Page 75 of I Ran Away to Evil 2
She pulled out a bag from nowhere. It clinked. “I’m swimming in the stuff. Whoever’s making so much of it must be crazy.”
I instinctively took a fighting stance, claws out. At least now I knew why she wasn’t afraid of me.
“I have absolutely no intention of using any,” she assured me, sending it back into storage. “I’m going to use it to negotiate with Duke Wyldon during the investigation. I have a record of how many bottles we received from an independent trustworthy source, and as long as I keep the same number of bottles, I can be assured that Duke Lector will take the blame for supply.”
Every sense and skill told me she was telling the truth, though I was hesitant to relax my guard. I asked anyway. “But you tried to use molten ash vane on Duke Wyldon?”
“Again, incorrect. I merely filed the paperwork and picked the assassin; all effects to the case were handled by Duke Lector.” She crossed her arms. “That was my final hit. I was hoping it wouldn’t work, which was why I called in the Terpenlily family to attack Duke Wyldon. Their daughter is skilled enough to show I made an effort … but not skilled enough to be likely to succeed.”
“It was closer than you think,” I told her. “So you’ve just thrown Lady Tate to the wolves? She will face the full weight of the law for her illegal assassination attempt.”
Eva smiled then, a wide vicious smile. “I have registered the paperwork. All of my assassinations are approved—”
“I hardly believe that Duke Wyldon would approve his own assassination attempt,” I interrupted.
“Well, he did.” The elf picked up the piece of paper she’d had resting on her face when I first arrived and waved it under my nose.
It was, in fact, an approved hit on Duke Wyldon Holst. And it was stamped with that very duke’s own personal seal.
Things had just gotten more complicated. Again.
CHAPTER 44
You Managed to Get Out Alive!
Brownie
“So, what are you doing here?” Brownie asked Slake. Grimalcats liked common sense and straightforwardness above all else … from others. It was their job to be mysterious.
At least that was what the other grimalcat she’d met was like.
Slake flicked his tail as he walked ahead of her down the hall. “I know the guild master, and I was interested in where she got molten ash vane.”
“As far as I can tell, she has an endless supply,” Brownie joked. The rare potion that used to show up once every hundred years was being handed out like candy these days.
That made the grimalcat pause in the hallway and squint his green eyes up at the bard. “I do not think that Servalt has the ingredients to make molten ash vane in endless supply.”
“What are the ingredients?”
Slake resumed walking. “Broomlanding pollen, treant tears, griffin eggshell, and mushfolk mycena root, to list just a few that I know of.”
Brownie whistled softly.
“None of the key ingredients are found in Servalt, so the person making it is either traveling the world or wealthy enough to get others to find the ingredients for them. But they aren’t cheap.” Slake slowed as they approached a door at the end of the hall. “The majority can be found in the Dark Enchanted Forest if one islucky, but broomlanding pollen is harvested in Peldeep.”
Slake reached the closed door, and after sniffing it twice, it opened for him.
“I hope you two had a good chat.” He ran up to the pair and jumped onto a desk piled with papers.
“We did.” Rufus sounded stressed. When she entered the room, she found him wearing a tiny set of reading glasses and reviewing a sheet of paper.
An elf, sitting at the desk in front of Rufus, scoffed. “Speak for yourself.”
Rufus ignored her. “Slake, thank you. You’ve been a great help. Any chance you want to go to the castle with me? I have some questions for our birthday boy.”
“That can wait,” Slake stated. “You have another date already.”
Rufus turned and found her standing there. “Brownie?”
