Chapter 58

58

SYLAS

Between Mina and his daughter, Royce never stood a chance.

"I'm Mina," my queen said, walking up to introduce herself.

"Sirena."

"How did I not know you had a child?" I asked the bald man.

"Because he's never let me out of the water before," Sirena answered for herself.

"That's not true," Royce muttered, still looking at the photo he held.

"It's not, not really," Sirena told Mina more quietly. "If my mother had her way, I'd be chained to a rock at the bottom of the ocean."

"Your mother just wants what's best for you. As do I," Royce said, slowly taking a seat beside her—keeping himself equidistant between her and me.

"I mean you no harm," I reiterated. "I've eaten recently."

"I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better."

"Should I stay?" the Arachnaea asked Royce, via his translator .

"Yes. If anyone human in this room seems like they're suddenly dying," Royce began, than shook his head. "Start fucking praying and call a black alert." The spider's human spine stiffened at hearing that. "Now," Royce said, rounding on Mina. "Out with it."

"We found that photograph in Garrett Reid's secret bunker, along with a ton of other Rho Rho Phi fraternity-themed trash," she said, taking the framed image back from him. "Do you know anything about your great-grandfather and Egyptian stuff? Maybe something mentioning a wolf?"

Royce made a face, before looking at me again. "The thing I don't think anyone told you—and that you didn't stick around to learn—was that my great-grandfather was insane."

"‘Didn't stick around' is a rich way to say that I've been trapped in that hourglass for almost two hundred years," I growled.

But the hourglass itself must've come from somewhere—and I'd never gotten the chance to investigate that, seeing as I could only come out when fate summoned me, and was then forced to perform tasks for strangers.

"This is Wheaton Ellis," Royce said, pointing at the other man in the photo. "He changed his last name over to Reid when he ‘changed his life.'" Royce said the words like they ought to have one of Mina's fateful asterisks. "They were friends back in the Victorian era, back when men with too much money had fun exploring things, pretending to do research, but mostly just fucking things up for local cultures. It seemed like the more lawful any given area became, the more men like Wheaton, and my great-grandfather, honestly, went there to take advantage of the underground interest in newly unattainable artifacts."

Royce spun the frame on the table and shoved it down to me, where I caught it. "Do I want to know why you were in Ellis's great-grandson's closet?" he asked both Mina and I. "Or should I just assume it had something to do with the sudden disappearance of several college-aged boys?"

His daughter gasped and lightly clapped her hands in excitement, while the Arachnaea tilted his head profoundly.

"We were killing them. They had it coming," Mina stated bluntly, and I loved her for it. "How insane was insane, precisely?" she asked, lifting the picture up. "Because he looks like he managed to get over to another country and tie both of his shoes, for this photo. And this is a pretty dapper suit."

Royce frowned. "The insanity part came later. My grandfather told me he'd inhaled too much mummy dust," he said, with a snort. "He was somewhat normal when he went over there, when my grandfather was a little boy, but when he came back he was obsessed with protecting a magical rock from Ellis."

I slid my presence over the table towards Royce dramatically—and the Arachnea hoisted up a skein of silk, which would do precisely nothing to me if I attacked.

Then I realized his goal in throwing it would've been saving Royce's daughter, who seemed oblivious to the danger she might be in, as she leaned forward, eyes wide.

"And his plan for that was..." I prompted Royce.

"You. Which clearly backfired. Because all you do is kill people."