Page 55 of Abducting Sarah

“Answers.”

After exitingSovereign,I hopped onto the onworlder and rode into the forest again. Omen’s place was deeper than Gram’s, so it took an hour to get there.Just enough time to pre-regret going to see her.

Omen’s home wasn’t as hidden as Gram’s. She had one of the newer silver roofs on top of a white cylindrical home. Pink flowers grew on thorned vines across her yard. A blue stone path led to her front door.

I turned the onworlder off and took a deep breath.I’ve come this far, and I’m not going back without answers. Walking up to her door, my heart sped. I didn’t want to see Omen Ayext, but I didn’t have a lot of options, either.

I knocked and called out, “Omen, you in?”

The door opened, and there she was, her gaze immediately narrowing on me. Another woman who wanted me dead. Hertransparent body was just as curvy as I recalled, but her smile was absent. “Come to feed my drecks, have you?”

I arched a brow. “Any chance we could have a conversation instead?”

She produced a bone knife and thrust it toward my throat before I could move. But the point stopped before it pierced my skin. “Just so we’re clear, Jac. We arenotfriends.”

“We’re clear.”

She moved the knife back into her holster and said, “Then you can come in.”

I took a breath and stepped into her home, feeling like a cina in a dreck’s lair. Her home was much nicer than Gram’s, though that might have been the lack of a dead body on her kitchen table. It was well-decorated and pristine. I felt like I was bringing dirt into her home. Good.

“Sit there.” She gestured to the padded bench in the parlor. She left for the small kitchen and returned with grapes, the kind that would release a deadly poison if you harbored any ill will toward the other person. “As we are not friends, I need to know.”

I sighed. “Of course.”

She ate hers, then I ate mine. She stared as she waited, and when I did not drop dead within a minute, as she’d clearly anticipated, she asked, “Water with herbs?”

“No, thank you. I’m not here for pleasantries.”

“Then tell me, why are you here?”

I got right to the point. “I’ve heard the other conduits have gone mad.”

She huffed and sat back in her own seat. “So?”

“Are you with them?”

“Are you asking if I’ve gone mad?”

I shrugged. “I’m asking if you’ve gone back to your roots.”

She smiled. “I haven’t been with the sisterhood for many years, though it’s not as if anyone cares.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Justice Bateen didn’t care that I am no longer with the sisterhood. He only cared that I’m a conduit, so,” she drew a line across her throat with her finger, “that was all it took. I had stopped working as a priestess for over five years by the time he had gotten around to killing all of us.” She huffed. “Guilt by association, I suppose. And now you’re here to accuse me of being on their side.”

“Not accusing you of anything, Omen. Are you in touch with them?”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Because a long time ago, we were friends, and—”

She laughed. “Is that what you call a few cheap thrusts in the back of the temple every couple of months when we were young? That’s a friendship to you?”

I didn’t appreciate the jab. “Hey, I saved your brother from the royal prison when you called me, didn’t I?”

Her full lips smoothed into a line of acquiescence. “You did. That’s the only reason I didn’t butcher you the moment you knocked on my door.”

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