Fortune Favors the Cruel - Kel Carpenter Page 0,13

talk when they’ll hang me all the same?” Quinn asked with a rasping cough.

“Who said I wanted you dead?” the man replied.

Quinn blinked, confused.

“You don’t?”

“No. I don’t want you dead.” He paused for a brief second, giving her a moment for thought. “I want you to work for me.”

Quinn drew a stuttered breath. “To—work for you?” she asked, not entirely sure what that meant … Work for him doing what? He simply nodded. “Why?” she asked, eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to her.

“You have gifts I’m interested in.”

Understanding sparked in her eyes as she said, “Ah, I see.”

“You’re a fear twister,” he said quietly, stepping up to the bars.

Quinn stilled for a moment, sinking into deep thoughts. Silence descended as the last vestiges of his words echoed in the nearly empty imprisonment block.

Fear twister.

She hadn’t heard that term in a long, long time. Certainly not spoken with such assuredness. Fear twisters were a thing of legend. While theoretically they came about in every age, dark Maji such as these could rarely hold themselves together through adolescence. Even fewer into adulthood.

They were scarce; some of the rarest Maji of them all, and yet here he stood completely assured. Completely certain that he had indeed found such a unique and powerful Maji.

Quinn’s chuckle was low as it slid between her cracked lips. She tilted her head back and let the sound carry out, racking her body as it built to a hoarse laugh.

She cackled until tears ran down her face and her stomach cramped with pain. The roar of laughter died out as quickly as it came, leaving Quinn gasping for air as she continued to snigger under her breath. She watched the man, noting the tick in his jaw as she became unhinged.

“Who told you that?” she asked. “Because it wasn’t Olivier.” She was quite certain of that. While the old man had figured out she was a Maji, he never asked what kind and she never volunteered.

“What makes you say that?”

“People don’t allow dark Maji to live with them, not even Olivier. They’re too unstable. Too volatile. Too … prone to delusions of grandeur …” Her voice trailed off as she pointedly looked at him.

“I suppose you are fortunate then that I am not most people,” the stranger said.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust who you are or what you want when you show up looking for me, touting the name of a dead nobleman that didn’t know half the things you seem to think you do,” Quinn replied icily. She turned her head the other way, searching the gaps between the bars and the cracks in the wall for even an inch of wiggle room. This place was a prison, though, made for men far larger and physically stronger than her. Quinn let out a slight huff when the man spoke again.

“Olivier was one of my oldest friends. One of my only friends, really.” She narrowed her eyes, glancing back at him. Waiting for him to continue. “He knew that I’ve been looking for—” He broke off, hesitating for only a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction enough to notice the change. “Someone like you,” he surmised.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Someone like me?”

“A fear twister,” he supplied. Proclaimed. He was so sure, it made her want to know how exactly he’d been able to pinpoint that in less than twenty-four hours when not a soul had figured it out in the past ten years.

“Olivier was my master. My last master,” Quinn stressed. “He pulled me from a post, still bleeding from a whipping that might have killed me had he not brought in healers. He bought me from the monster that did it. He gave me food, and clothes, and a place to stay.” Her lips pinched together as she took a breath to push past the brief flashes of memories so debilitating that they had more in common with nightmares. “Do you know what he asked of me in return for my freedom?”

His dark eyebrows came down as he narrowed his eyes slightly and shook his head.

Quinn smiled bitterly. “He asked that I have breakfast with him every morning and read to him for one hour every night. Willingly. Until he died.” She paused, swallowing hard on the dusty, stale air. “Olivier Illvain was a kind man. One of the only I’ve ever known. Even if he had somehow figured out what I am and let me stay, he had no reason to betray