An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,32

go about your business. No need for our lives to stop for this.” He spoke calmly to his people, and they listened, much to my astonishment. Normally, strangers in an isolated village would’ve drawn everybody out, but Loren was remarkably effective in keeping them at bay.

Not that I minded. The last thing we needed was more eyes on us. We had yet to meet Joy, and deep down, I was hoping we wouldn’t cross paths at all. Chances of avoiding her were slim, but hey, a guy could dream. It was only a matter of time, given our incursion into the one space she had been tasked with protecting. Sooner or later, the ancient Reaper would become aware of our presence.

“That is odd,” Loren replied. “You speak directly to my mind. Yet you are not one of us. How can this be?”

“Death magic, Your Majesty,” Unending said. “Though I knew someone like you a long time ago.”

“What is it you want?”

Unending told him the same thing she’d shared with Sissa. The young woman watched us closely, but she didn’t seem threatened or worried anymore. No, now she appeared more intrigued than anything else.

“Do we have such an object in our midst?” she asked her father after Unending described it to them. “I don’t remember it.”

“What purpose does this Mixer serve?” Loren inquired, looking at us. “What does your targeted Reaper wish to do with it?”

Unending and I exchanged glances. We had to tell the truth. If they so much as caught a whiff of dishonesty, all the soul fae had to do was spirit-bend us into submission. We couldn’t afford to get on their bad side. Fortunately, we’d taken this angle into account since before ever setting foot in the village.

“It is used to combine Reaper objects,” Unending said, trying to be honest without being too specific. The purpose was to circle around the truth in a manner that did not arouse suspicion, and that required some impressive verbal gymnastics. “The Reaper we’re hunting needs it, and like I said, we want to use it in order to lure her out. My master has approved this mission. This Reaper thinks we’re doing her a favor. She doesn’t know the whole truth.”

“And you’re fine with lying to someone like this?” Loren asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I am, because it gets me closer to capturing the Reaper. We have laws. We have orders. It must be done,” Unending said.

“Interesting. We’re normally not appreciative of lying. We cannot really lie to one another,” Loren replied.

“I don’t like it either, but the circumstances demand it,” Unending pressed on. “I believe that we’re doing the right thing, even if the methods don’t seem right.”

Loren thought about it for a while, but he didn’t seem convinced. Sissa was smiling at us. We seemed to have won her over. The king, however, was a more difficult customer. “Surely there are other ways to hunt this Reaper without lying to her,” he said. From what I could tell, the soul fae obviously valued the truth more than anything else.

“Yes. But she’s a slippery one,” Unending replied. “She has eluded Death and the others for a long time. This is our best way forward, I’m afraid. And I understand you cherish the truth above all, but the world beyond your village isn’t like that. I mean no offense when I say that.”

“Father, they seem sincere.” Sissa tried to intervene. We’d managed to hide significant parts of the truth, but they seemed to have bought it—or so I thought, until Loren raised a hand to silence her.

“Indeed. But they didn’t come here with Joy’s approval. They snuck in,” the king said, giving us both a grave look. “What does that say about you?”

“We’re desperate,” I replied. Okay, so he’d bought it, but he was still cautious. A good king, I thought.

The temperature suddenly changed. A cold wind blew through the village, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. A figure emerged from inside Loren’s royal residence. She was a Reaper. The Reaper. Joy. As ancient and as powerful as the First Tenners. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said from beneath the black mask covering the bottom half of her face. The Reaper uniform she wore was strange, mostly white and so tight on her body that it looked more like a second skin.

She was tall and slender, with bony shoulders and long legs. Her scythe was huge compared to Unending’s—a half-moon-shaped disk that reached my height, plus