His breath caught as her eyes flashed in fear. “I don’t know anything else.”
He cradled her to his chest as he rubbed her back. “Just because you do not know now doesn’t mean you cannot learn. We can help you.”
“Why?” It was a soft plea.
“Because that is what you do for friends.”
“I am your friend?”
“I’d like to think so, yes.” And he meant it, arms wrapped around her shoulders.
She jerked up straight. “Then I think I will call you Cay.” Her voice was quick and bright.
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “I don’t think Brendan knew what he was starting.”
“Starting what?”
“Never mind.” She slid from his side, devoid of her earlier sadness. Her emotions ran so hot and fast he wondered if he was going to need a scorecard to track them.
“So other than bad Keena, what did you think of the Tribunal?”
“It’s big. I didn’t really see much but hallways. Does Keena wish to hurt Brendan?”
“No, Keena wishes to date Brendan.”
“But he doesn’t want to…date?”
“No.”
“But her actions to try and force him do hurt him?”
“It’s more like they annoy him. A minor irritation he has to deal with more than he would like.”
“But she should not be trying to force him to do something he does not want to do?”
“No, she shouldn’t.”
Eylsa clapped in excitement. “Arna, she wants Brendan to do this date also. That is why he doesn’t like her?”
“No, Arna is a completely different animal. Arna is very strict. She likes discipline and order, propriety. She thinks that the only reason Brendan and Trey got their positions at the Tribunal is because they are friends with Darius.”
“And that would be bad?”
“If they didn’t deserve it, yes. Darius put in a good word for all of us, but we were hired on our own merits.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then why does Brendan not just tell Arna?”
“Our world isn’t always that easy.”
“My world is much easier.”
“Maybe, but easy doesn’t mean right.” He pulled some paper from his pocket and spread it out on the table beside him. “Eylsa, what do you remember of the school where you were trained?”
Her face went blank, her eyes glazed. “Every morning we had to wake before the sun. It is hard to train your body when you are young, so many of us slept in shifts. I would sleep for a few hours, then my roommate would sleep. That way, one of us would be up when the sun started to rise.”
“What would happen to you if you slept through sunrise?”
“The pink potion.”
He looked up at her. “What is the pink potion?”
“It tastes very sweet, like honey, and you think it is a reward, but it will not allow you to sleep for three days and it tightens all your muscles into cramps. Your eyes will not shut, your legs won’t bend. You just have to stand there until it wears off. After three days you are so tired you could sleep for three days but you have to be up with the sun again in the morning. If you miss the morning after a pink potion, you get a double shot. A double shot and every muscle tightens so bad that you can’t even shut your mouth. Your hands are like claws. When it wears off you slip into a coma for at least a week.”
She started to pace the room as her hand absently played with the hair hanging down her chest. “When you wake up, first is running. We ran the perimeter of the fence for hours in bare feet. You have to get your feet so that they are hard. It is not for years until they allow you shoes. After running was weapons. Several when you are young, until they find your talents. I excelled in bows and knives, so later that is where my focus was. Then we had meals, bread and broth.”
“No breakfast?”
“What is breakfast?”
“The morning meal. What did you eat for it?”
“We had noon meals.”
Cade paused as he eyed her. “Yes, but what did you eat in the morning?”
“We didn’t eat in the morning, we ate at noon.”
He closed his eyes. “Okay, you ate at noon. Is that all you ate?”
Her brow wrinkled. “How many times is one supposed to eat?”
He searched her face for a moment. “We eat three meals. Morning, noon, and evening.”
“No wonder you were always trying to force food on me when I came here. That seems like a lot of eating.”
“It really isn’t. We don’t gorge at each meal, it is just to fuel our bodies so we can work.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And once isn’t enough for that?”
He waved her off. “You’ll get used to it.”
“What was your school like?”
“We had to get up with the sun too, but we had bells that got us up. If we slept through the bells, our punishment was to have to sit and be quiet in a room by ourselves.”
“That is punishment?” Her voice held an incredulity that, coupled with her twisted face, brought up a chuckle that he fought to suppress.
He shrugged. “It’s boring. Works well on most kids. After we got up, we had breakfast of eggs, oatmeal, toast, juice…the normal breakfast foods. Then we had classes. General at first, like yours, then more specialized as our talents came out.”
“Classes on weapons? When did you exercise?”
“We had classes on defense, not really on weapons, and we had free times throughout the day where we were allowed to run and play.”
Eylsa’s eyes widened. “Free time? You were just given free time?”
He could feel his lips curl. “Yeah, each day we had time to ourselves to be with our friends.”
“How did they maintain order?”
He shrugged. “We had rules to follow and punishment when we broke those rules.”
“Like being left in a room by yourself?”
“Among other things. We had chores, lines. Once a teacher got so angry with Brendan and Trey she made them stand in a corner the entire class.”
Her stare was flat. “And what did that do?”
“Embarrassed them mostly.”
“If you angered our teachers, they would send you to Grull.”
“What is Grull?”
“Grull was in charge of discipline. He would chain you up in the basement by your ankles and take a hot poker to your back.”
“And what would that be punishment for?”
“Speaking, wasting food, tripping, not knowing an answer, not answering quick enough, not—”
“Okay, I get it. Pretty much everything was met with harsh punishment.”
“That wasn’t harsh.”
“No, Eylsa, that is pretty harsh.”
“No, Grull was for minor offenses. If you committed a major offense you were sent to the oven room.”
Cade’s stomach cringed in anticipation. “What would happen in the oven room?”
“Nothing much. You were shackled to a post in the middle of the room with no shoes or clothes. The floor was too hot to touch and so were the walls. Your feet began to burn immediately, but usually they were already pretty tough from the running so it was tolerable, for a while anyway. But eventually the heat got to you, and the fatigue. There was no way to tell how long you were in there, no way to rest. You get no food, no water, you just stand in the room sweating and smelling your feet cooking beneath you.”
Cade closed his eyes, holding his stomach. “And what was that punishment for.”
“Failure, refusal, assisting another student that was not part of your hive.”
“Was there a higher tier of punishment, above cooking you?”
She stopped, facing away from him. “If you needed more punishment than that, they killed you.”
“Did you know anyone who was…killed?”
“My first roommate. She tried to run away.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Did you know anyone?”
&n
bsp; He blinked back tears. “No one was killed at my school.”
She nodded. “You had a good class.”
He couldn’t keep his hand from his face as he snatched up the paper and headed for the door. “I’ll, uh, come and get you for dinner, okay?”
Her brow furrowed. “What is dinner?”
He stared at her for a moment, unable to comprehend the horror she had laid out for him, before pulling the door shut behind him.
Brendan was still focused on the pile of folders, the tip of his pen held between his teeth as he read. Cade dropped into a chair beside him and snatched a file for himself. Brendan glanced at him. “You voluntarily doing paperwork?”
Cade’s eyes were haunted when he looked up at his friend. “I need the distraction right now.” His gaze drifted to the ceiling before dropping to the papers before him. “Badly.”
Brendan clapped him on the shoulder. “Are we going to regret insisting on being the only ones to question them?”
“I have the feeling I will be having nightmares for a while.”
Brendan’s eyes grew wide. “That bad?”
“I really don’t want to think about it right now. Let’s just, focus on work for a while.”
Brendan tilted his head. “Did you hear that?”
Cade looked up glancing around the room. “Hear what?”
The house gave a violent lurch.
* * *
Brendan grabbed Cade’s arm, launching to his feet as the front door splintered in a ball of flame. They scrambled up the stairs, not looking back. Brendan pulled his homing device from his pocket, catching Cade’s eyes as they made the landing.
“Tribunal!”
Eylsa rushed from her room and he crashed into her, pulling her body to his as he pressed the device.
Hands flung out before him, he caught most of his weight before they crashed to the street in front of the tall building.
Eylsa stared up at him as he pulled himself to his feet. She was unflustered. “What is going on?”
“Someone attacked the house. Come on.” He held out his hand and jerked her from the ground.
Cade appeared beside them. “Let’s get inside. That was as close as I want to get to fire for the day.”
“What about Gregor?” Being jerked across town she didn’t bat an eye at, but the loss of her temperamental Gregor…
“Was he there?” Cade asked.
“He’ll be coming back.” Her voice rose in anxiety.
“We can’t worry about that right now. He’s smart enough to not walk in on whatever it was we just left.”
She opened her mouth to argue but Brendan jerked her along behind him. “He’ll be all right. We will find him, but we have to get you somewhere safe first.”
Cade pressed her toward the entrance. “Brendan is right, just keep moving.”
Several sets of eyes swung toward them as they stepped into the darkened lobby. Brendan shifted Eylsa behind him as several people around them began to whisper. Cade shot him a nervous glance as they moved through the buzzing throng. “Cade, get the elevator.”
He rushed past them as Brendan pulled Eylsa closer to his side. “Brendan…”
“It’s okay, just stay with me.”
He threw her in front of him into the elevator and he and Cade stepped backward through the doors, sighing in relief as they began to close. The doors bounced open again and Eylsa shoved them aside, kicking Arna in the chest as she opened her mouth. Eylsa fell back between them as the elevator doors slid closed.
Brendan held up a finger. “I don’t think that will be good for my career.”
Eylsa crossed her arms. “I thought we were in a hurry and she is not conducive to speed. Besides, she is not nice.”
Cade leaned toward him with an impish grin. “Growing on you now, isn’t she?”
Brendan couldn’t hide his smile as he shook his finger at her. “No kicking.”
The doors opened onto the fifth floor. Darius stood outside his office.
“Expecting us?”
“Arna called up screaming that you are carting around kidnapped royalty.” Darius pulled the office door shut behind them. “What were you thinking running around the Tribunal with her?”
“The house was attacked. We didn’t have time for anything else.”
Darius’ face tightened with concern but only mild shock. “Is everyone all right?”
“It was only the three of us there.”
His eyes narrowed in amused suspicion. “Who kicked Arna?”
Brendan glared at him. “Do you really have to ask that?”
Darius gave a sharp clap. “Okay, we need a safe house. She’s going to need a disguise to get there. Where is Trey?”
Cade shrugged. “You’d have to ask Arna.”
Brendan smiled. “He might just have to catch up later. I doubt she is in any mood to answer questions.”
“We need to find Gregor!” Eylsa’s voice was getting higher in the most emotion Brendan could remember her ever showing.
Darius turned to face her. “Will he know enough to come to the Tribunal if he sees the house compromised?”
“It is not if he will know, it is if he will.”
Brendan waved his arms wide. “Anyone remember the people trying to kill us? Or the boss trying to fire me? Could we focus for a moment here?”
Darius moved to his desk. “Thank you Brendan, you are right of course.” He pulled a large book from a bottom drawer in his desk. Dust jumped in a large cloud when he dropped it onto the papers piled around his workspace. “This book is linked to the Tribunal’s safe house registry. It is set to erase if any save me touch it.”
Cade glanced at the door. “You may want to read fast.”
A finger trailed along the list of streets and houses and his search stopped in the center of the page. “This one here will do. Brendan, you will be staying with her as her cover. Give me your homing devices.” He set the address in a flash of deft fingers. “Get settled in. I’ll stay here and get it registered and try to calm Arna.”
Brendan caught the device as footsteps rushed toward the door behind him. A smile crept across his face as Eylsa slid her fingers into his.
When he pressed the homing device, the walls blurred around them and solidified into a strange room with cloth-covered furniture.
Eylsa walked to the end of his arm, looking around. “We are safe now?”
“That’s the idea.” Cade flashed beside him. “At least for a while.”
“But you will bring Gregor?”
Cade patted his shoulder in sympathy. “We will fetch your wayward Gregor; have no fear.”
“Maybe Trey will bring him. Don’t worry, he’s a big scary assassin, remember.”
Eylsa glared at him dropping his hand.
* * *
“So now what?”
Cade shrugged and pulled his parchment from his pocket. “We need to get enough information from you to keep the Tribunal interested before they kick us out.” He flapped the tarp off an overstuffed sofa. “We’re going to have to ask questions about the Trinity.”
Brendan circled the room, lifting sheets and tarps as he went. “Not such a bad place. Doesn’t looked like it is used often.” He ducked into a doorway and returned in a blink. “We’ll need some food.”
Cade waved him off. “We’ll worry about that after we keep the Tribunal from throwing you out.”
Eylsa cocked her head as she sank onto the couch beside Cade. “Why would they throw you out? You are a part of them.”
Cade tipped his head and narrowed his eyes. “It’s complicated. Darius is probably doing some fast-talking right now keeping them from adding us to the wanted criminal roster. You have to remember, in our world, you are a missing princess.”
“And we are now your kidnappers.” Brendan collapsed beside her. “Aren’t you glad you came!”
Cade shot him a reproachful glare. “Darius said the king and his son are likely part of the Trinity. Is that tru
e?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor. “Yes.”
“Who all knows this?”
She shook her head. “Practically no one. Not even most of the guards or staff know.”
Cade scribbled. “The men you killed, when we all first met, they were all part of the Trinity. Why were you ordered to kill them?”
“They were in Master’s way. He wanted them removed.”
“He’s not your master. ‘In his way’ how?”
“I don’t know exactly, he never really explained.”
Cade leaned toward her. “But surely you know something about why they were eliminated.”
Her ire rose to meet his intensity. “Where exactly do you think an assassin lies in the chain of command, Cay? I was not in his confidences; he told me who to kill and I killed them.”
Brendan pressed a hand to his mouth as he fought to hide a grin. “Cay?”
Cade ignored him. “Okay, you didn’t know why, but you knew who. Perhaps a list of names, everything you know about each one…maybe that will be enough to keep them interested.”
Brendan clapped his hands to the cushions. “Good idea, Cay. Why don’t you see to that, and I will go out and get some food.”
Cade glared up at him. “You do that, Bren.”
Brendan’s face dropped all emotion. “That’s not funny.”
Eylsa jumped to her feet. “Are you sure it’s safe? What if someone sees you?”
He shook his head and tapped a finger on her nose. “Don’t you worry about me. Without your pretty face on my arm, I will be quite inconspicuous.”
Her brow wrinkled as he turned and left. “What does that mean?”
Cade glanced up from his parchment. “That means that you are the one everyone is looking for. We are not known yet. It will take a while before it is known that we are the ones hiding you, though it will be soon seeing as they knew to look for you at Darius’.”
“But how do you know they do not already know Brendan? They obviously saw me at the house or they wouldn’t have been there. They could have seen any of you!”
Cade smiled as he patted the couch beside him. “Sit down. Brendan will be fine. Perhaps one day we can show each other that we are capable of taking care of ourselves.”
Her pout was petulant as she crossed her arms. “You are laughing at me.”
Cade fought to control his chuckling. “No, I’m not laughing at you. I’m just…pleased that you are showing concern.”
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