Page 78 of Terror at the Gates

“I dreamed I found it in the desert,” I said. “Nothing’s been the same since.”

“What else?” she asked.

“What do you mean,what else?” I asked, confused byher question.

“I mean, what else do you see in your dreams?” She spoke between her teeth.

I thought you didn’t interpret dreams, I wanted to say, but I decided that wouldn’t get me very far. I realized we hadn’t met on the best terms. She had every right to be annoyed with me, but the fact was she’d opened the door, which meant I had something she wanted.

“I think this was a mistake,” I said, reaching for my journal, but she snatched it away, holding it against her chest. This was why I hadn’t brought the actual blade—this, and it seemed to want to kill anyone other than me and Zahariev.

I wasn’t going to fight her for a notebook when I could just get another one and fill it with the same shit, so I started to leave.

“Wait.”

I paused and stared at her.

“How do I know you aren’t from the church?” She tried to hide the quaking of her voice, but I could hear it. A subtle fear.

“Because I’m not.”

“You think that’s sufficient?”

“You think an agent of the church would come here with a cat strapped to their chest and a journal of shitty drawings and ask you for help?”

“I think the church will do anything to maintain power, even send me a girl with a disdain for theBook of Splendor.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I said. It wasn’t like enforcers had identifying marks aside from how they dressed.

She looked at me for a few long seconds before dragging a candle closer. It was a simple black taper. She lit it usingthe flame of another and set it between us. I knew she was using magic, but it differed from mine. This wasn’t innate; it was learned.

She was a witch, as I’d suspected.

“Before the nightmares started, what happened?”

“One of my buyers died in front of me,” I said.

“Abram Elkin.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that she knew him. I had hoped word wouldn’t reach this far. Unlike Baal, though, she didn’t ask about Zahariev.

“What did you bring him the night he died?”

I hesitated, and her brows rose.

“That blade wasn’t just in your dreams.”

I stared at her, unable to take a breath.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Whereis it?” she countered.

I clutched at Cherub, hand hovering over my gun.

She put up her hands. “I’m not asking because I want it.”

“Well, you’d be the first,” I said, and I’d be stupid to believe her.

---