bear to see that happen to another family like it had to hers.
“You want me to draw you a map of the supply chain?” Nolan asked. “Why don’t you just ask your underboss about it?”
Tavia paled. “What do you know about Wesley?”
“From what I hear, Wesley Thornton Walcott is standing by the Kingpin’s side, as loyal as always.”
Tavia snarled at him and the knife felt suddenly so light in her hands. “Wesley wouldn’t betray us,” she said.
He wouldn’t betray me, she thought.
Nolan’s sneer was unbearably arrogant. “When the time comes, Dante Ashwood and your precious underboss are going to take this realm and kill anyone who gets in their way.”
Tavia punched him.
She hadn’t even wanted to, but the action was instinctive and before she knew what she was doing she’d raised her fist high in the air and brought it down straight onto Nolan’s nose.
His head ricocheted back and hit the forest floor, blood spurting from his hateful face. Tavia’s hands shook and she felt the anger lessen inside her, just a little, but not nearly enough.
The buskers laughed and one of them stepped forward and kicked Nolan in the ribs. Then another. One of them bent down to punch him. A fourth stomped on his knee and it was only when Nolan screamed out that Tavia held up her hand.
“Stop,” she said.
Though she wasn’t sure she wanted them to.
The buskers stepped back.
“You have one chance to save your life,” she told Nolan. “And you’re really starting to push it.”
Nolan shoved himself up from the dirt and clutched at his ribs. He looked newly sobered. “Just kill me and be done with it,” he said. “That’s what you lot are planning on, no matter what I do.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Tavia said. “You were right before, back in the city, when you said I wouldn’t kill you.”
The buskers beside her shifted at this revelation.
“But there are things I can do to you that would be far worse than death,” she said.
The buskers’ smirks returned and Tavia flung her arms out to gesture to them.
“They’d watch and smile while I did it. They’d help and laugh to drown out your screams,” she said. “The buskers stand against Dante Ashwood and if you stand with him, then you’re not one of us anymore. And I don’t think you want to be an enemy of the streets.”
For the first time, she saw the defiance in Nolan’s eyes lift, and a flash of the fear she had so desperately wanted latched onto his face.
“Tell me about Wesley.”
“I don’t know much,” Nolan said. “There were some whisperings about him and the Kingpin wanting to amass more forces in Tisvgen. It could be bullshit, I don’t know.”
Tisvgen.
It didn’t make sense for Ashwood to take Wesley there, unless Creije was on the verge of destruction.
Unless it was too dangerous of a place to keep such precious cargo.
“And the Loj?” Tavia asked.
“There are groups of Crafters in every city we have,” Nolan told her. “They’re supplying the buskers across Uskhanya with the elixir. Direct from the Kingpin.”
“But Casim—”
“Dante Ashwood isn’t stupid,” Nolan said, interrupting her. “The only underboss he’s ever trusted was yours.”
Wesley. She knew it was true. They were only allowed to get so close to Ashwood before because Wesley had been with them. The old man had barely spoken of the others, and when Wesley joked about killing his peers, Ashwood only laughed like he might just approve.
“Ashwood isn’t giving the elixir to any of the underbosses,” Tavia said. “He’s going straight to the streets.”
“Rendering Casim and all the rest of them useless,” Nolan confirmed. “We don’t follow the underbosses like we used to. We get our orders directly from the top now.”
“Casim didn’t mention being usurped,” Tavia said.
“He doesn’t know,” Nolan told her. “None of them do. The Crafters that gave me the elixir said that if I sold it under Casim’s nose, then the Kingpin would reward me in the new world. All the coin, magic, and Cloverye I could want.”
It was a small dream to have in a big world, and so Tavia knew what Nolan really wanted—what he’d really betrayed his underboss for—and it wasn’t booze or the deception of power. It was what everyone in the realms wanted. Survival. Nolan didn’t think Tavia and her side stood a chance.
“How many have you sold?” she asked. “How many elixirs are on the streets of Rishiya?”
“I only sold a handful myself,” Nolan said. He wiped blood from his face and onto his arm. “They