—she should get in line.
* * * *
The Collector sat ramrod straight in her flat-backed chair, the twins lounging on the loveseat beside her, and the Traveler towering behind her. For the first time, her attention focused on me as we walked into the room. That can’t be good.
“What, pray tell, is this?” She waved at the table in front of her. A table with the front page of the newspaper spread across it.
“Daily rumor mill?”
She didn’t seem to find that funny.
“You were in the presence of Justin Morgan last night, yes?” When I nodded, she continued, “And, after leaving the symphony with him, you returned disheveled and with blood on your dress, yes?”
“That was my blood.”
Her eyes flashed black.
I tried to look away, but her power sucked me into those eyes, to a world dominated by her presence. Her will.
“You will answer my questions truthfully.” Her power wrapped around me, locking me to her will. In the darkness of her gaze, I forgot to breathe, forgot everything. I just nodded, unable to do anything else.
“Good. When you returned, your appearance showed signs of a struggle and your dress was stained with blood. Yes or no?” Her voice, as sharp as cold steel, cut the air around me.
“Yes, but it was—”
“You killed Justin Morgan.” It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
“Then what happened while you were in the young Morgan’s presence?”
I couldn’t not answer, and I couldn’t lie. Caught in her power, I tried to keep my thoughts ahead of my tongue. “I encountered someone I owed a debt.” Which was true. It just wasn’t everything.
“And this… someone, was a supernatural, yes?”
Crap. “Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
“I told Morgan to run. He did. It was the last time I saw him.” There was no wiggle room in that one. The Collector clearly realized that as well because the silence stretched.
She’d gotten her information, more than I’d wanted to share, and I expected the darkness to pull back. It didn’t.
Instead she asked, “What can you tell me about the General?”
The question was so broad, I could technically tell her anything at all I knew. But I gave her what she needed to know and hoped it would win me some favor. “The blood in his hair smells of snake venom.”
“The Hermit said you smelled venom in the body you found in Haven as well.”
I hadn’t known he’d told her about it, but I nodded. “That is true. The scent compared to my own blood after Akane poisoned me.”
“But this scent is one only you can smell and therefore not proof.”
I gritted my teeth. She has me caught in a compulsion not to lie, and she still doesn’t believe me?
The swirl of power around me tightened, seeped under my skin.
“You will bring me a shapeshifter.”
The command dug into my mind, latched on. Oh hell no.
But it was an order, a compulsion. I couldn’t refuse. Couldn’t say no. I couldn’t even open my mouth to try.
But I could bargain.
“In exchange, you will grant Nathanial and me permission to leave if we wish.”
I felt her shock vibrate in the air before she surprised the hell out of me.
“Done. You are a thorn in my side,” the Collector said, as if it were her idea in the first place.
The darkness retreated, leaving me staring at her cold brown eyes, but the compulsion remained. I could feel it twisting inside me. She’d commanded me to bring her a shifter, and I had to do it. I just had to. But the compulsion conflicted with Avin’s call. I couldn’t answer him while bringing the Collector her shifter, and the two compulsions warred inside me, both fighting for precedence. In the end, while the need to move held me, made my skin itch, the opposing urges balanced and created a type of stasis.
I schooled my face as I realized this. I wasn’t about to let the Collector know she’d done me a favor. Besides, if she realized what was happening, she might give me a time limit, and then the balance might shift.
“You are dismissed. Jomar, remove her from my presence,” she said, waving her hand.
A familiar grip closed around my bicep and I gritted my teeth. As Jomar steered me toward the door, Nathanial fell in step beside me.
The Collector cleared her throat. “Hermit, I have much to discuss with you yet.”
I kept walking. I needed to summon Gil.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Isn’t there a way to back out of the deal or retroactively add conditions?” I asked. The restaurant’s table shook with my tapping foot, but I couldn’t stay still.
Gil frowned at me. “I haven’t seen Avin in days, but if he called in his favor, just do what he asks. You agreed to the price.”
Yeah, last unnamed favor I’m ever agreeing to. “Okay. Fine. Just—” I stopped and glanced at the table next to us where Steven sat devouring a stack of pancakes. The opposing compulsions were burning inside me, growing worse. I leaned closer to Gil and Bobby. “Don’t let me pick directions or wander. Okay?”
I hated admitting to the weakness. To the fact I couldn’t even trust my own actions. But if I wandered I might head straight for Avin, and if I chose the direction, I might inadvertently lead Bobby and Steven to the Collector. I couldn’t allow either to happen, so it was better if I just put it out on the table and let one of them decide where we needed to go. Though the idea of following made me want to grind my teeth.
Actually, wait, no. I really was grinding my teeth. That must have been from fighting the compulsion. I forced my jaw to loosen and squirmed in my seat, jerking at the skirt that took up my entire side of the booth.
We made quite a strange group with me way overdressed for a midnight dinner, Gil in her Easter-egg pink coat and big rain boots, and Steven in clothes that hung off his body and obviously belonged to someone twice his size. Bobby, the natural-born shifter who could only achieve fully human form because of the gift locked in his necklace, was the most normal-looking one among us. That had to amuse the hell out of him. At least he’d managed to clean Steven up so it didn’t look like we’d dragged in a starving urchin.
“So, did you find anything about Justin Morgan?” I asked, ignoring the stares our two tables gathered.
Gil’s scroll appeared in her hand. “Actually, yes. It’s strange. He was apparently—”
The diner door opened with the sound of clanging bells.
Steven jerked at the sound, dropping his orange juice into his pancakes.
“—beheaded. The investigators in Sabin—”
Steven stared at his ruined meal. A muscle bulged over his jaw. His eyes narrowed.