“But will they be like yours?”
“No one’s are like mine.” He gives a sniff.
“When did you get yours?”
“None of your businesss.”
I stop. “I’m walking with a man I trust less than half of my previous owners, on my way to consume powers in an act that for all I know is illegal and dangerous. So I’ll thank you to answer my blasted question.”
“Sixteen,” he growls.
“By the woman we’re going to now?”
He nods.
Right. “And how old are you?”
His tone falls as he slows. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just wondering how you can know she’s still here.”
He steps in front of me and stops. And leans in. “There are no guarantees of anything except I’m risking my neck to help you. So if you’re interested in having second thoughtsss, please say so now and let’s be done with thisss rather than when we’re standing on her bleeding doorstep. Are you in or not?”
I chew my lip. Stare at him. “I’m in.” I tip my head. “But let me make one thing clear. You are helping me, so I thank you for that. However, I’m not doing this for you or to help you accomplish whatever alternative reason you have for assisting me. I’m doing this for Eogan. So perhaps the better question is, are you in or not?”
His reply is simply to smirk and turn down the street toward wherever it is we’re headed.
I hurry to catch up and try to shove down the sick feeling brought on by his smile as Eogan’s and Rasha’s voices fill my head with their invasive warnings not to trust Myles.
I’m not trusting him. I’m simply . . . doing what needs to be done.
For whatever reason though, I lower my voice. “What if Eogan’s block can work against these abilities too? Won’t Draewulf just use it to cut them out like my Elemental ones?”
“Not if he doesn’t know you have them until it’s too late.”
Good point. But the nausea stays.
We’re nearing the outer edges of the city. I can tell not only because of the general direction we’ve been moving in under the cloud-covered sky, but also because of the buildings. This is the older, more embellished area. Curious. Is this mystery woman one of their elders?
He points toward a house. It’s got an old wooden door and no windows, and it’s sandwiched between two larger, fancier buildings. How he remembered this was here, I can’t imagine, but my legs suddenly feel like the chewy bread we’ve been eating. “What’s she like?” I almost ask but don’t.
He raises his fist to the door, but just before knocking, he turns and looks me up and down. “You can still change your—”
I shove in front of him and bang on the door myself.
He grins and follows up by tapping five times in some kind of rhythmic signal.
The door is opened to reveal a well-lit interior behind an unbelievably old woman nearly as short as Allen the tallish dwarf. Gray hair, gray robes, everything about her looks aged and clean and impeccably neat and, more than that, especially beautiful. A whoosh of incense puffs past her into our faces—it smells of embalming powder and fish.
My lungs gag up my throat.
“You are here for my services?”
CHAPTER 19
I PEER AT MYLES.
As if reading my mind, the old woman says, “No one wanders the streets past curfew unless they’re looking for a fight or a cure. I assume you’ll want the latter.”
For as aged as she looks, her voice is impeccably smooth. Like an evening tide sifting onto a sandy shore. She waves us in and clicks the door behind us. “It’ll be 650 denalla.”
Payment. How much is a denalla, and how does she know what we’re paying for?
Myles pulls out a leather purse and places it in her hands. “Eight hundred for your discretion.”
Despite my lack of fond feelings, I shoot him a grateful, “Thanks,” as she grabs it and licks her lips.
“I’m always discreet, but suit yourself.” She bestows a full grin on him beneath glittery eyes that look like ghoulishly beautiful pits. She peers closer and, quick as a blink, stretches a hand out to grab his chin. “I remember you. The half-breed.”
A half-breed? My eyes widen. Of what?
He sneers at me a clear warning—if I open my mouth or breathe a word of what I’ve just heard, he will likely kill me and Eogan himself.
Releasing his face, the old woman beckons us into a low-ceilinged room cluttered with too many shelves arranged haphazardly against the walls. Bottles and dried weeds appear shoved at random along them, crowding every inch of their spaces. In fact, every surface in the room is covered besides the table standing in the center. On that sits a short stack of books and a single elegant bowl.
I sniff and suddenly Myles and I are both shrinking back.