Page 202 of Elven Crown

“I know that!” Zida spat. “So then what did you touch in here, you idiot mage?”

“Nothing!” Leonard’s gaze flickered from Zida to Rebecca and Maxwell, then back again. “I swear. I just came in here to checkon her, to see how she was doing, but when I got here, she was just…gone.”

“And you didn’t touch a thing?” Zida asked again.

“Nothing. Honest. I went straight to the common room.”

“Does anything look different, Healer?” Maxwell asked as he stepped forward into the room, covertly sniffing the air. “Anything moved or missing?”

“You mean the entire unconscious katari who’s supposed to be recovering right now?” she quipped. “No. Everything looks exactly the same. Well, except forthat.”

Zida pointed at the bed where Nyx had been and shrugged.

Frowning, Maxwell approached the bed to investigate and stopped, his back stiffening, and every other muscle in his body growing taut with the revelation of whatever he saw there.

Seeing his reaction made Rebecca’s insides squirm with apprehension, but she forced herself to investigate with him. If it was bad enough to make her Head of Security freeze up, she’d end up finding out all about it anyway, and it was still her job to get involved.

Only once she’d stopped at the foot of the recovery bed and saw what the shifter was still staring at did she understand his reaction.

Because the very same jolt of confusion and dread rippled through her too at the sight. Just like Maxwell, all she could do was stiffen and stand there, staring with wide eyes.

The recovery bed was empty, all right. No bodies of living patients.

But it wasn’t completely empty.

Lying right there in the center of the bed where Nyx was supposed to be recovering was a very familiar shape.

A small, vaguely humanoid figurine cut from stone, its edges smooth and any specific details muddled, no facial features or garments carved in any measurable detail. Though this one wascut from an off-white stone with a vein of dark silver running through it, it was otherwise the same as the figurine sent to her in the box from Kordus Harkennr, addressed to The New Thon-Da’al of Shade.

Another message.

Almost exactly the same message. An invitation to join the game.

But this time, the message carried much more severe consequences.

However he’d done it, Harkennr had somehow abducted Nyx right out from under Shade’s noses, and he’d left this totem behind.

Rebecca knew in an instant what this meant.

Harkennr knew Shade was in some way responsible for the infiltration of his compound and the attacks on his soldiers at the Old Joliet Prison, and now he was hitting them back for it.

An eye for an eye, so to speak.

A cold wave of doomed helplessness and overwhelming guilt knotted Rebecca’s insides as she stared at that figurine and couldn’t quite bring herself to touch it yet.

Shit. Harkennrknew.How the hell did he know?

The how didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that he’d abducted one of Shade’s most vulnerable members right out of the infirmary’s recovery ward, and it was all Rebecca’s fault.

She’d tried to enter Harkennr’s compound right under his nose, without the courtesy of accepting his invitation first and simultaneously using his soldiers to heal herself with her Bloodshadow magic before trying to investigate what else he was up to in the Old Joliet Prison.

This was her punishment.

“W-what is that?” Leonard stammered.

“Beats me, kid,” Zida grumbled. “Doesn’t look like much, if you ask me.”

Even if Rebecca could have thought of something to say, her mouth had already run dry. The only thing she could think to do now, more as a reaction than a planned response, was to slowly look up at Maxwell standing beside her.

---