Sandy Williams - The Sharpest Blade

Glazunov licks his cracked lips, then, to my surprise, he leans forward and accepts the cup. He stares at its rippling surface for a handful of seconds—

—then launches the cup at my head.

It thumps against my temple. A weak throw, but the water soaks into my shirt, and it’s freaking cold.

I blow out a breath between my teeth. “Okay. I should have seen that coming.”

He reaches for the tray. I lean forward, slapping my hand down on it before he can flip it into my lap. He uses my close proximity against me, grabbing a fistful of my hair. Damn!

I swing the tray into his side. He lets out a curse, but doesn’t let go of my hair.

I’m not afraid. I’m pissed—mainly at myself for getting too close to him—so I swing a blind punch at his face. Another into his gut, but the damn vigilante won’t let go.

“If you want your hand to remain attached to your arm, you’ll release her.”

Aren’s voice is calm and close. He’s standing just to my left, I think. I’m able to turn my head enough that I can peer up at him sideways, my hair half-covering my face. I blow out a breath, moving a few locks aside for a better view.

His expression is as calm as his voice despite the fact that he has a dagger pressed against Glazunov’s wrist.

Glazunov’s fingers finally loosen. I pull my hair free, then slide back a couple of feet.

“Perhaps another scoot,” Aren suggests, looking down at me, his eyebrows slightly raised.

I feel myself blush. I should have known better than to get too close to the vigilante. The fact that Aren saw my, um, predicament, is downright embarrassing.

“What would I do without you?” I mutter as I get to my feet with some semblance of dignity.

He chuckles.

I glare at Aren before turning my attention back to Glazunov. He’s backed himself against the wall again and is dragging air into his lungs. He overexerted himself. I would have gotten free from him on my own eventually. I might have lost some hair in the process, but I didn’t need saving.

“I see you’ve made a lot of progress with him,” Aren teases.

I ignore him as I squat down a safe distance from the vigilante and meet his eyes. “Lee said you’re in charge of the vigilantes now and that you helped create the Sight serum.”

“And he and his little friend, Paige, are going to die,” Glazunov says. Apparently, he has enough strength to sneer. “Yes. What a pity.”

I do my best not to let his words affect me. Aren never lets his enemies affect him. He makes it look easy to shrug off their hate-filled words. It’s not.

“You’ve given the serum to other humans. To vigilantes,” I say. “You want them to survive, don’t you?”

I’m watching his face carefully, looking for some sign of compassion or remorse, but he just stares at me as if he’s imagining strangling me. Gentle questions aren’t going to get answers from him. He was Nakano’s second-in-command. You don’t rise to the top of an organization like his by compromising on your beliefs. Glazunov hates the fae and any human who associates with them.

“We have ways of making you cooperate,” Aren says. His arms are loosely crossed, and he’s standing beside me all cool and relaxed. It’s a calculated indifference, though. His posture is saying he’s in control and that Glazunov is so insignificant he could squash him with his thumb.

My heart thumps in my chest, and my need for information wars with my conscience. Firmer methods of persuasion are common in the Realm. I don’t like that fact, but I like the idea of the serum killing Paige, Lee, and other humans even less.

“Look,” I say. “Lee is talking to the person who created the serum.” Talking to is a stretch—I imagine he’s abducting Charles Bowman the same as he did Glazunov—but I’m trying to find a painless way to get the information out of Glazunov. “We’ll find a way to fix it, but we need to know who’s taken it. We need to know if you’re still giving it to people.”

“We have magics that can make you talk,” Aren says, taking a too-casual step forward. “You won’t like my methods. I suggest you not make me use them. It would be . . . uncomfortable for you, and the outcome will be the same either way.”

“I won’t tell you anything,” Glazunov says, but he doesn’t look as certain as he did before. He’s pressing his back against the wall, putting as much space as possible between him and Aren.

“You’ll tell us everything,” Aren says in a level, confident voice. “You’ll tell us how you developed the serum. You’ll tell us who knows about it and who’s taken it. You’ll tell us what makes it fatal and how to cure the humans who’ve already injected it.”

“And you’ll tell us if you’re selling it,” I put in.

Glazunov’s gaze locks on me, surprised, I think. But I have a sinking suspicion I know the answer to that last question. The elari in Tholm said the serum was being sold. Maybe there was a tiny bit of truth in that accusation. The serum is being sold, but not by Lena. It’s being sold by the freaking vigilantes.

“You can go roast in hell,” Glazunov says.

Aren steps forward, then crouches down a couple of feet in front of Glazunov. “You’re going to start answering our questions now.”

The vigilante’s nostrils flare. “You’re going to have to kill me.”

Aren’s cold laugh raises goose bumps on my skin. “No, we won’t do that. After all, you don’t kill the fae you manage to capture.” A pause. “Yes, we know what you do to them. Your experiments. We want to learn more about you, as well, and we’re always looking for a disposable human to dissect.”

I bite my tongue to keep from calling bullshit right there. The fae always go out of their way to protect humans. Well, most of the fae do. Aren’s bluffing.

“Tell us how the Sight serum kills,” I say, putting a gentle plea into my voice. The look I give Glazunov says that he can trust me. I’m with him and want to help him.

Glazunov shakes his head. No loud, profanity-laced outburst. I think he might be breaking.

“This is Jorreb,” I say, indicating Aren. “He has an . . . interesting magical ability. He can pry the information we want from your mind. I don’t want him to have to do that. It will hurt. You may not survive it.”

Those are the words Aren said to me the first time I met Lorn. They nearly broke me. Never mind that it turned out that Lorn’s mind-reading magic doesn’t work on humans, no one knew it at the time. I believed the rebels would get the information they wanted out of me one way or the other. Glazunov looks like he believes it, too. His gaze flickers to Aren.

This is going to work. If I didn’t know Aren, I’d be terrified of him.

“My patience is running thin,” Aren says.

“You have to talk if you want me to help you,” I say.

Glazunov stubbornly clenches his teeth together, but sweat glistens on his forehead.

Quicker than I can follow, Aren grabs the vigilante’s forearm. Glazunov squirms and the first signs of true terror shine in his eyes as he stares at the lightning on his skin, lightning he can suddenly feel.

“What’s wrong with the serum?” I ask.

Panic crawls across the human. He tries to pry Aren’s hand off his arm, and he starts shaking and scratching as if cockroaches are crawling over his skin.

I frown. I’m almost certain Aren’s not using any magic. Tiny edarratae would be flickering across his hand if he was, but there’s only an occasional flash of light when one of Glazunov’s . . . Oh.

I almost laugh. It’s Aren’s touch, the enticing, delicious heat of it, that’s freaking the vigilante out.

“Let go!” Glazunov screams.