Juryokine

Chapter Thirty Two

Toke sat, staring out of the cell door where Professor Navras just been standing, for several minutes. He couldn't have moved from that spot even if his hands hadn't been chained to the wall.

It was him, he thought over and over, the words looping endlessly through his head. It was him all along.

It couldn't be true, of course. This was Professor Navras! There was another explanation. Toke had missed something during their talk, something that would make everything clear.

He's working against the spearman! he thought desperately, his eyes still glued to the last place he had seen the professor. Somehow, he managed to break his shackles and is going after him. This'll all be over in a few minutes.

But, the other half of his mind argued, where did he get the key? And why didn't he set you free before he left?

To protect me, he insisted. I'm his favorite student. He doesn't want to risk me getting hurt.

He could have taken Zashiel.

But he's...

He's an old man. He couldn't fight the spearman all by himself.

HE'S MY PROFESSOR!

Try as he might, though, Toke couldn't deny what he was most afraid of: that Navras being the spearman made sense. He had been a spearman during the battle of Zetheran Pass. When Toke had begun building his batteries, Navras had been there every step of the way. Navras was the only one genius enough to replicate Toke's invention. And he hadn't just copied it, Toke realized. He had perfected it. While Toke was trying to make his batteries stop blowing up, Navras had, somehow, figured out how to cause Gravity Storms with them.

"Toke?" Zashiel called from her unseen cell. "Are you okay?"

"It's my fault," he replied, his voice void of emotion.

Chains clinked as Zashiel shifted. "Toke, you can't think like that. Yasmik needs you!"

"He's using my batteries to make the Gravity Storms," Toke said, speaking more to himself than to her. "All those people who died... it's my fault!"

"You can't just give up!"

"Excuse me," Brin spoke up. "Will somebody please explain to me what just happened?"

"I just figured out how big of an idiot I am," Toke spat. "The answer was staring me in the face all along. I was just too busy looking around it to realize it."

"So your teacher, Navras..."

"He was the spearman the whole time." Toke leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "It's the only answer that actually makes sense. And he made me think Virkhul was the one behind it all!"

"That man who sits outside his classroom?"

Toke nodded, though he was sure his father couldn't see it. He should have known something was wrong the minute he found Navras chained up next to him. Thinking back, the old inventor hadn't been one of the ones Klevon had pushed into Adal's office.

"I am so stupid," he whispered, low enough that only he could hear. In his heart, he knew that he was being too hard on himself. Who in their right mind would have suspected Yasmik's greatest inventor for the murder of an entire city?

"Why is he doing this, though?" Mr. Gnasher asked. He was pacing his cell now.

Toke shrugged as best he could in his shackles. "Who knows? Who cares?"