“Gov-Nu. Gov-Nu. Gov-Nu.”
I turned to see Crash standing across from me at the far side of the arena. His head lowered until his chin touched his chest.
We’d done it.
The crowd of goblins burst over the edge of the arena seating and flowed around us. Some reached out and touched my hands first and then touched their foreheads. Some dared to touch the flat of the blade that I held in one hand.
Bridgette found us after the first wave. “You really killed him,” she said, beaming at me. “You have no idea . . . he’s been a monster to our people. You’re a hero!”
“Okay.” That was all I could manage. I didn’t doubt what she’d said, and it wasn’t that I didn’t care so much as I just desperately wanted to go home and sleep for a week.
Only I found myself thinking of what Crash had said earlier, before the fight. Maybe I wasn’t going to get to go home. Maybe . . . maybe Crash was going to kick me out. Maybe he was done putting up with the crazy danger that came with me.
That gave me pause. “Grimm?” I made myself shout his name, and someone must have set him free from his restraints, because he heard me through the sea of goblins and found his way to my side.
“You really did it. You kept the pages from them.” He shook his head. “They are hidden still?”
I nodded. “Yes.” Which they were, inasmuch as my bag could be considered a hiding place. “I’ll keep them until the silver moon passes tomorrow night. As per our agreement, three days was the time frame. You won’t get them back until then.”
He smiled and dipped his head to me. “You mean I won’t get them back until you get paid.”
I pointed a finger at him and clicked my mouth. “You got it.”
Grimm went still and crouched, motioning for me to do the same. “The pages . . . they aren’t just a spell, they have the ability to allow the darkest powers of the shadow world to come forward. If there was a way to destroy them, I would do it. Nothing good can come from them. Do you understand?”
I stared hard at him. “Now you want me to try and burn them or something?”
His eyes were all seriousness. “What you are is unique in our world, and it means you are one of the few who could destroy them. When the chance comes, take it.”
Grimm looked over my shoulder and his face fell, and if green skin could pale, it did.
“What now?” I asked.
“The SCE is here. Roderick is with them. He wants the pages too. In the wrong hands, those pages could wreak absolute destruction on this town. Maybe even the world.”
“Yeah, I got that much. I have them hidden. You want me to destroy them if I can. What about the coin?” Again, I intentionally withheld where they were being hidden.
He tapped my hip bag, damn it, so I wasn’t so good at keeping my secrets as I thought. “Keep it, it’s a weapon and one you should probably have if you’re going to survive this world and what I think is coming.”
“Why are you helping me now?” I stared him down, feeling the weight of others coming closer and ignoring it. There were times to hold out on hurrying, and this was one of them.
He pulled me lower to the ground, which was mighty uncomfortable for my hamstrings. “Listen to me. This was one of the first moves in a game of chess where all the pieces cannot be seen, and the players are many and hidden well. We can meet later, I will do what I can to explain more.”
A throat cleared behind us.
I made myself stand, noting that the goblins had cleared the area around us.
“Let me guess,” I said, dusting myself off, “Roderick?”
“What a well-placed guess,” Roderick said. “Again, you are here. Ms. O’Rylee, you are a true meddler.”
That spun me around. “Well, that’s rather rich coming from you. Who also just happens to show up at all the places I’m at. What are you doing, following me around?”
The thought hit me like a ton of bricks. He’d been at every place of trouble I’d found. Had he been tracking me? Could it be through that damn coin-that-wasn’t-a-coin that I couldn’t seem to rid myself of?
“My job brings me here,” he said.
“As does mine,” I fired back. “But don’t worry, I’ve already cleaned up this mess.”
His one eyebrow arched and he changed the subject. “What were they fighting over?” Roderick motioned at the goblin king dead on the ground and Crash who was surrounded by jumping, jubilant goblins cheering a name I didn’t think he’d ever meant for me to find out. Guv-Na. At least that was how it sounded. Probably wasn’t spelled that way. I looked at him, and didn’t see him hating the goblins the way Bridgette had said. So was she wrong? Or was he just that good at showing people what they wanted to see?
Yeah, that last possibility was one that stuck in my craw.
I looked to Grimm for help. He nodded ever so slightly to me. “Same old. The crown that Derek wanted and Crash does not.”
Roderick sighed. “Lovely. Breena, you were pulled into this mess how?”
Think quickly, Bree. “Because I happened to be with Crash. And they thought he would be upset if something happened to me.”
Roderick’s eyebrows both slowly rose. “And would that be the truth? Would he be upset if something happened to you?”
We need to talk after this.
Are you kicking me out of the house?
The back and forth from earlier reverberated through my head, through my thoughts. Was I hot and bothered for him? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. But could I really trust him? The moments from our shower together came back to me, his hands and . . . other things against my skin. Was that even real, or had there been an ulterior motive? I wanted to trust him fully. I wanted to believe he wanted me for me.
But he wouldn’t even look at me now. Like suddenly he couldn’t be seen with me. He hadn’t even come to see if I was okay—which I was not. I was bruised and battered in body and, worse, in the part of my heart I’d slowly been giving him.
“Bree, would he be upset?” Roderick repeated the question, softer, gentler.
“I’m thinking. I . . . don’t know,” I finished lamely. “I don’t know, okay? Probably not as much as he might claim to be.”
He nodded. “Anything in particular you think they were fighting over then, if not you?”
I lifted both hands and lied through my teeth. “Not a clue.”
Roderick stared hard at me. “You aren’t a good liar. You know that, right?”
“Girl’s gotta try when she’s been sworn to secrecy,” I said.
Roderick looked from me to Grimm and back again. “Fine. For now. The council may want to speak with you again about this.”
That gave me pause, a thought rumbling through me, cutting through the aches and pains and the desire to lie down for a week. “Roderick, when I walked through the desks at the council, and all the spells were taken off me, was there a small one, something like a deterrent spell?”
My gran’s and parents’ files had—according to Tom—a spell on them that was making me not want to open them. But when I’d walked through the desks and all the spells had been lifted off me, Roderick had said I’d only had a slight glamor on me, an old spell.