a lying murderer. Even if he resented what she had done and become, she would save him.
“Consider the tip a favor,” Arobynn said, rising from the bench. “A token of good faith.”
She’d bet there was more—perhaps tied to a certain captain whose warmth lingered in the wooden bench beneath her.
She stood as well, sliding out of the booth. She knew that more spies than Arobynn’s lackeys monitored them—had seen her arrive, wait at the bar, and then head to this banquette. She wondered if her old master knew, too.
Arobynn only smiled at her, taller by a head. And when he reached out, she allowed him to brush his knuckles down her cheek. The calluses on his fingers said enough about how often he still practiced. “I do not expect you to trust me; I do not expect you to love me.”
Only once, during those days of hell and heartbreak, had Arobynn ever said that he loved her in any capacity. She’d been about to leave with Sam, and he had come to her warehouse apartment, begging her to stay, claiming that he was angry with her for leaving and that everything he’d done, every twisted scheme, had been enacted out of spite for her moving out of the Keep. She’d never known in what way he’d meant those three words—I love you—but she’d been inclined to consider them another lie in the days that followed, after Rourke Farran had drugged her and put his filthy hands all over her. After she’d rotted away in that dungeon.
Arobynn’s eyes softened. “I missed you.”
She stepped out of his reach. “Funny—I was in Rifthold this fall and winter, and you never tried to see me.”
“How could I dare? I thought you’d kill me on sight. But then I got word this evening that you had returned at last—and I hoped you might have changed your mind. You’ll forgive me if my methods of getting you here were … roundabout.”
Another move and countermove, to admit to the how but not the real why. She said, “I have better things to do than care about whether you live or die.”
“Indeed. But you would care a great deal if your beloved Aedion died.” Her heartbeat thundered through her, and she braced herself. Arobynn continued, “My resources are yours. Aedion is in the royal dungeon, guarded day and night. Any help you need, any support—you know where to find me.”
“At what cost?”
Arobynn looked her over once more, and something low in her abdomen twisted at the gaze that was anything but that of a brother or father. “A favor—just one favor.” Warning bells pealed in her head. She’d be better off making a bargain with one of the Valg princes. “There are creatures lurking in my city,” he said. “Creatures who wear the bodies of men like clothing. I want to know what they are.”
Too many threads were now poised to tangle.
She said carefully, “What do you mean?”
“The king’s new guard has a few of them among its commanders. They’re rounding up people suspected of being sympathetic to magic—or those who once possessed it. Executions every day, at sunrise and sunset. These things seem to thrive on them. I’m surprised you didn’t notice them lurking about the docks.”
“They’re all monsters to me.” But Chaol hadn’t looked or felt like them. A small mercy.
He waited.
So did she.
She let herself break first. “Is this my favor, then? Telling you what I know?” There was little use in denying she was aware of the truth—or asking how he’d become aware that she knew it.
“Part of it.”
She snorted. “Two favors for the price of one? How typical.”
“Two sides of the same coin.”
She stared flatly at him, and then said, “Through years of stealing knowledge and some strange, archaic power, the king has been able to stifle magic, while also summoning ancient demons to infiltrate human bodies for his growing army. He uses rings or collars of black stone to allow the demons to invade their hosts, and he’s been targeting former magic-wielders, as their gifts make it easier for the demons to latch on.” Truth, truth, truth—but not the whole truth. Not about the Wyrdmarks or Wyrdkeys—never to Arobynn. “When I was in the castle, I encountered some of the men he’d corrupted, men who fed off that power and became stronger. And when I was in Wendlyn, I faced one of his generals, who had been seized by a demon prince of unimaginable power.”
“Narrok,” Arobynn mused. If he was horrified, if