Page 20 of Anchor

“How much money did you pay?” asked the Bluefire, his lips barely moving.

Now that neither of them wanted me to know what they were feeling, their faces had become neutral masks, too.

“Ten thousand dollars,” I said because that would be a reasonable price to pay to be smuggled into a deadly game, I thought.

“Whom did you pay it to?”

A lump the size of a small ball in my throat. “I didn’t ask for their names.”

Shit, shit, shit.My mind was chaotic—so many things crossing it at the same time.

“And who arranged for your meeting?”

It felt like I’d eaten rocks for lunch. “I…” Again and again I had to remind myself,breathe, Rora, breathe.

I closed my eyes, gathered my thoughts, and realized that if I screwed this up, I was really going to die in this very room. And even if I didn’t, Madeline was going to make sure I died just as soon as we walked out.

Knowing that certainly made the whole thing easier.

“A man my team and I brought in a few weeks ago. A dealer we caught in the City of Games. He said he knew people. He told me where to find the backdoor of the playground for a thousand dollars.” The lie flowed easily. I imagined the whole thing as if it were true in my head, and it was easy enough to spill it all out.

They could, of course, force the truth out of me if they wanted. Truth spells were forbidden because they didn’t always work. One could do a lot of damage with them, not to mentionthey were fourth-degree spells that required a lot of strength and casting them wrong could lead to altering the brainwaves of a person forever, but the IDD reserved the right to use them when it saw fit. Of course, considering this was the actual Council, I doubted they’d need permission.

And I doubted they would fail at performing it exactly as it should be performed.

The Council. I’m standing in front of the Iridian Council,a voice in my head whispered, but I ignored it. Right now, I needed my focus.

“I’m not saying that I believe you, girl,” said the Redfire woman, her fiery eyes boring into me. I was pretty sure that if we were closer, she could see right into my soul if she tried. “Butyou areMadeline’s granddaughter.”Goddess, I’m going to throw up.

“Which is why we will not question your story,” the Greenfire said, pointy chin raised as she looked down at me.

“And why we will allow you to keep your title as the winner of the Iris Roe, to claim your prize of five-million dollars,” the Blackfire guy said, and the way his lips stretched and stretched into an awful, wicked smile made goose bumps rise on my forearms.

Oh, no, I am not going to like this at all,I thought, even before the Bluefire said, “If—and only if—you can prove to us that you really did drain the Rainbow. That it worked as it should. That it made you a Redfire again.”

My knees shook. Sweat beads lined my forehead, made my palms wet, made my shirt stick to my back. I found thatcomfortingwhile I stood there, in front of possibly the most powerful people in the world, and I lied to their faces.

What the hell is she thinking?!

What the fuck was Madeline thinking, bringing me here, making me lie to them like this?

The truth was simple: she didn’t care. If I got caught, I’d die—she had no love for me, we all knew that by now. And she also knew that if I tried to tell these people the truth, thatshehad taken me to the Roe, had smuggled me in, and her guards had paid those two men to let me through and put the chip in my wrist—the Council would never believe it. Never in a billion years. They respected her enough and they just proved it—you are Madeline’s granddaughter.

That was the only reason why I wasn’t dead yet.

“Well, Rosabel?” said the Mud councilman, the only one of them who didn’t seem to hate me with all his being so far. “Did it work? Did you get your magic back?”

What the hell was the right answer? I had no idea what to tell him, and Madeline wasn’t even turning her head to me to tell me what to say. She wasn’t answering for me, either.

I was on my own.

“I…I don’t know.” This, I couldn’t lie about.

“You haven’t tried?” asked the Whitefire in the middle.

“I haven’t allowed her to without meeting the Council first,” Madeline finally spoke. “She can try in front of all of us.”

At that, she stepped to the side, then raised her hand toward me. Opened her fist.

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