“Is it luck, or is it skill? Do you think I was so poorly trained?” he said.
She glared at him.
Gavin smiled, and he started to laugh. “You really are an interesting woman.”
“Why?”
“Here you are, trapped, and yet you remain defiant. I find that intriguing.”
“I’m sure you would.” She moved, reaching for her robe and pulling it around her.
Gavin realized that her wounds had already begun to heal. He darted forward and prepared to stab again, and she held her hand up, trying to block him. There was no attempt at magic in it.
“There’s no need to do that again,” she said.
“I don’t need you attempting to escape.”
“Have I looked as if I’m trying to escape?”
“Only because you can’t. Not right now,” he said.
“You might be surprised at what I can do.”
Gavin glanced over to the door. “What do you know about a sorcerer’s lair?”
“More than you.”
“Obviously. I don’t have any magic.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I don’t have your kind of magic,” he said.
She arched a brow. “Are you sure about that?”
Gavin let out a heavy sigh, and he held onto the El’aras dagger. He watched the blade out of his peripheral vision, waiting to see if she might use a hint of magic. He wanted to be prepared for the possibility that she might draw upon something.
Of course, he didn’t know if her magic was going to be too potent for him. He watched for something in her eyes, some expression that would suggest that he needed to be more careful, but he didn’t see anything.
“Just tell me why he wants her,” Gavin said.
“You obviously have uncovered the secret about her,” Erica said. Her voice had softened, but given the way that it had changed during their interaction, he didn’t know which one was really her.
Is she the hard-edged woman who was confident and strong? Is she the one who was panicked and scared at the idea of her son being taken from her? Or is she this person, the one who seems thoughtful, almost pensive?
He didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter.
He smiled. “I’ve discovered a little bit about her.”
“A little bit. You wouldn’t have been quite so on edge had you not discovered more.”
Someone with the power Alex had demonstrated would be a threat to someone like her. That was the reason she’d hired Gavin, hoping that he’d be the man his reputation said he was.
“You wanted her dead,” Gavin said.
“I wanted her removed.”
The choice of words struck him. They were the same words that had been used when he’d been instructed to find the Apostle.
“Removed. Does that mean dead? You did hire an assassin, after all.”
“An assassin who makes choices.” She looked up at him, holding his gaze. “Did you think I was so poorly prepared?”
“No,” Gavin said.
“Good. I was well aware of your predilections. You make choices. You decide who lives and who dies. An interesting choice for an assassin, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say I can be picky with my jobs,” he replied.
“Interesting. Picky with your jobs when you’re an assassin for hire.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t get to make a choice about which jobs I take.”
She smiled at him. “I suppose not. Is that something your master taught you?” She sneered as she said the word “master.”
“So you didn’t want the girl dead,” he said.
“It wouldn’t have been the worst outcome,” she replied.
Gavin had saved Alex, so what would she think of that outcome? “What do you want with her now?”
“We want the same as we wanted before.”
“Which is?” he asked.
“The danger controlled.”
Gavin chuckled. “I would suggest that you’re the danger that needs to be controlled.”
“Only because you don’t quite see the truth. I’m not sure you’re capable of seeing the truth, but you will. In time, I suspect that you will.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Anyway. What were you going to do with her?”
“I was going to take her from the city. Yoran is not a place for someone like that.”
Gavin could only shake his head again. “I want to know what you planned for her.”
“Will it change that much for you?”
“No,” he said, “but it might change something for you. If you give me a reason to let you live, then…” He smiled, spreading his hands. He held the El’aras dagger out at her, watching it. It was glowing a little bit, just a faint light now, but enough that he recognized that she was pulling on some power. “The more you do that,” he said, nodding to the dagger, “the more you give me reason to make certain you don’t walk out of here. As we’ve determined, I choose my jobs. In this case, I could choose to make you my job.”
She started laughing softly. “You are everything I was hoping that you would be.” She got to her feet, and she took a step toward him.
Gavin pointed the dagger at her, waiting for her to try to move closer to him. She made another attempt, but he jabbed toward her with the dagger. “You’ve already seen that you aren’t going to be able to use your magic on me,” he said.
“You might disrupt some of what I can do, but I doubt you can disrupt everything I can do.”
She spread her hands off to the side.
Gavin didn’t expect her to hold him any better than she had the last time. She had already tried to wrap him with some sort of vine magic that had crawled up his legs. Were it not for the El’aras dagger, he would have already succumbed to it.
The blade started to glow even more. She was intensifying her magic.
The ground started to tremble.
Balls.
“I don’t know where you are, but I need you to get here soon,” he said into the enchantment.
“I’m trying, but I hit a bit of a snag,” Gaspar said.
“What sort of snag are we talking about?”
“The sort that involves the constables.”
Gavin looked across at the woman. Whatever she was doing was building rapidly. If he waited, she was going to be
