Ink & Quill

Chapter 31

~ Jaxon  ~

Adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves, Aurelio takes the room's single, thread-bare chair. Nic and Yumi sit side by side on the edge of the sagging mattress, leaving me to lean against the wall beside the door.

I don't mind. Nobody's leaving until I get answers, and Aurelio's not leaving at all unless I'm satisfied with what I hear.

As if he reads my thoughts, he lifts a brow at me, the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth saying, 'predictable,' as clearly as if he'd spoken the word aloud.

Predictably, I scowl at him.

"Get on with it, Aurelio," I snap. "I'm not fucking around here."

"Debatable," he returns. "However, I agree that time is of the essence, so I will be as brief and to the point as possible. First, though it will hardly incline me to your favor, I must confirm that your friends' suspicions are correct — at least insofar as my involvement goes. I have been acting as their handler for some time."

Yumi looks at him with cautious curiosity. "Lion?"

"Littlebird."

"What the fuck's that?" I growl, losing patience already.

"Our code names," Nic murmurs. Then he draws a sharp breath and turns to me with wide, horror-struck eyes. "But Jaxi, I swear to the sweet, bloody god of chocolate, we didn't know!"

"Of course they didn't," Aurelio confirms. "They bolted the moment they suspected they'd been compromised — most inconveniently. I could have used them these last few weeks."

"How long?" I growl. "How long have you been using my friends and manipulating me like this?"

"Like this?" He raises a brow again. "Only for the last several months. I needed to keep tabs on you without direct contact. For both our sakes, I kept my distance, letting 'littlebird,' as Honeybird and Chiba here are collectively known, be my go-between. Then I slipped up, and they went underground, but it didn't matter. I had you where I wanted you, anyway."

"At the college."

"At the college," he confirms, "where you and Sylas could fulfill several interconnected roles — one of which was bait."

"You fucking son of a bitch," I snarl. "This is all some game to you, isn't it? Some chess match, like you used to play with Father, using people as your pawns. And now you've got the gall to claim you care? You don't give a fuck about anything but your sick government conspiracies and—"

"Jaxon," he sighs, "do let me finish. Then you may judge me as you like."

With infuriating patience, he waits until he's sure he has the floor again before he goes on.

"Most of what I told you was true. Marcus was looking for the Devil's Song, and you and Sylas were uniquely suited to go undercover at the college and discover its whereabouts. However, I also let you believe that Marcus wanted it for himself, and intended to use it on his bride-to-be. This is not so. Marcus is merely a puppet, as you put it, with someone else pulling his strings. But I also knew that a threat to Lyssa would motivate Sylas, and you would go where he went."

I clench my jaw, knowing he can see my anger plain enough.

He inclines his head in acknowledgement. "It was also true that I suspected one of the three professors I sent Sylas to would know something of the matter, and would help us to discover more. What I did not make clear is that I knew which one. Linden Edwards confirmed my suspicions when he took the bait immediately, unable to resist having exactly what he wanted dangled in front of him."