Secrets of the Crown Assassins

29

INDIGO

"I don't want to talk to her," I insisted. As we walked down the hall, Wolf raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

We stopped in front of the door of the very same cell I was locked up in only two days ago. Wolf nodded to the guard in front of the door and he unlocked it, swinging the door open. As Wolf stepped in, I remained by the wall, out of sight but still within earshot. Thankfully, Wolf let the door open. The faint cell light cast his shadow on the opposite wall.

I heard the clank of metal as my mother shifted in her handcuffs.

"Eveleen Sharpe," Wolf greeted. "My name is Wolf Reznor."

"You mean your fake name," she said. "I doubt you would throw your real name around."

"No, I wouldn't."

It occurred to me before that Wolf may not have been his real name but rather the nickname given to him based on the color of his eyes, but it was only now that I fully realized its implications. While Reznor could pass for an Assassin name, Wolf definitely wasn't one. I doubted any files in the Assassin databases had the name "Wolf Reznor", just as his Assassin name wouldn't be found anywhere on the streets. So who was he?

"Cut to the chase," she said, her voice sharp. When I'm not around to manipulate, she seems to have a very low tolerance for small talk. "We both know you want information."

"How were you captured by the Ravens?"

"How did you capture me from them?"

"Thorough planning," Wolf replied.

There was a long silence before my mother sighed. "I'm not sure. Some white gas seemed to appear out of thin air, spilling into my cell. But it didn't seep through the bars. It was trapped within just my cell. And then I passed out."

Gas that only stayed in a particular place? That doesn't make any sense. As far as I knew, technology like that didn't exist.

But what if it did? And what if the Ravens got their hands on it? Or worse, what if they made it? No one would even know how something like that works. And what about the other technologies the Ravens have? How much could they do?

"What next?"

"I woke up when I was being dragged out of a car and into the streets of Orleans with a hidden dagger at my back. You know the rest."

Wolf's shadow nodded before shifting. "Why were you kept in the Cressida's prison cells instead of Cárcel del Muro? Everyone knows that while Cressida is the most secure place in the nation and Cárcel is only the second, it's smarter to put high-risk prisoners in Cárcel so they won't have a chance at killing Crowns or Royals if they ever break out."

I furrowed my eyebrows. Even though the memory of my mother haunted me for years, the thought never occurred to me. My mother was skilled enough to catch the attention of the Crown Fortier and accused of killing her husband while attempting to murder her daughter. Why wasn't she placed in Cárcel?

"I imagine it's so the Crown Fortier could gloat whenever he was down," my mother snapped.

"Why would he feel the need to gloat to you?" Wolf asked.

Because I'm his daughter and he had me in his clutches despite her efforts to prevent it.

There was a possibility she would tell him everything, but I didn't think it was likely. When she had the opportunity to tell me everything, she still refused to do so and I'm her daughter. She wouldn't tell a complete stranger with nothing to do with her or her secret. Still, I sucked in a breath.