Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Vale appeared in the doorway. “I didn’t want to miss this part. Angelica is taking a shower.”
“Now, what’s your name?” Kierse asked.
“W-Winston.”
“Winston, we don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” he gasped. “I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear.”
“Of course you will,” Graves said, flexing his hands.
“We have a few questions, and then you can be on your way.”
Vale grinned in the corner.
“You’re going to kill me!” Winston screamed.
Graves sighed. “I swear, these humans.” He put his hand on Winston’s bare skin with another exaggerated sigh as he began to break down Sansara’s hold on him. “Where is the entrance to Sansara?”
“I don’t know,” he said, actually in tears now.
Graves’s brow furrowed, and he asked again, “The entrance to Sansara—where is it?”
“I can’t—can’t tell you,” he sobbed.
Vale raised his eyebrows. “A little out of practice.”
Graves shot him a look of death. Kierse could tell he gritted his teeth and went deeper. “Who did you last enter Sansara with?”
“No one!”
“Her name is…Zara.”
“How?” he gasped.
“Well, that’s an opening,” Graves admitted. “What does Zara look…” He trailed off as his eyes flickered side to side as if he were reading a particularly engrossing book. The gold of his magic flared, and leather and smoke and parchment filled the room. “I see. You both love the tree. I got that.” He shuddered and pulled back. “Zealots having sex wasn’t on my bingo card.”
Kierse snorted. “You have a bingo card?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“To the point, Graves,” Vale said.
“The entrance moves,” Graves said with a feral grin. “I have the thread now. Where is it today?”
Winston winced. Kierse knew what that felt like to have Graves digging deeper into her mind. With her, he was gentle, always worried about pushing too far. She’d rarely, if ever, seen him work on someone else like this with such casual disregard for their pain. This was the warlock who promised to kill every monster who stayed at Amberdash’s party.
“There’s a coin,” Graves said with a huff of exertion. “Where’s your coin?”
“How do you know about that?” Winston asked through sobs.
“He’s a blubbery one,” Vale said.
“It might be too much, Graves,” Kierse said gently.
Graves looked up at her, and the tension in his shoulders dissolved. He released a breath and pulled back. “This doesn’t have to hurt, Winston.”
“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” Winston said through sniffles.
“Just give us the information we need and we’re happy to let you go,” Kierse told him. “Where is the coin?”
“His trousers,” Graves said, pointing at his left pocket.
Vale frisked the man, revealing a phone, wallet, and a handful of coins. They looked like the ones that the market used to let people bypass eating the fruit. Jason must have gotten the idea from that. Each one was stamped with the tree of Sansara.
“We give them to the new recruits so they can get inside,” he said with another sniff. “Then we collect them after they enter.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. The leader of Sansara goes by many names,” Graves began. “Have you met him?”
“No, of course not! He’s much too busy.”
“You only work with Maya,” Graves said.
Winston’s eyes widened in fear. “I didn’t say that.”
“Have you heard about them keeping anyone hostage?”
Winston shook his head fiercely. “No, we’d never do that.”
“Truth,” Graves said. “Or so you think. If they were to keep someone, where would it be?”
“Upstairs… Maya’s office has a set of hidden rooms.”
“I have the map. He walked me through it.”
“I didn’t walk you through anything. Please, one of you stop this,” Winston said, shaking against his bonds. Graves released him, and he slumped sideways from exhaustion.
Vale tsked under his breath. “I’m going to need to be paid for this.”
“I have another suit of armor,” Graves suggested, wiping his hands on his pants before reaching for his gloves.
“Do you need me to go into this cult with you?”
Graves’s eyes found Kierse’s. It took everything in her not to cross the room and kiss the look off of his face. “I think we’ve got it.”
The entrance to Sansara was another blank wall with the shimmery magical outline of a door visible in gold. They waited for a line of acolytes to filter in before she followed Graves inside to a beautiful atrium with moss-and-clover-covered floors and all hardwood embellishments. The scent of lemon and pine permeated the space. Jason’s magic and the call of the sacred tree—Sansara.
A guard lunged at Kierse. She dodged his first swing and landed a blow into his kidney as he miscalculated the second. Once she got him to the floor, she elbowed him in the temple, and he collapsed.
When she looked up, Graves had already knocked the other guard out and was returning to his feet as he dusted off his hands.
“Looks like they sent a welcoming committee,” Graves said as they hefted the two guards and carried them through a hardwood door to the right. They dumped the bodies in the first open door and made their way toward George.