Page 31 of The King's Man 4

He grinds his cane against the floorboards. “Why are you?”

“I’m not hiding. I mean, I am hiding. I don’t want my face seen. And... Grandfather had a lot of books on snake venoms.” I gesticulate wildly to the cabin and everything in it, halting at the dead body behind Quin. “All this belonged to him.”

I frown as something about the body prickles my senses. I put down my duster, pick up the candle, and kneel at the side of the decaying redcloak. I look up at Quin, expectantly.

“There’s another behind that shelf.”

I startle.

“Don’t worry. That one’s alive, though slightly damaged.”

The blood . . .

I rise and round the shelf to another prone body and an unconscious but familiar face. “Vitalian Dimos.”

“Quite the day for the lost being found,” Quin murmurs, gaze straying from my hands to the clasp on my cloak.

I swallow. “Get me some cloth.”

I tie up the deep cut on Dimos’s arm and eye Quin, who is leaning nonchalantly on the wall beside us. “Why didn’t you heal him?” This much Quin could do alone.

“At this point, he’s lucky to have his head.”

I give him a chastising headshake.

“He was dragging a dead redcloak through the woods.”

“You followed him?”

“In case he led me to more bodies.”

“Just the one, then?”

“Mm.”

“What has he told you?”

“He threw a spell, I shielded, he got knocked off his feet and landed on something that did that to his arm. He tried another spell and I knocked him out.”

“In other words, you haven’t asked.”

“Shall we now?” He thrusts his hand outward and hits our suspect’s acupoints.

The vitalian groans as he sits against the bookshelves. “Who are you? What do you want?” He squints at us and lingers on me. “You. You’re the par-linea with ruined meridians.”

I wince. He’d been very rude the first time I’d talked to him, but that didn’t necessarily make him a bloodthirsty killer. Although finding him with a dead body in a decrepit cabin in the woods...

Quin grabs hold of the man’s shirt and hauls him forward. “The soldiers. What did you do to them?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Here’s a reminder.” Quin drags the vitalian to the dead body and drops him beside it.

I tug Quin’s sleeve and pull him quietly aside while the vitalian gulps and stares at the body.

“Certain you can get a confession out of him this way?” I ask.

“I’m the—” he stops and clears his throat. “I’m a constable. Do I not exude a general feeling of authority?” He whips his cloak dramatically as he takes a confident step forward with a snap of his cane. I bite back a smirk, which he catches.

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