Page 133 of Anchor

Seth and Kaid weren’t laughing anymore. The look on Radock’s face had turned murderous, and his jaws clenched, and we both knew the question he was going to ask me next—the same one he’d asked me when I was chained to his basement, that I, like a fool, refused to answer because I thought I knew what I was doing. Because Taland was there and Taland had been watching me from the shadows, smiling.

To know now that it was all for show, that he’d been the one to call Madeline, was like owning the entire fucking world. It had hurt me so much—more than anything else.

“Who?” Radock said, his voice low, dry. “Who sent you to that school?”

I’d have told him even if he hadn’t spelled me. “David Hill.”

For a second, he froze.

In the next, he jumped to his feet and slapped the shit out of me.

Goddess, it hurt. My neck snapped and my ear whistled, and the left side of my face burned so much I thought it might be on fire.

Black dots in my vision when I finally raised my head again and blinked my eyes to try to see where he was. In front of me, the glossy black feather out of his pocket, and he held it between his fingers when he whispered again—that same spell.

“No, I—”I’m still under your spell,I wanted to say, but he didn’t let me. He chanted fast, furiously, and his Blackfire magic wrapped all around me, slipped under my skin, twice as intense as the first time.

“Tell me who sent you to that school after Taland,” Radock said after he finished that spell for the second time, and thick glossy strands fell off his feather because the magic he’d used on me hadconsumedit.

“David Hill.”

This time, I said it with my eyes closed, expecting to be hit again, and when I wasn’t in the very next second, I continued to talk. “Taland told me about Selem and about Hill being one of the Mergenbachs. Taland thought he was a double agent becausehewas the one who chose me for that mission when I was seventeen years old. He was the one who sent me to the school and left me with a phone to call him with updates every month on the dot.Hesent me Taland’s file, andhetold me that Talandwas going to attempt to steal the veler at the Feast of Hope. That night when Taland left the party, he told me to follow him together with the other agents who were already there. And-and-and when we were following Taland, I tried to warn him, but I was under a ward so he couldn’t hear or see me, and then the agent behind me received the order to shoot him the moment he went through the Strongroom door. And…and I closed the door on them and I knocked him out because there was no time to explain and I wasn’t going to let him d-d-die. I wasn’t.”

Goddess, I was a mess. I was crying and shaking and barely even breathing while I spoke, and now I couldn’t stop. “I am not going to let him die. I am not going to let him die…”I’d rather set the world on fire first.

That sound again—of chairs being dragged that pulled me out of my trance, that made me stop whispering those words.

When I could see again, Radock was already sitting across from me, elbows over his knees as he leaned toward me all the way.

“David Hill personally took you to that school.” Again—not a question, but I chose to answer anyway.

“My grandmother’s driver took me to the school. David Hill chose me and gave me the assignment,” I said, and he knew I was telling the truth because he’d spelled me fucking twice now.

“And he gave the order to shoot Taland?”

“I can’t say that with a hundred percent certainty, but I strongly believe it was him who gave that order.” That earpiece had been near that agent’s ear, not mine. I’d only heard the voice because it had been so silent in that corridor, so I couldn’t be exactly sure it was Hill—but who else?

“Why?” Radock asked, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t asking me or anybody in particular as he looked down at the floor, but I answered anyway.

“I don’t know.”

“It makes no sense,” said Kaid, who was now pacing behind Radock. Meanwhile Seth stayed there at my side playing with his raven feather, running his fingertips up and down the edges of the strands.

“You know I’m telling you the truth. Taland wanted to come talk to you about this when things settled a bit, but then he disappeared,” I said. “I swear it, it’s the truth.”

“What else did Taland tell you?” Radock then said, his unblinking eyes piercing daggers straight into my brain.

A bad feeling—no,a worsefeeling settled in my stomach. “Nothing.” That’s all we’d said—that we were going to talk to Radock about this because hehadto tell his brother about Hill. Even though I’d hated the idea of being face-to-face with this man again, I’d agreed, because I thought I’d be with Taland. I thought I wouldn’t be alone.

Look at me now.

“Did he tell you that this charm he gave to you with such ease…” Radock said, then raised his hand without ever looking away from me, and Seth immediately put Taland’s charm in his open palm. “Did he tell you that our mother gave this to him?”

Tears in my eyes again. “Yes.”

He was a bit surprised, but he hid it well.

Meanwhile I dug my fingernails in my palms to keep my magic under control because it was so violently expanding in the center of my chest, wanting to come out, to protect me.

---