“Oh no. Not them.”
“Oh yes. Them. It’s all arranged. Darzin’s taking care of it.” Talon laughed at Ola’s expression. “I work for Darzin now. Isn’t that funny?” She put her hands on either side of her mouth and stage-whispered, “He has no idea I used to be Lyrilyn.”
Ola tried to explain, tried to reason with her. Lyrilyn … after all these years. “Please. His father—”
“Oh, don’t worry so; Kihrin will be fine. Surdyeh and that new dancing girl of yours? Not so fine.”
“Oh goddess…”
Talon nodded and tapped Ola’s cheek affectionately. “Yes, exactly. That’s what I always used to say. The goddess wouldn’t give us more than we can handle.” She tilted her head in a position of contemplation. “Of course, that must mean I really am sane. Hmmm?” Again, she shrugged. “Good, bad, crazy, sane. Doesn’t matter. I’ll let you in on a great secret, Ola. For ol’ times sake.” Talon winked at Ola.
“Yes?” Ola asked hesitantly. She knew a trap when she saw one.
Talon leaned in close. She leaned in until her mouth rested right next to Ola’s ear and whispered, “You all taste just like mutton.”
Ola closed her eyes, shivering.
Talon leaned back again, laughing.
“I never meant to hurt you, Lily. You have to believe that.” Reasoning with Lyrilyn was her only chance. If she could convince Lily to let her go …
Talon nodded amiably. “As much as I have dreamt of squeezing the life from your throat, my dear dark beauty, I see that’s true. You didn’t mean to hurt me. But you did. And that’s nothing compared to what you were going to do to that little baby boy.”
Ola felt her stomach lodge in her throat. “No,” she protested. “That’s not true. I raised him like he was my own child.”
Talon’s eyes narrowed. In that same instant, Ola threw herself past the mimic to reach the door. Talon grabbed Ola by the throat and lifted her into the air. Ola made grating, gasping sounds as she tried to draw breath. Finally, Talon released her. She fell to the floor in a sobbing pile.
“Ola, Ola, Ola.” Talon walked around her, standing one foot on the matron’s back to push her down flat. “Don’t lie to someone who is reading your mind, sweet. Do you know why I didn’t look for you, afterward?”
“No,” Ola sobbed, her voice all but lost under the sound of her crying.
Talon bent down and said, “I didn’t look for you because I—knew—you wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay in the Capital. You had one job to do. One. It never even occurred to me that you would actually LEAVE Kihrin in this shithole.” Talon punctuated her last sentence with an angry kick to Ola’s side.
Ola held her stomach, gasping as she rolled into a fetal ball. In between sobbing breaths, she gathered enough strength to pull herself up. “If you can read minds, you know I’m not lying. How safe would Kihrin have been, back with his mother’s family? With an uncle who’d tried to kill his mother and you could be damn sure would do the same to him? Surdyeh said the stone wouldn’t allow anyone to find him. He was safe here. Safer than he would have been anywhere else.”
“Surdyeh? Surdyeh said that, did he?” Talon glanced over her shoulder, toward the bedroom. “I don’t believe I had the pleasure before I killed him. You meet this ‘Surdyeh’ down here in the Lower Circle?”
Ola closed her eyes as sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. The casual way Lyrilyn spoke of his death left her with no doubt she’d really done it. Surdyeh was dead. “Yes, he—he worked for me.”
A small frown crossed Talon’s face. “And you trusted him? You trusted him enough to tell him about the Stone of Shackles? Since when have you been that stupid?”
Talon’s words were a slap across the face, a bracing reminder of Ola’s own well-honed paranoia. “He—” Ola inhaled with a sob, and a new expression crossed her face: confusion. Why had she trusted Surdyeh? It seemed ridiculous now. Her brow furrowed. She frowned in concentration as she tried to remember when and where she’d first met the man.
“We were friends—he would never betray me—” Her speech faltered, and she again halted in bafflement. Never betray her? When had she ever in her life thought a person immune to betrayal from another?
“Huh,” Talon said. “I know you weren’t lovers. And you couldn’t have known him for longer than you’ve owned the Club. Yet you trusted him. Doesn’t that seem odd? You, who have never trusted anyone in your whole life?”
Ola swallowed, half turning. She rubbed her upper lip. How had they met? “He made so much sense—keep Kihrin here, it would be the last place anyone would look—it was so easy to talk to Surdyeh—”
“He was right, but the fact that you believed him—why that’s interesting, don’t you think?” Talon grinned and chucked Ola under the chin. “Sweet cheeks, don’t you see? Someone cast a spell on you!”
Ola felt her blood chill in her veins. She looked up at Talon with wide eyes. “I didn’t know—”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart.” Talon put her arms around Ola and helped the shaking woman to her feet, her hands clamped like manacles to keep Ola from running or collapsing. “I know. You feel violated. Used. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. But you should be grateful. Honestly you should light a candle to Surdyeh’s memory every chance you have: because of that enchantment, I’m not going to kill you quite yet. Isn’t that nice of me?”
Ola’s lips trembled. “I didn’t know he was a wizard.”
Talon patted Ola on the head, and Ola felt her skin crawl as she realized that Talon still had both arms wrapped around her. “Oh sweetmeat, it’s not like you had any way to tell. And blind people have a real incentive to learn to see beyond the First Veil. So, isn’t that interesting? Surdyeh made very sure you weren’t going anywhere, but why? What was his game? And who was holding his leash? I’m dying to know who.”
“Gendal.” The name came to her lips before she was even aware what she was saying. “I met him the same night I met Gendal.” She shuddered.
Talon’s eyes widened. “The old Emperor? That Gendal? Just so we’re clear…”
“That Emperor. But Lily, it was years before you fled with that baby.” Pure shock drove Ola back to her seat again, and this time Talon didn’t try to stop her. “If it was a setup, how could the Emperor have possibly known so far in advance?”
“Oh, I don’t know, but I plan to find out. The boy doesn’t know, does he? You never told him about his precious family.”
Ola shook her head.
Talon shrugged. “His own fault for trusting you.” She looked at her nails. “Trust is for the weak. Anyway, you’re not going to see Kihrin again, you understand?”
Ola had no problem understanding. She didn’t even disagree. If Talon took her back to the Blue Palace, her most likely fate was an extended stay with one of their best torturers before she was finally allowed the luxury of death. “Yes—”