“Afraid it might interfere with your Spartan killer instincts?” A faint sneering note crept into his voice.
“Something like that.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Lance put the bottle down and leaned back against the bar. I wandered around the room, looking at the weapons on the walls. No identification cards hung next to the swords, but they were all finely made, with fancy jeweled hilts and sharp, polished blades. I wondered if any of them were the weapons Lance’s dad had stolen from the Protectorate warehouse, but there was no way to tell.
“Rory,” Takeda murmured through my earbud again. “There aren’t any cameras in that office, so we can’t see you. Say something and let me know that you’re okay.”
I stopped in front of a bronze sword and pretended to admire it. “Your dad has a really cool weapons collection.”
“I guess. I’m not into weapons myself,” Lance said. “I like artifacts much better. What about you, Rory? Do you like artifacts?”
My back was to him, so he didn’t see my eyes widen. I blinked away my surprise, schooled my face into a neutral expression, and turned to face him.
“Artifacts?” I shrugged. “They’re okay, I guess. I’ve never really had much to do with them.”
Lance’s gaze sharpened, as though he’d caught me in a lie. “Really? I find that hard to believe, since your parents were such bigtime Reaper assassins. Surely they must have stolen some artifacts too.”
Shock rippled through me. Why was he talking about my parents? Especially about them stealing artifacts? Once again, I got the feeling that Lance was fishing for information. That sinking feeling in my stomach intensified. The only reason he would be doing that, the only reason he would be asking me these kinds of questions, was if he was a Reaper himself.
I wasn’t surprised. Not really. Not after everything Takeda and the others had told me about Lance wanting revenge for his dad’s death. But disappointment filled me all the same. I had liked him so much last year, but now he was a bad guy. Or maybe he had always been a bad guy, and I had been crushing on him too hard to see the truth until now. Either way, I was sick and tired of Reapers and all their stupid mind games.
“Well, Rory?” Lance asked again. “Do you think your parents ever stole any artifacts?”
His snide tone burned away my disappointment and made anger sizzle through me instead. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t know anything about my parents being Reapers. Not that that’s any of your business.”
Lance held up his hands in apology. “You’re taking this the wrong way. I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just the opposite. I think it’s really interesting that your parents were Reapers.”
“And why is that?”
“Haven’t you ever thought about what it would be like? To be a Reaper?”
I frowned. “Of course not. Why would I think about something like that?”
“Why wouldn’t you think about something like that?” His blue eyes glittered with a strange, bright light. “I mean, surely there were hints that your parents were Reapers. Didn’t you ever suspect them?”
I shifted on my feet. “No. I never suspected them. I never had a clue.”
And I really hadn’t. Rebecca and Tyson Forseti had been my mom and dad, the parents I loved, the warriors I had strived so hard to be like. I had never suspected they were anything else, and I had never dreamed in my darkest nightmares that they were Reapers. But apparently, being Reapers had been more important to my parents than anything else, including me, since they’d never told me anything about it. Not one single word.
And what had being Reapers gotten them in the end? Nothing but dead, dead, dead, and me with a broken heart, desperately trying to understand why they’d done so many terrible things. That made me angrier than anything else—that I would never get the chance to ask them why.
More and more anger surged through my body, like matches flaring to life, but they burned out just as quickly, replaced by that familiar combination of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. Once again, that icy frost coated my heart, numbing me from the inside out. This time, I welcomed the chill. I didn’t want to feel the sharp sting of my parents’ betrayal. Not again. And especially not now, when I was facing a dangerous enemy.
Lance pushed away from the bar, walked over, and stopped right in front of me. “Ever since I found out about your parents, I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Rory.”
As far as pickup lines went, that was the worst one ever. What kind of sick game was Lance playing? Was he trying to upset me so that he could attack me by surprise? He didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons, but I still dropped my hand to Babs’s hilt.
“Really? Why? Have you been planning how you can mock me like all the other academy kids?” I snarked. “Well, don’t bother. They all did a bang-up job of it last school year, and they’re doing the exact same thing again this year. They’ve made an art form out of it.”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. In fact, I admire your parents for being Reapers.”
Of course he did, since he was a Reaper himself. As much as I would have liked to punch Lance in the face for talking about my parents, I forced myself to focus on the others murmuring updates through our earbuds. Zoe and Ian were still trying to open that safe to get the chimera scepter, which meant that I needed to keep Lance busy for at least a few more minutes.
So I decided to play dumb. “Why would you admire my parents? Reapers are evil. They hurt and kill other people. Reapers used to do those things in service to Loki, but now I suppose they do them just because they can, just because they want to, just because they like hurting other people.”
Excitement sparked in Lance’s gaze, and he snapped his fingers. “Exactly! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I always thought it was stupid that the Reapers worked so long and hard to serve an exiled god. I was actually glad when Gwen Frost and her friends defeated Loki and locked him away for good. Who is Loki to tell us what to do? Why should he rule us? Why shouldn’t we be the ones to rule this world and everyone in it, including the regular mortals?”
“What are you talking about?” I wasn’t playing dumb anymore. Now I was genuinely confused by all the riddles and nonsense that he kept spouting.
“I’m talking about the Reapers doing what they should have done all along, taking control of things, not for Loki or some other god but for themselves.”