Page 30 of House of Lilith

I pause for a second, thinking. “Ricky?”

He nudges me to spit it out.

“You think I’m overreacting, right? You think I’m seeing a conspiracy where there isn’t one.”

He seems confused. “What made you think that?”

I let out a laugh. “All this talk of Grimm Academy lying about the Games of 1867, the Box being resistant to tampering et cetera.”

He shakes his head. “I’m just giving you facts. It’s got nothing to do with my opinions. In my opinion, we all know what happened that year and how many people ended up dead. I think you’re only being a good leader, taking everything into consideration instead of just ruling out the possibility of someone trying to hurt your pack.”

I nod thoughtfully.

But Ricky’s not done. “And that leads me to what we came here for,” he says as he flips over a couple of more pages in the book before him. “This information about the last Games, I could’ve just told you that. But this…”

He stops to scan the page he’s on. “Ah yes,” he says when he finds what he’s looking for. “When you found me after the Game, you mentioned the Guardian of the Obscura,” he tells me, at the same time skimming over the text in front of him.

Frowning, I just wait for him to finish.

“Well,” he says when he looks up, “the spell that binds the Guardian to the Box is a tricky one.” And he points to the text. “It’s of the dynamic type, the highly unstable one.” He presses his lips tight, making my ears prick up in anticipation. “And it says right here that sometimes those spells can be altered over time.”

“Like?” I ask.

“The possibilities are probably endless.”

“Including the possibility that Ludwig Schwarz changed the way the Game treated players?”

“If anyone could do it, it would be him.”

“You know they’re talking about canceling the Games?” I ask him. “I don’t know which would be worse. Them being canceled, or all of us continuing but having to worry about them being rigged.”

For a second, there’s only silence as we look at each other with concern in our eyes.

Then my fox smells one of our own. I crane my neck to see O’Malley Senior approaching us.

He leans to tell me in a respectfully low voice, “My brother is back at the camp.”

Tension swells in me, making my eyebrows pull down as I nod to O’Malley Senior to lead me to him.

*

He’s okay. Relieved, I’m so fucking relieved, I think as I pull my head down to walk out of O’Malley Junior’s tent. I don’t know how, but they’ve even managed to get his arms to grow back.

Once I’m outside, I stand straight and I slowly take in a lungful of the sweet autumn breeze. It’s coming from the shimmering lake that’s sprawling before me in all its late-afternoon glory, I can smell mouth-watering cooking all around me, I see some Grimm Academy students hanging out with our own…

Andit seems no one will be losing any limbs today. To make it even better, judging by O’Malley Junior’s words, there was no foul play between the teams whatsoever. His wolf smelled nothing different about the magic coming from the balls while it was all happening.

His theory? It was just part of the Game. And the Gamesareknown to be brutal.

I let the joy wash over me, my mouth cracking into a grin as I say hi to all my pack members buzzing around the camp.

“Hey, Boss,” Gleason calls out from his cozy chair by a campfire, “why don’t you join us for dinner tonight?”

“Going for a little walk first.”

It’s been stressful and I really need some alone time, I think as I head over to the lakeshore. It’s my solemn intention to forget about it all, at least for a second.

And the closer I get to the line of reefs bordering the clear, blue water, the more convinced I am I’ll be able to get exactly what I want.

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