Page 30 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

“You know, one might believe you have my best interests at heart if you keep helping me out like this.” I flashed Jasper a grin, but he just shook his head and set out towards the doors.

“Against my better judgement,” he muttered before waving a hand back. “I’ve got to relieve Gallan. He’ll be pissed if I’m too late.”

“Will you try to talk to her?”

He stopped and glanced back, shaking his head. “Not a chance.”

A frown tugged at my lips, but I couldn’t blame him. Jasper wasn’t much of a socializer on a good day. He was unmatched in his ability to lay out facts and information and could have the council seats eating out of his damned palm if he so chose, but pleasantries? Small talk? Goddess forbid, a joke? I’d sooner see the high fae enclave give our existence a measure of acknowledgement than see my stalwart mage taking part in any jesting.

“Oh, and Max?”

I looked up from the small spread of papers on the table to find Jasper watching me. “Hm?”

“Everything else we discussed? Before you went and made a fucking mess? We do that on my terms.”

I exhaled sharply, but nodded. “You’ve got it.”

Just like that, Jasper strode out of the war room and took my most powerful bargaining chip with him. My most tangible one, at least. It wasn’t like I could exactly tell him or the ailing princess that my mother had known this would all happen, decades before either of them were born.

Or that it had led to her death.

8

LET’S JUST BLAME IT ON THE COLD

ENORA

Time passed in the worst of ways in the dungeons of Grimm’s Keep. I didn’t know if my method of tracking a sliver of moonlight across the cragged stone wall was trustworthy timekeeping, but it was all I had to go off.

My keeper, Gallan, skirted around every question I had about the time or the date, but maybe that was for the best.

And while I was retching up my non-existent stomach contents and sweating away the rest of the moisture in my body, that sliver of moonlight would move across the wall with urgency. But when I’d finally slip into a bit of inarguable, exhaustion-driven sleep and found myself plagued with fitful images of raging fires and my dead squad mates, I’d open my eyes to find the light had barely budged.

All fucking night.

Hours of sickness. Minutes of sleep.

Never mind having to contend with the weight of the decision that Grimmoria’s king had left me with—my body was going to do me in before those three days were over.

At some point, Maksym’s enigmatic mage, Jasper, came to relieve Gallan of his duties for the night, though I never heard him arrive.

I must’ve been too tied up in trying to ease my persistent dizziness to hear the miserable cellblock door, even though I didn’t miss it when Gallan left and took my only measure of distraction with him.

He’d tried to make brief conversation with me while I warred with my body, even though I was a terrible conversation partner. Fuck, the man even tried joking with me and only reaffirmed vomiting was a thousand times worse when you were fighting a bout of laughter.

But once Jasper arrived, the silence beyond my cell was agonizing.

Sure, if I asked for more water, he brought it, and he left me with a whole loaf of bread. Conversation was off-limits, though, because my few hoarse trial questions fell to one-word responses.

Apparently, the mage did not find me worthy of knowing what the weather was like in Grimmoria. Or what day it was. Or if they celebrated the turning of seasons like we did in Odessa. Or if dark fae women were as hauntingly beautiful as the men.

I was possibly delirious when I asked that question.

My mental state improved little by the time the stream of silver moonlight disappeared. Its absence bathed my cell in darkness, save for the dull glow of blue nytefire that faded the longer the mage was my keeper.

Only minutes seemed to pass again when I was startled awake by the screech of that damned door, but the warm, russet shades of sunrise had lit my cell at last.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so happy to see it.