Page 9 of Shadows of Perl

He’s scared.

The urge to go to them gnaws at me. My hand slacks and Red Ball Cap wriggles from my grip. His fist slams into my nose and the world spins.

“Slick, are we,” someone behind me shouts as I blink the world back into focus. Yani whips past me in a blur of smooth black hair and deep brown skin.

Red Ball Cap darts to the doorway, but Yani is faster, grabbing him in the choke.

“I’ll hold him,” I say, finally coming to. “Grab Charlie. He’ll help you take him in.”

“You grab Charlie,” she says, refusing to release her hold. Her dark eyes glitter with ambition, shinier than the cracked-column coin at her throat. Yani’s lethal and sharp. But she’s also stubbornly fiery. Always on the edge of flirting with her demise. “I don’t need a babysitter to bring a Darkbearer descendant in.” The jewel in her nose twitches with her smirk.

I blink. Darkbearers…

There are toushana-users. But long ago there were toushana worshippers who terrorized, pillaged, and slaughtered their way across kingdoms for hundreds of years, just for the hell of it. That’s who Elopheus actually spent his life fighting.

Darkbearers have been gone for centuries, but magical bloodlines rarely just die out. There are rumors some still congregate in secret. Beaulah always said rumors are born from a seed of truth. She’s wrong about a lot, but maybe she’s right about this.

I wrestle with Ball Cap’s collar. On the back of the target’s neck is a circle of angry red flesh in the shape of a sun with a shaded center. A mark I’ve only ever seen on the pages of a history book.

“You will burn for your traitorous life,” I spit.

“You know nothing about me or my life,” he says.

I snatch the page he’d managed to shove in his pocket. It’s a diagram of the Sphere with hand-drawn annotations, torn from the book The Unbreakable Pact. “I know that if you had any regard for your life, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Have you heard what’s happened to the Sphere? You must know what’s coming, and yet you’re here, more concerned about me.”

I watch him closely. His pupils are relaxed; the thud of his heart has eased some. Is this a game, a warning, a threat? I turn to Yani. “Wait for Charlie.”

She purses her lips but doesn’t mutter another word. I send another message, this one asking Charlie to meet us in the library and bring a Retentor. To my great relief, it sends. Thankfully, he, Tally Mark, and Stryker are here in minutes. Charlie takes over restraining the target so that I can pull Yani aside.

“How’d you know what he was?”

“How bad do you want to know?” Her teeth pull at her lip.

I ignore her. “When you get back to Headquarters, write your report. Any other intel you have needs to be included.”

“Wait, don’t burn him!” Stryk rushes over and tugs at my arm. “Mother says—”

“What did I tell you about listening to Mother?”

A question glints in the boy’s amber eyes, but he skips off.

“You shouldn’t poison that boy’s mind like that,” Charlie says. “Whatever your grievances with Beaulah, that is his House mother.”

“We’re not under the Houses anymore, Charlie. I’m not your boy to shape and prune. Get the captive back to Headquarters. Book him. If he burns, we do it quickly. I have no doubt he’s working with someone much smarter.”

Charlie’s lips thin as he and the captive head out the door.

“Yani, get Stryk back to Hartsboro.”

She takes the boy by the hand and staggers her feet, preparing to cloak. “You know, I almost thought you’d lost the nerve. That that girl broke you…permanently.”

“Concern yourself less with your thoughts of me and more with my orders.” I turn to the boy. “Stryk, you did great today.”

“Can I use magic next time?”

“Probably not.”

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