Chapter 36

Remy leaned his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes. His normally sleek brown hair with the black tips that I loved hung lank over his collar and stuck in clumps to his forehead. He had angular features and sharp cheekbones, but now they looked like blades protruding from a face with sunken cheeks and dark smudges around his eyes. When I reached over to brush the hair from his face, he captured my hand with his and entwined our fingers without opening his eyes. I glanced down and was shocked to see that his long, agile fingers had become skeletal.

My throat felt thick, and I had to swallow several times before speaking. "You shouldn't have done it."

He smiled faintly, then lifted his head and opened his eyes. "We had to know."

"Know what?"

"What will cause the horrible future in my first vision."

I squeezed his hand lightly, afraid I might crush those clever fingers that now seemed so fragile.

He let out a long breath and ran his other hand down his face. "It's Lorget."

"What?" My stomach lurched.

"It seems he made a mistake that resulted in his brother's death when they were young."

My eyes filled with tears, but I said nothing.

Remy continued, "If he uses the Eye to change the past, his brother is the man I saw making money from mining the seabed."

I gave a little whimper of distress. I liked Lorget and didn't want to think he was behind the safe house raids and the attack on my bedsit. "So, all of this is because of his desire to eradicate a terrible past mistake?"

"Hard to say. I don't know if getting the Eye to change the past was his original goal or if he will fall victim to the Eye's temptation. The gods only know it's hard to resist."

"Does it still pull at you?"

"Worse than ever. It's becoming more than unintelligible whispers. Now it's luring me with all the possible futures that could open if only I would use it for my own gain."

"Maybe I could explain to Lorget the dangers if he ever uses it. He's not evil."

"No, he's not. But I cannot agree with giving it to him." Remy fell silent for long moments, and I wondered if he would say more. Finally, he exhaled noisily. "You are going to have to decide where you stand on this. With them or with me."

His head dropped back against the sofa again, and his chest rose and fell. The Eye had told me I would have to choose between the guild and Remy, but I hadn't wanted to believe it. I kept hoping I could find a way to have both. Sadly, life was never that easy.

My eyes burned and I blinked repeatedly to clear them. "There were two parts to my vision."

His eyebrows lifted but he said nothing.

"The second part made it clear that I would have to pick between you and that future as a guild director."

He rolled his head to look at me directly.

"I wanted it all." I refused to feel sorry for myself and wiped at my traitorous eyes.

Remy snorted. "I'm no great prize."

I slid across the sofa and leaned up against him. Remy wasn't generating as much body heat as he usually did, and I could feel his ribs through his shirt, but it still felt so right. With a shiver, I knew I was going to have to take a risk and trust him not to abandon me at the first opportunity. Because this was where I belonged.

"Yeah, you kind of are."

Remy gave a faint sigh and slipped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me tighter against his side. He spoke very quietly. "Just so you know, I don't think you'll screw over anyone in your path to get ahead. I was angry. I'm sorry."

We sat without speaking for long minutes, and I thought about the fate my desire to please Lorget and the guild might have precipitated. I wasn't proud that ambition had clouded my judgement so completely.

After a while, Remy asked, "Why are you up here?"

"Maybe I came to visit Petra."

He rolled his head back and closed his eyes. "They don't socialize up here. They've got an entire tavern for that. Only women seeking refuge come upstairs."

"You're up here."

"I was about to sleep on the kitchen counter, but Ralph made me climb the steps."

"Do you want me to let you sleep? I can ask Petra to find a blanket."

"No. I don't want you to leave."

My breath caught. I didn't want to leave him. Ever.

"My room was ransacked," I said. "After the compromised safe houses, I was afraid to go to the Veiled Vaults, so I came here."

Remy sat bolt upright. "Ransacked? Were you hurt?"

"I wasn't home."

He slumped back down. "Good. You'll have to find someplace new. Someplace no one at the guild knows about."

I bit my lip and felt light-headed. "Do you think it was Lorget?"

"No. He's not the one working with the Enforcers. Brown curly hair. I think it's Jareth."

My mouth opened in an O and I blinked at him. Even though I now understood how he did it, I was still in awe of his ability to gather information.

"Jareth told them my name and has been tasked with finding me. When he realized no one knows anything about my life outside the guild, going after you was the logical next step. I'm very sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Putting you in jeopardy. If I'd left you alone, Jareth wouldn't have bothered you."

I laughed without mirth. "Jareth has been bothering me since the day we met."

"But you were handling him. This is different."

I leaned my head on his shoulder and made a soft, low sound of contentment. After a while, his muscles relaxed, and his breathing slowed. I slid out from under his arm and pulled his boots off. Tiptoeing from the room, I walked down the hall to Petra's studio and asked her for a blanket. Between us, we got Remy's legs up on the sofa and a blanket tucked around him. I pressed a kiss to his forehead and returned to my room, letting him sleep.

The next morning, I found Remy downstairs in the kitchen, working his way through enough eggs, sausage, bread, and cheese to feed everyone in my former circus troupe. Including the strong man and Manso, the bear shifter—and those two could pack away an alarming amount of food. I took an apple from a stack that Ralph was peeling and slicing for pies and sat down to watch Remy eat.

"Has this been going on long?" I asked Ralph and tilted my head toward Remy.

"This is round two," Ralph said with a shake of his head. "I eat a lot, but this is really quite impressive."

Remy paused with the fork halfway to his mouth. "I'm just a growing boy," he smirked.

"Hopefully, you'll stop growing soon or I'm going to have to order an extra week's worth of supplies."

I studied Remy as he went back to his food. He looked better than he had the night before. His face was still thin, but the dark circles under his eyes were gone and the sheen was returning to his hair.

"Have you told the guild that Jareth is the leak?" I asked.

"Not yet. I'll send an urchin with a message."

"Anyone could intercept that. The directors need to know."

"Then they'll have to wait until I've found a way to dispose of the Eye. I'm not going back until that's resolved."

"I'll go tell them," I said. That seemed the least I could do to make up for what the guild would view as betrayal with the Eye.

"What if you get pressure to tell them where the Eye is?"

"I'll tell them I don't know. That's true enough. And they can't ask me where you live because I don't know that either."

He tore off a piece of bread and chewed slowly. Finally, he swallowed and said, "OK. But if you're not back in one hour, I'm coming after you."

Maybe I needed to rethink my obsession with proving that I could do everything myself, because, although I still hated to accept help, the knowledge that Remy had my back and would be there for me warmed my soul.

All was quiet when I arrived at the guildhall, and no one was in the main room. That was not surprising because it was early, and most members kept late hours of necessity. I debated which director to approach. I was closest to Lorget, but Remy's revelation had unnerved me. On the other hand, I had no information about the Eye's location, even if he pressed me. I just wanted to tell him about Jareth's betrayal.

In the end, I decided to go to Lorget like I always did, but when I pushed open his door, he was slumped over his desk. An inkwell had overturned, and its contents were spreading across the parchments and books that scattered the desk. Lorget's office was always chaotic, but he was very particular about his papers, and I knew he would have been distressed to see them defaced.

A man with curly brown hair was standing next to him and, for a horrified moment, I thought Jareth might have attacked Lorget. A rampaging Enforcer informant hell-bent on finding the Eye was the last thing we needed. With relief, I realized it was Polix, not Jareth, and rushed forward to help.

"What happened? Is he breathing?" I nudged Polix out of the way and placed my fingers on Lorget's neck, trying to find a pulse. It was there, but faint and rapid. Lorget was not a young man and I straightened to tell Polix to go for a healer.

Without warning, pain exploded through the back of my skull and the office spun in a kaleidoscope of shadows and light. My knees buckled and I nearly landed on Lorget, just barely catching myself on the edge of his desk. Fingers grabbed the back of my neck in an iron grip and yanked me across the room. I tried to use my opponent's momentum to roll him over my back, but my limbs refused to do more than dangle like cooked noodles. He tossed me to the floor and my head cracked against Lorget's guest chair. Stars exploded behind my eyelids. Then everything went black.

I woke as a sudden jolt of cold water splashed across my face, causing me to sputter and gasp for air. My eyes shot open, revealing a blurry figure looming over me, holding the pitcher of water Lorget kept next to his desk. Grabbing my hair, he jerked me up to a sitting position with my back against the desk and held a knife to my throat.

I blinked, trying to bring him into focus. And gasped. My muddled brain had assumed Jareth had somehow slipped in, but he hadn't. It was Polix.

"You?"

"Yes, me. What's the matter? You think poor, inept Polix couldn't possibly do more than follow Jareth around like a dog?" Polix sneered.

That was exactly what I thought, but decided saying so would not be wise.

"Your arrival is perfect timing, sweetheart," he continued. "I need answers and the old man didn't have them. You're the next most likely to know."

I was still having trouble focusing, and it took me a few tries to speak. "What did you do to Lorget? Is he dead?"

"You should be worried more about your own skin."

He still had hold of my hair and gave my head a shake. My brain sloshed around inside my skull, and my vision constricted. For a moment, I thought I might pass out again.

Polix released my hair and reached for the pitcher. "Oh no you don't." And he threw more water into my face.

It went up my nose and I choked, coughing and spluttering as I struggled to get free from Polix's grip. He tightened his hold, the blade of the knife pressing harder into my skin.

"Unless you'd like to cut your own throat, I suggest holding still."

Uncertain if what I could feel running down my neck was water or blood, I stopped struggling. When the coughing finally subsided, I glared at him without speaking.

"Lorget knows everything about everyone in the guild, so imagine my surprise when he said he didn't know where Remy lived. I didn't believe him at first."

I stiffened and my breathing grew shallow. I didn't want to know what Polix had done to Lorget before deciding he was telling the truth.

"So now I'm asking you. Where does Remy live?"

"I don't know."

He shook me by the hair once more. "Are you lying to me?"

"Remy doesn't tell anyone about his personal life."

"So, he didn't take you to his house to fuck? Did you go to your pathetic little bedsit?"

"No." I gritted my teeth and contemplated tossing him off a roof if I got out of this.

"Where does he spend his time, then?"

"He took me to the Salty Anchor one night."

Polix barked a laugh. "Well, isn't that a classy date. Where else?"

"He mentioned someplace called the Silent Quill, but I don't know where it is." Since that was the bar Remy went to meet his former master turned assassin, maybe someone there would take care of Polix.

"Never heard of it. Where else?"

"I don't know. We usually met here or in a guild safe house." We'd met in the Veiled Vaults a few times, but I didn't know if Polix knew about them. I was sure no one wanted their existence shared with the Enforcers.

"How do you get messages to him?"

"Through the message board downstairs."

Polix made a noise of disgust. "That's what Lorget said too. Is no one able to contact this man?"

"What do you want him for?" I risked asking.

"He's worth a lot of money. And so is the artifact that everyone is so desperate to find."

He peered into my face, seeming to realize that maybe I could be just as valuable. With his knife still pressed firmly against my throat, I couldn't think of any way to get loose, but it wouldn't be long before he realized I was no more useful than Lorget. If I pretended to know where the Eye was, maybe I could escape while supposedly leading him to it.

"What was the assignment you worked with him on?"

"I'm not supposed to say."

"Wrong answer," he snarled.

"I helped him steal something from Scepter Seraphim," I said quickly.

"What was it?"

"I don't know," I whined. "He didn't want a partner and told me little."

"Do you know what he did with it?"

"Yes, he hid it in a tunnel under the city."

"Where?" I could hear the eagerness in his voice.

"I don't know an address, but I can show you."

He stood and dragged me up with him. He spun me around, gripping my wrist in one hand and wrenching my arm up behind me while his other arm slid around my neck, keeping the knife at my throat. If he thought he could march me unnoticed through the streets of Sageport like this, he must be barking mad. I wasn't going to wait that long, however. When we got to the steps, I'd drop down and try to roll him over my head. I didn't know if I could flip him before he cut me, but we were going to find out.

"Let her go."

Both Polix's and my heads snapped up. Remy stood in the doorway, twirling a knife and looking bored.