Page 9 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams
“It’s clear I’ve been too lenient with you—but I’m willing to learn from my mistakes. And I would hope that you are too, because from today, Melrose, your protection fee hasgone up. Understand?”
He’s trembling like a leaf, eyes wide with terror. Seems he’s the type who’s especially affected by my shadows.
“You should consider yourself lucky that the cost of your dishonesty is so low,” I say cooly. “Now, get out of my sight before I devise some worse punishment.”
Melrose stumbles from his chair, grabbing his satchel and the ledger Warren offers to him.
“I-I’ll make sure these books are corrected, Mr. Wadestaff,” he promises.
“Good man,” I reply, though of course, he’s anything but.
When he’s escaped the bar, I sigh, downing the rest of my drink.
“Help a man thrive, and all he does is turn into a greedy fool,” I say.
“Yes, Mr. Wadestaff,” Warren says. “Well, some of them,” he adds.
I chuckle. “You always were an optimist.”
Footsteps thunder on the stairs down into the bar, and Ari, my door boy, comes bursting in. His eyes are wide, and he’s pale.
“Sir, it’s the gambling house,” he gasps. “There’s trouble. He said he’d kill us if we stopped him.”
“Who said?” I demand.
“The Nightmare Prince.”
The place is in chaos when I get there. I can only thank the gods it’s not yet midday, and most of the people at the card tables are the drunks and gambling addicts who wouldn’t leave even if the place was on fire. They barely look up from the card tables to acknowledge the commotion from the hallway. On the other hand, my staff are a mess. Rosa’s crying over one of my bouncers, Vasily, who’s lying unconscious on the stairs. I check he has no major injuries before turning to Ari.
“Run and get the healer on Yard Road.”
On the second floor, some of the working girls huddle in a frightened group, staring at Damien and Caleb trying to break down a door with little success. It appears to have been fused shut by a jungle of knotty roots.
“Are any of our people hurt?” I ask.
“No,” says Lana. “They told me to get out before they started doing anything to him.”
I’m about to ask what they “started” when a blood-curdling scream carries through the closed door.
“Who’s the client?” I ask instead.
Lana bites her lip. “Bearer Polis.”
Fuck. I elbow my way past my men.
“Damien, stop wasting your time and get some water or—Wait a minute. Lana, aren’t you a half-decent aquari?”
She nods, pushing up the sleeves of her silky robe as I beckon her over.
“Great,” I say. “Now Warren, burn the fucking door down.”
The screams briefly stop when smoke starts curling under the bottom of the door from Warren’s flames. There’s the sound of rapid footsteps and a groaning, cracking noise as the roots retreat.
“Step aside,” I warn as someone wrenches the smoldering wood off its hinges and hurls it outward into the corridor. Lana immediately starts dousing it while I peer inside, just in time to see Prince Leonidas returning to the side of the bed.
The scene before me is worse than I’d imagined. Polis lies naked on the mattress. His wrists are bound with more of the thick roots, and he’s worried them bloody straining against them—not that it seems to have done him any good. And besides, the raw state of his wrists is nothing compared to the intricate picture carved into his chest—an image of Ethira’s scythe and the symbol of the Temple that’s causing his blood to spill down his sides and stain the sheets.
Prince Leonidas stands over Polis with a bloody knife in his hand. A man with brown hair I don’t recognize is beside him. The caster of the roots, most likely.
