Tainted

Chapter Thirty

The tent I share with Rogue and Sailor is barely recognizable. It's been converted into a war room. The mattress pad I use has been shoved unceremoniously into a corner, along with Rogue's and Bo's scant belongings. The only thing that's been left on the floor is James's large bed. He pads over to it and lies down, curling his tail over his nose.

Hewn wood tables form three sides of a square, with tree stumps serving as chairs. Whispered conversations bubble up around me as I cross the dirt floor toward the center of the space. Across from me, Rogue stands with his hands splayed shoulder-width apart against the coarse surface of a table. Not-Binks is at his right hand, and I see the Elf from yesterday evening's stories conferring with Sani. As if sensing me staring, Sani snaps her gaze to me and bares her sharpened teeth. I turn away.

"Mira!" Sailor says brightly. He totters up to me and takes hold of my elbow, steering me around the tables to where Rogue stands pouring over a crudely-colored map. Its edges are frayed: it's made from real papyrus. I gasp. My fingers curl against my thigh, fighting the urge to stroke the material, feeling the contours and whirls of paint rippling across its expanse. Could this be from my father's farm?

After two breaths of a moment, I realize Rogue is staring at me, and my hand falls limp.

"Ah," he says, a smile playing across his face, "the Thief has arrived. Looking to steal the details of our little revenge plot are you?"

He says "details" like "d'tails." It's not the way people from Ómorfi say it, he's just doing it to be smug.

"Sailor said you wanted to include me," I say. "I'm not stealing anything."

Not-Binks hisses. He's standing on the other side of Rogue. To spite him, I extend my hand in front of Rogue to Not-Binks. "Hello, my name is Mira," I say, emphasizing the last.

Rogue's lip curls. "It's Thief," he says.

"Mira," I say, looking at him. "What's yours?" I ask, focusing back on Not-Binks.

Not-Binks's whiskers twitch. He looks at Rogue out of the corner of his eye but takes my hand and shakes it.

"Dem," he growls, his voice like rocks grinding against each other. I glance at Dem's left arm. Though Binks only taught me rudimentary Bandelairean, I'd recognize the word "Demon" anywhere. It curls across his fur in a violent splash of red.

"Pleasure," I say.

Dem lets go of my hand. He drops his back to the hilt of his sword.

"Now that that's over with," Rogue says, "We need to discuss next steps. As I mentioned, I ran into the Scouts on the trail back. They have another task to complete, but they should be back here in the next few days. We have on good authority that the king is going to continue imprisoning Ill-Fated and slaughtering them in the prison. He's developing a serum in Pruden that he's telling everyone will cure the Ill-Fated jean, but the healers I've spoken to think that's a load of kata, but the sentiment behind the serum is very real. Now, it seems the warden at the prison has been murdered."

There's a collective gasp. Rogue looks pointedly at me.

"Is that true, Thief?" he asks.

My mouth has suddenly gone dry. I nod.

"And was it the healer who murdered him, as we've heard?" he asks.

I think of Alani tearing through the warden's neck with that silver tiara, her husband's red blood spraying across her pale face.

"No," I say.

Rogue nods. "I guessed as much. No matter who murdered the warden, the fact of the matter is that he's still dead."