“Who asked you to spy on me?” I kept my eyes locked to his and watched for the flicker of dishonesty aspects in his aura. My skills weren’t on par with an Inquisitor’s, but I was more than a match for someone as weak as the kid.
He gulped again and tried to look away as my friends arrived behind him. The weight of my attention pulled his gaze back to mine, though. I stared into his eyes until he swallowed and started talking again.
“They said not to tell you,” he said in a quavering voice. “It’s a secret. That’s why they paid my tuition. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I just wanted a chance. Like you had.”
The young spy’s obvious fear softened even my heart. I released his robes and put a hand on his shoulder. He was skinnier than most freshmen, and his sunken cheeks and haunted eyes told me he’d been a camper before he showed up at the School of Swords and Serpents. He was a lot like me, though I’d gotten here by being tricky in a fight against the School’s champion, and he’d earned his bones by agreeing to spy on me. I held his gaze for a long moment, then spelled things out for him.
“Listen,” I started. “What’s your name?”
“B-Byron,” he said.
“Okay, Byron,” I continued. “If you know my name, then you probably know I’m not someone you want for an enemy, right?”
The kid took a deep breath, then let it out in a shuddering sigh. His eyes were the size of silver dollars, and the tears he’d been holding back finally broke free and streamed down his cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” I grumbled. “Just tell me who sent you.”
It took him a few tries to work up the courage to say the words and confirm my suspicions.
“The c-clan,” he sputtered. “The Shadow Phoenixes.”
I’d suspected the truth from the second I’d seen the black robes, but hearing Byron say those words was still a shock. If my clan had survived, why hadn’t they reached out to me, even if only to warn me of the danger to all of us? My grief over the loss of my friends and mentors was still raw and painful, making it difficult to process my feelings at Byron’s revelation. Because, as much as I hated to admit it, the only reason the survivors wouldn’t contact me was if they didn’t want me to know what had happened.
Maybe they were trying to protect themselves.
Or maybe I still had enemies in the clan who didn’t trust me.
It was my turn to gather my composure before I could speak. The clan had used me, too. Seeing the pattern repeat itself with a new initiate sparked the fires of anger within me.
“Okay,” I said. “Was it one of the elders?”
Byron shook his head. “I don’t know.”
That was about what I’d figured, though I’d hoped I was wrong on that count. It would have been nice to know Sanrin or one of the other elders was guiding the clan, even if they were keeping secrets from me. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get any more answers until I got to the bottom of this mystery. And that would start with finding Byron’s handler.
“How’d they contact you?” If Byron couldn’t give me a name, maybe there was a way for me to get between him and his handler. Armed with that, I’d lever my way back into contact with Sanrin or whoever was in charge these days.
“A letter,” he said. “They slid it under my door back home, a few weeks ago. It said if I agreed to their terms I had to put the envelope in my window the next night. I did. Things went fast after that.”
Byron and I covered every minute of his life from the time the clan had reached out to him until the second I’d nearly snuffed out his lights. It was annoyingly straightforward, and I agreed with the decisions the kid had made. If someone had offered me a free ride out of the camps, I’d have been all over it. That would have been far safer and easier than getting into the ring with an Empyreal fighter ready to tear my head off. Unfortunately, agreeing with Byron didn’t make the situation any clearer to me. I couldn’t figure out why my clan would hire this kid to spy on me rather than just contact me directly. It wasn’t as if Sanrin, Hirani, or Hagar hadn’t shown up in my dorm room whenever the mood struck them.
“Okay, Byron, thanks for being honest with me.” I patted him on the shoulder in a gesture I hoped seemed more friendly than frightening. The way he flinched whenever I looked at him made it hard to tell how he was taking all this. “How were you supposed to report back to the people who hired you?”
Byron lowered his eyes, defeated. Fear and regret aspects choked his aura, but I didn’t see a single spark of dishonesty there. He shook his head and cracked his knuckles nervously.
“They said they’d reach out to me,” he said. “I don’t know how, or when. Do you think... Will they send me home after this?”
The dread in Byron’s voice hit me like a gut punch. Our clan had plucked this kid out of the slums and used him to get at me. Now he was terrified he’d have to go back to his old life because I’d caught him doing the job they’d hired him to do. No matter what else happened, I wouldn’t let Byron pay the price for someone else’s schemes.
“You’re not going home,” I told him. “I’ll make sure of that. Just do me a favor. When a member of our clan contacts you, tell them Jace wants to talk to Sanrin. Can you do that for me?”
The faint lights of hope glimmered
