Page 7 of Reaper’s Curse

“Open it,” I ordered Aoes.

I could have used the key Aldine had slipped me in the underground cell, the key that opened any door, but Aoes had his ring of master keys. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to know about the secret advantage I held in my thigh pocket.

“I really shouldn’t,” Aoes replied with a frown pressed to his mouth.

A snarl vibrated at the back of my throat as I spoke through gritted teeth. “I already told you, the guy is dead. Murdered, to be precise.”

The memory of Aldine’s prone body on the prison cell floor flashed across the backs of my eyes. Of something unseen pulling the elder into the hereafter. The Killian—the reapers’ reaper. I shoved the flashback from my mind.

How had Aldine not become something like Earl? Was the power of the Killian to thank for such a mercy?

“Who did you say killed him?” Aoes studied me with wary scrutiny, even as he produced the key and unlocked the door.

I stepped back, avoiding any physical contact. “I didn’t.” The second the lock disengaged, I slipped past him and pushed into the room. “I didn’t get a name to go with the face. He was an ugly, smug bastard, though.”

I pulled Aldine’s bag out from under the bed. It was empty. When the elder had been injured our first night in the citadel, neither I nor Raven had bothered with his belongings. The bag’s current state indicated the reaper not only possessed the strength to unpack after his healing, but that he had planned on staying longer than a handful of days.

Likely because I’d been missing at the time.

Guilt dug its thick claws into my core, but I had no time for the emotion. Not at present. I had no time for any emotion that didn’t aid my swift action.

Aoes leaned against the doorframe, watching. “You said the guy experimented on you but simply killed the old man?”

With a nod, I took to riffling through dresser drawers. Anything that wasn’t clothing I would take, which, after a quick search, turned out to be a partially filled journal, the citadel’s task file, his reaper’s scythe in compact form, and a handful of flash bombs.

I shoved all the items into my bag.

“Then Raven should be relatively safe.”

“How do you figure?” I tightened my gaze on the pub manager.

Aoes picked at his teeth with a pinkie nail and shifted out of the doorway, allowing me to step into the hallway. “Based on what you’ve told me, which isn’t much, by the way, it sounds like they were interested in what you are.”

“What we all are,” I interjected. “And what do you know of it?”

“I know the old man…was not the same as you. Neither is Raven.”

My stare intensified. “I’m sorry. What are you saying exactly?”

We shouldn’t have this conversation in the openness of the hallway, but the shock of Aoes’s words had my feet rooted in place.

Aoes sighed and leaned against the adjacent wall. “I don’t know how to explain it other than I see signatures.”

My face must have conveyed my confusion because Aoes jumped into an explanation.

“Before whatever curse befell our city, the people of Veritas were a community of magic wielders. Descendants of the fae, some say.”

I was aware of the stories. The lore.

“Everyone had their own gods-given talent.” Aoes tapped his chest. “Mine was the ability to see signatures. It’s like seeing the truth of a person’s roots. What I’m capable of now is a mere fraction of what I used to perceive. But I can look at you, or Raven, or the old man and see not only your individual energy signal, but I can identify your roots.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “By roots, you mean…?”

Aoes shrugged. “Bloodline, species, whatever you want to call it. The scary thing you all think you are.” He glanced over me. “You and your team definitely share a root, but none of you are the same in that manner. The old man…”

He lifted a chin to the room at my back. Aldine’s room.

“He was pure in his roots, but you…” He shook his head. “You’re not.”