Page 102 of Surrendering Hope (The Hope Legacy)

“Asshole,” I mutter.

He shrugs. “It’s better this way.”

“You both okay?” Duncan asks.

“Natia missed,” Zee explains. “I grabbed her hand, but it dislocated her shoulder.”

“Again?” Duncan asks.

“Sorry, Dumbledorf, I missed a glass box travelling at twenty yards per second.”

“Twenty point five,” he corrects.

I roll my eyes. “It must be the point five I didn’t account for.”

I roll my shoulders. “Good?” Zee asks. I nod and stalk towards the doors leading to Archan’s office. I slide the door open and freeze. Jed sits slouched in the chair with his booted feet crossed on the desk, the blades dug into the desk so they stand upright. His eyes narrow. For the first time my carefree, easy going friend looks murderous.

“You lied,” he says.

My heart shrivels a little. “I can’t.”

“No, you got Duncan and Zee to lie for you.”

My eyes dart to the blades. He follows my gaze. “You want to kill him?”

I shake my head. “Don’t be an idiot. If we can’t pull off the Jar jail, I will need to kill Ty.”

He tilts his head like he’s trying to get a read on me. “And you thought it best you did it with the Blades of Chaos?”

“I don’t have another way.”

He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

“To get something I could kill your brother with?”

He huffs out a breath. “What do you need from me to understand I’m loyal to you? Do I want you to kill Archan? No. Have I considered it’s a path we may have to take? Of course, Archan himself knows this is a possibility. He wouldn’t fight you on it, Natia.”

“So you’ll give them to us?” Zee asks.

“The blades alone aren’t enough, they will need to be imbued with a specific poison.”

“I know, Ant is working on it.”

Jed blinks. “The demon?”

“Yup, he said I would need these blades and that he’s sorting out the poison.”

His stare turns hard. “What does he get out of this?”

“His boss wants his disaster offspring dead. So I guess he wins employee of the month or something. Do they have Amazon vouchers down there? Or is it more like, here, have three virgin sacrifices?”

“Like demon delivery?” Zee says.

“Maybe they can order virgin sacrifices on their version of Amazon.”

Jed looks between us like we aren’t having a crazy conversation. He snaps his fingers. “Hey you two, you want these blades or not?”

“How did you know this is what we were doing?” I wonder.

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