Page 48 of Reaper's Quest

But…

I rubbed Mr. Aldine’s upper arm. “Should we try to get him out of the citadel and find him help beyond this cursed place? Surely we can get Mr. Aldine out the same way we got in.”

“Surely,” Chace mimicked. “But what good will it do to get Aldine outside of the citadel if there isn’t a train waiting to whisk him off to a safer location?”

I nodded, more to myself than to Chace. We needed someone on the outside to make arrangements for the train, given the citadel sat outside any routine stop. We needed to make a call…to my father, his father, or Superior Grim. Somebody up the chain of command.

I pulled my electronic communicator from my side pocket. As my father had suspected, the device had zero reception. The communicator now served as nothing more than a paperweight I could toss at the next attacking shadow monster.

“Dead.” I slipped the useless piece of tech back into my pocket as Chace checked his electronic wristband.

“Mine, too,” he said to the sound of heavy footfalls descending the stairs.

“Could it be we have company?” Aoes’s words reached us before he walked into the room. “Winter. You have returned.” At the sight of Mr. Aldine, Aoes’s smile slipped from his lips, and he dashed forward. “What happened? Is he all right?”

“He needs a healer,” Chace snapped.

Since I knew he worried about Mr. Aldine—as I—I chose to ignore his rudeness.

Aoes turned to rush away, but I grabbed his arm. “It’s work related.”

I had no clue whatworkmeant to him with regard to me and my team, but I prayed the message translated properly to keep the situation quiet. Out of the eyes and ears of higher authorities…at least until Chace and I could assess what thosehigher authoritiesknew and how they felt about reapers.

Aoes nodded and then darted behind the bar. He grabbed a small piece of parchment and started scribbling. After folding the quick note he’d written, he sealed it in a glass jar.

He jogged to the back of the room where he shoved the receptacle into a long tube that dropped from the ceiling. The message shot away with aswoosh.

“Winter.” Aoes swiveled toward the male seated a few tables away. “Could you not have already sent for the healer?”

Winter leaned back in his chair and took a sip of ale, his attention steady on my group…or maybe he watchedonlyme.

My skin prickled and my stomach flipped under his heated gaze.

He tilted his head toward Aoes. “I’ve had no need for your local healer. Therefore, I know not who or where he is. And the boy there”—he tossed a flippant arm in Chace’s direction—“clearly didn’t want my help with the old codger.”

“Boy. Not even close,” Chace muttered under his breath, then clenched his teeth and, with a heavy crease pressed between his eyebrows, continued attending to Mr. Aldine., wiping the perspiration from his brow, his face, his throat.

I flicked my gaze over the man with blue eyes and snowy complexion. My perception could be distorted, but I found him heavily arrogant. Still, curiosity ruled me, never having met one of his kind before. Whatever his kind was…elven or fae. Both species well known for their distinguishing ears.

But his complexion… Rather rare in my journeys to date.

Aoes returned to our table, a deep frown marring his features.

He glanced back at Winter. “Of course you haven’t had need for my healer. But for your information, the healer is ashe.”

“Noted.” Winter took another sip of his ale and watched us in uncomfortable silence.

A dark curiosity colored his expression.

Every moment that we waited for the healer, Winter measured and judged us. I welcomed the escape when Earl escorted me, Chace, and Mr. Aldine to a room upstairs.

Not much of a space, it fit our needs, nonetheless, offering the basic necessities?a place to sleep and a place towash up. Even if the floorboards occasionally creaked underfoot.

By the time the healer finally arrived, Chace and I had Mr. Aldine propped comfortably on a bed in his own room. And we had done so without a single word or action of discord.

Chace hovered around the healer while the woman examined Mr. Aldine, and I pushed myself into the corner of the room, trying to keep out of the way and become one with the wall. With every passing moment, our elder slipped deeper into an unreachable state. His words had stilled, his gaze glossed, and his breathing labored.

So many regrets attacked my thoughts in a constant rotation of remembered mistakes. I shouldn’t have run. I should have stopped Mr. Aldine before he attempted something so foolish.