Page 418 of Shadowblood Souls
In what’s become my usual late-night rounds of the villa, I’ve already checked the other two doors that have stayed locked to us. After the last lights inside the building have been off for an hour, I slink through the lofty halls, hoping we might gain a little more ground off some staff person’s mistake.
What would I actually find if one night I do get through? Maybe just more grand rooms full of elegant furniture.
But possibly some evidence of Balthazar’s plans that he doesn’t want us to see because we could use it against him. Maybe I’d even stumble on the man himself.
My fingers flex at the thought with a prick of my claws in my fingertips.
I’ve never seen our captor in person except in my brief moment of consciousness when he loomed over me on the roadside by the bashed truck, but I can imagine gouging open his throat like I did to Clancy with perfect clarity.
Everything here revolves around his whims. Anytime Toni or Matteo speaks to us, it’s because “Mr. Balthazar says” or “Mr. Balthazar wants.”
Get rid of him, and I think we’d be free even faster than it would have worked with Clancy. Balthazar doesn’t have the rest of the Guardianship waiting in the wings to take over. He’s gone rogue.
Do the guardians—however they’re organized now, whoever’s leading them—have the slightest idea where we are or who has us? I know they have some kind of a “board” with its own authority, one that already was vying to take over from Clancy, but their representative assumed Balthazar was totally out of the picture.
Imagining them sweeping in to battle him for us gives me a whiff of relief that makes me queasy in turn.
The guardians aren’t our saviors, not by a long shot.
But it might be easier to escape them again than to challenge Balthazar. They never asked us to kill random people without explanation.
They never killedusat random, just to perform a demonstration.
Balthazar knows his former colleagues a lot better than I do, though. It’s hard to imagine he hasn’t taken every precaution to ensure that they never realize what he’s up to.
I slink back to the stretch of hall that holds our bedrooms, my feet moving silently over the tiled floor, my skin itching with frustration.
Just yesterday, Balthazar sent Jacob and Zian out on another mission, to steal a safe that could contain anything. A couple of days before that, he had Andreas join Booker and Ajax in mingling with a bunch of lobbyists at some political luncheon, recording their moods and stray thoughts and memories associated with a few figures he showed Drey photos of.
Obviously he has some kind of political interest, but nothing that adds up to an escape route so far.
We don’t know even one of his political goals. I couldn’t say whether he had me kill the man at the gala because he’s against the guy’s support of fossil fuels or because he saw him as competition for a role Balthazar wanted to fill.
As I head to my room, my uncertainties gnaw at me. But despite the tension twisting inside me, I catch a sharp intake of breath even though it’s muted by the closed door between me and its source.
I freeze, my ears pricking. Covers rustle with the abrupt jerk of limbs; a thin whimper trickles out.
That’s Griffin’s bedroom.
My heart lurches. I leap for the door, my mind blanking under a wave of panic.
When I push inside, my feet stall for a moment. A faint spill of moonlight illuminates a scene I’m not sure I should barge into.
Griffin is sprawled in the middle of his bed, tangled in the sheets, his eyes closed. Furrows mark his forehead beneath the slant of his blond hair, but he’s lying still now.
I don’t want to disturb his sleep if what I heard was just a brief blip of distress.
As I waver in my uncertainty, Griffin stirs again. His hand clenches around a fold of blanket while another pained sound slips from his lips.
I hurry to the bed and clamber onto it to touch his shoulder. “Griffin. Griffin, wake up.”
I speak softly, but my touch and my voice are enough to snap him out of the nightmare. His body twitches, and then his eyes pop open.
He blinks a few times as if catching up with reality. His head tilts back so he can peer up at me. “Riva?”
I offer a crooked smile. “I think you were dreaming. About something not so great. You sounded upset—I didn’t want to leave you like that.”
He swallows audibly and reaches to take my hand in his. “Thank you. I’m sorry I worried you, Moonbeam.”
