Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Don’t you share a bond now? Didn’t you feel this?”
Weston glided his fingers over the back of my neck, standing close but not touching anywhere else. He was probably afraid he’d encounter glass. “Barely twinges, like a paper cut. Her tolerance for pain is . . .” He shook his head. “She endured the same sort of abuse Finley and I did, but at a younger age. She taught herself to go numb against it.”
Nyfain’s power seeped out of him, giving me those flight butterflies. His gaze was severe. “Aurelia, there is a difference between suppressed healing and magical healing. You might heal quickly now, but that does not mean you are immune to life-threatening or permanent ailments. You still need to take care of yourself. Please be more careful in your pursuits.”
“I’ll do better,” I said automatically.
His power relaxed a bit, my answer sufficient.
“I know the answer, though,” I murmured, not wanting to look up and meet his eyes again lest I get the urge to take off. “I did this. I created that coating—the first layers of it, anyway. A while back—years ago—I accidentally made a product with chemicals that made it more habit-forming than the others. Raz was a nightmare. He kept hounding me about it, and he threw up in the work shed more than once. Rather than just fixing it, I asked Granny about it. She then asked around and came back with reports that it was making people feel sick. But we had more orders for it. I fixed it shortly thereafter, and sales fell back to normal. Not right away, but the uptick we’d seen died away. I bet you anything that is what gave her the idea. She’s smart. She would’ve put two and two together.”
“But she didn’t ask you to change it back?” Weston asked.
“No. I won’t put out a product that makes a person feel sick. I might have a shit job that is on the wrong side of the law, but I take pride in my work. Addiction and pain are not what they are for. She clearly took my methods and employed someone else to work them.”
“She knows your methods?” Nyfain asked.
“She has a write-up of every new product I make. I turn it in with each crate of that first batch.”
“We didn’t find anything like that in her city residence,” Weston said, looking at Nyfain. “And we didn’t hear anything about the second production village until Aurelia was captured. We have no idea where it is.”
“The write-up for Project X is at the bottom of the crate, under the product. That’s a first batch headed to market. The write-up goes under so it won’t flutter away when it’s wheeled out to the pickup point. We learned the hard way. As far as that production village . . . give me time.” Determination fueled the fire within me. “My journals seem like only feelings and bad days, but they are helping me remember periods that I clearly didn’t want to. I didn’t write down a lot of Alexander’s news, afraid of the retaliation I’d get if he ever found out, but I remember bits and pieces. I’m trying to remember more. I’m hoping there will be something useful.”
The library was quiet for a long beat as everyone looked at me.
“What?” I asked, lifting my eyebrows. “Oh, right. Depressing life. Sorry. Usually Hadriel is on hand to make fun of it and cheer everyone up. Where is he, anyway?”
“He had to see to the queen,” Vemar said. “He handles a lot of her day-to-day affairs.”
“I must confess,” Nyfain said after a beat, “I didn’t think you’d try very hard to find a cure knowing a nasty punishment awaited your success. It seems I was wrong. You not only started working at the crack of dawn, you blew yourself up and are reacquainting yourself with a depressing past to accomplish it. It’s . . . well, shocking.”
“It’s really not. I spent the first part of my adulthood working as hard and diligently as I could to keep from being thrown out with nothing. I’m now spending all that energy to keep from going back to that place and that life. My motives might have changed, but my work ethic has not. I’ve been trained to grind, been punished if I slack. That sort of mentality doesn’t go away overnight. Punishment is just”—I shrugged—“part of life.”
“A very depressing life, yes,” Vemar said, still looking through the books. He stage-whispered to me, “I’ll keep trying to fill in for Hadriel and think of some jokes about it.”
“Gee, thanks,” I murmured, but couldn’t help a smirk. It did actually make things seem less tragic.
The king studied me for another long moment.
“I understand all too well,” he finally said. In that moment, all my fears about him relaxed. In that moment, I could tell he knew my struggles and appreciated the hustler, the fighter, the person who didn’t know how to say die. It felt like, somehow, we had that in common.