Page 219 of Mud

I kept on smiling because she, at least, would remain alive for as long as it took. She would not die—I’d claimed her life, had to call fuckingdibson it so that Radock wouldn’t kill her. Had to make him swear he wouldn’t end her life but would leave that privilege to me.

I’d met plenty of ugly people in the Tomb, but I myself put them all to shame tonight.

Then she passed out.

I forced myself to sit there in the shadows and see and hear all of it—I deserved to. And I kept smiling for my brothers, who needed extra convincing about everything I did since I escaped the Tomb and came back. Didn’t blame them, but that smile was like hammering needles all over my own body.

For now, at least, it was over.

For now, my brothers would take a break.

For now, I had a few minutes to do what I knew—I knewwas a mistake. A big mistake, one that could haunt me for the rest of my life. A fatal mistake.

I’d accused Rosabel of being a traitor for two years. Now I was about to become far, far worse.

I didn’t join my brothers when we left the basement and they went back to Radock’s office, to snack and drink and talk about the great time they had while torturing her. I kept a smile on my face all the while when I said I had business to tend to, and—like I said—the less I elaborated, the more Radock believed me.

So, I walked away, out of a hidden door on the outer wall of the Blue House, and straight into the dense woods that stretched for miles at its back.

The community had started small, with barely fifty people at first, when Iridians chose to marry different species, mainly humans, and society decided to make their lives a living hell because of it. The man who’d founded the Blue House had been a Bluefire, married to an elf himself, and though he’d died decades ago, he’d left a good thing behind here.

The people were free. The people weresafe.

The people had no idea that the head of the Selem organization lived among them and operated the businesses of the Blue House on the daily. The Mergenbach siblings and the Tivoux brothers. Bluefire and Blackfire together, watching out for the people, not only in the community, but in the whole world. Preparing themselves as best as they could for when the IDD took over completely—ortried.Preparing themselves for what they calledthe Ruin.

I had been part of it since I could remember. I was part of it when I was homeschooled here in the Blue House and then when I went to an actual school, too. I was part of it, and I failed them when I failed to deliver the one artifact that would have changed everything—but that wasn’t the point now.

The point was that my cabin in the woods, shielded by three layers of wards so that even Radock couldn’t find it, was right there, and the old phone I kept there for emergencies was dead, so I had to plug it in.

When the battery was charged enough that the phone turned on, I made the call.

Finding the number hadn’t been hard. This was Madeline Rogan, former director of the IDD, a public figure with all her information available online. Not her private phone number, but her home’s landline was good enough.

It rang and rang, but nobody picked up for a while. Maybe because it was a little past midnight.

I called again. And again.

And a fourth time, too.

Eventually, the thick voice of a woman brought my thoughts, the memory of her screams, to a halt. “Hello?”

“I need to speak to Madeline Rogan.”

“It’s past mi?—”

“About her granddaughter, Rosabel La Rouge.”

My eyes were closed, the cabin small, empty, the wards active, strong.

I breathed deeply.

“Please hold.”

I held.

My breath and my thoughts and my phone to my hear—I held it all.

“How dare you.”

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