Page 121 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“And then he’ll try to call me back, at which point he’ll realize he can’t!”
“The man is ancient.” Ciarán’s low chuckle set my teeth on edge, and he opened his eyes to survey me with his horrible orange irises. Strands of hair fell from his bun to hang in his face. “He’ll be quicker to blame his dwindling ability than a second nocturmancer.”
“I should have told him about you.” The words were more for myself than for Ciarán.
“If you’d rather be dead than trapped here with me, then yes, you should have. Though I fail to see how being dead would help you with your interview problem.”
I shifted against the stone pillar at my back. Ciarán was focused on his soup again, and I tested the bond between us, trying to draw magick away from him to form my arm spikes.
I might as well have been playing tug-of-war with a brick wall because the invisible channel of Skalmagick that kept me linked to the Grimguard gave me nothing. Ciarán must’ve felt my attempt, however, because he looked up at me through thick eyelashes. His mouth curled into a half smile.
He stood up, his soup in hand and his tattered cloak trailing behind him, and he crossed the dirt-laden floor to crouch eye-to-eye with me.
“Does that work on Galahad?” He set his soup down to better survey my face. His glowing orange eyes bore into mine, and I didn’t like feeling like he could see straight through to my mind. “He lets you steal his magick?”
I settled against the column at my back with my head held high, and then struck out with my foot to kick his soup over. The steaming contents splashed across cracked cobblestone, and Ciarán frowned.
“That was my dinner,” he said simply.
“Then you better lick it up quick if you’re hungry.” A tuft of blue hair fell into my face.
Ciarán sat back and drew his knees up to rest his elbows on. His head lolled to the side as he continued to study me, and I stuck my chin out at him.
I braced for the interrogation that I knew was coming. He would ask where we were taking Fana. I didn’t even have any fake answers I could feed him. The only place I knew the name of was where weweretaking her.
He narrowed his eyes, and I held his gaze. I was ready. I wouldn’t break, no matter what he did.
“Tell me, Blue,” he said, “do you have friends in Keldori?”
The question caught me off guard and quite frankly stung more than whatever torture technique I assumed he’d use to get information out of me.
“Yes,” I snapped. It wasn’t a lie. Liam was a coworker, but he was more tolerable than he had been at the start of summer. Plus, Jonquil and I were getting along better. Kind of. “What kind of question is that?”
“You don’t seem very likable, so I was curious.”
Heat rose in my face, but I refused to let him know he was getting under my skin.
“What about you?” I blew a bit of hair away from my face. “Lots of friends in the Grimguard business?”
“Not really.” He pulled something that looked like beef jerky out from the folds of his cloak and took a bite. “Yourfriends keep killing them.”
“Daithi killed—”
“Caitria.” Ciarán nodded solemnly. “I know. You want some?”
He held his jerky out to me, and I recoiled, pressing my head into the column behind me.
“Hard pass.”
“It’s ramstag. Caught it and smoked it myself just a couple of days ago.” He shrugged and took another bite. “Is your hair blue in Keldori?”
“No.” This interrogation wasn’t going the way I thought it would. Not that I had been in many interrogations, but I was pretty sure this was less than conventional. “When are you going to ask me your real questions?”
“Are these not real questions?” The tiny smile that pulled on his lips told me he knew what I meant.
“You want to know what I know about the Riftkeepers,” I said.
“And would you tell me if I asked?”
