Page 53 of Ulune's Daughter

I scoff at that bullshit. “We wererescued. You and your thugs didnotrelease us.”

Maher shoots me a dark glance. “You drugged me the last time we met, so I’d say we’re even.”

“You drugged yourself. I just put you to sleep.”

The jackalwere snarls at me. “I haven’t come to fight. What you’re bringing to the museum is far too dangerous to be housed here. Youknowthat.”

“I know that I’m not leaving it here if this is the museum’s level of security.”

“Now, Professor Wyndham, let’s all relax and discuss this calmly,” the chief curator says. “Won’t you have a seat?”

If there is anything I hate, it’s a man suggesting I’m hysterical. It’s a level of patronizing I can’t get past.

“I’m sorry, but I think I’ve made a mistake. If you deal with this trafficker?—”

“I amnota trafficker,” Maher snarls. He usually speaks like he was educated in England but now his accent peeks through.

“You were trying to buy the cup on the black market.”

“To save my village!” Maher snaps.

That stops me. Is he lying to get the cup? If he’s telling the truth and I walk away with the cup, what happens to his village?

I shove both hands into my jacket pockets. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll hear you out.”

“Thank you.”

Maher backs up several steps and sits down in the far guest chair, leaving the one nearest the door to me. I appreciate the gesture. Sitting, I perch on the edge of the chair, ready to move if things go badly.

“I don’t want to keep the cup,” Maher begins. “I only want to use it to rid my village of the curse your Seer put on us.”

“My Seer did no such thing.”

“She lay there chanting all night.”

“To keep herself calm,” I say, biting off each word. “She suffers from panic attacks. She was trying to stave one off while we were tied up, listening to your men talk about what they were going to do to us.”

“I don’t believe in apologies, Professor Wyndham. What’s done is done. But if it appeases your ego I will apologize for what happened that night?—”

Appease. My. Ego. Really.

“I’m not interested in your apologies, Mr. Maher.” We glare at each other for a long moment. “Tell me about your village.”

“After you were released?—”

“Rescued.”

“After youdeparted, the first child fell ill. Then another and another. They wasted away, unable to take nourishment from food, drink, not even their mother’s milk. They all died. No child under five survived. No child born to my village since then has lived for more than a few days. Your Seer cursedour children.”

“I’ve known Camille for years. She’d never curse a child. If she cursed anyone, it was you and your thugs.”

“Perhaps that’s what she intended, but that’s not what occurred. My village has stood for five thousand years and now it is dying because of that woman’s curse.”

“Or it’s dying because of what you and your men planned, which is an affront to the Mother. Maybe you drew her wrath.”

Maher tips his head from side to side, cracking his neck. Maybe it’s just jet lag, but he looks tired, with deep shadows under his dark eyes, lines biting into the tanned skin of his forehead. “My homeland is not always a peaceful place. I have had to do extreme things to secure the future of my clan. I do not pretend to be a good man, Professor Wyndham. Only a dutiful son.”

A glance at the chief curator and the harried Ms. Long hovering behind him, shows they’re both fixed on Maher, nodding along as he speaks. Not a lot of objectivity there. Maybe he’s already made his case to both of them. Or he’s offered them something more valuable than the cup.

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