The Master and The Marionette (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 2)

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Dessin has been silent on the hike down the mountain from the Stormsages Keep. Garanthian said he didn’t know what the name meant, only that those who wrote the prophecy knew it would be of great importance to us. A name to turn the tides. I could see the wheels spinning in Dessin’s mind the moment he processed what was on the note. It wasn’t sitting well with him, whatever he was thinking.

“I’d rather not tell you. It’s mad, even for me.” Dessin’s boots crunch through the snow. A wave of echoes through the quiet winter forest.

“I take it you don’t know why Judas’s name would be of any importance to us,” I prompt.

“He’s always been on my radar,” Dessin says absently. “Do you remember the day you were called to the asylum because I had a breakdown?”

I nod.

“And when you stopped my treatment, I told you someone came to visit me, warning me of what Masten had planned for you?”

“What of it?”

“It was Judas. He’s the one that warned me. Said he overheard Masten talking about it in a gentlemen’s club. His plan to show you discipline under his own roof without Aurick’s prying eyes.” A flash of wicked fury in his expression.

What? I suppose it is possible that Judas could have learned of this information that way, but… “Why would he tell you that? Of all people? A patient locked away in an asylum?”

Dessin shakes his head, clearly asking himself the same question.

A memory tugs at me urgently.

“Remember when we escaped for the night to see the stars? Judas is the one that gave me the key! He’s the one that suggested I make a grand gesture to you.” He wanted me to show Dessin that he could trust me. And now that I think on it, he also asked me if I would stay with Dessin no matter the outcome of events.

He turns to me now, stopping in his tracks. “My idea is out of the question, but I’m going to share it with you anyway.”

I unhook my pack from around my shoulders, flinging it to the ground.

“There’s a law written in the asylum. No matter what a patient has done or is capable of, if a priest pardons them, the patient must be granted a room and treatment plan coordinated by the priest.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re not thinking of going b—”

“My execution sentence would be lifted. I could find out what Judas’s importance is.” He crosses his arms, rolling his neck. “The only problem is, I wouldn’t be able to keep you safe from in there. You are a wanted woman now.”

I want to laugh. This is out of the question. There must be ways around that extreme scenario. “Why can’t we just go to Judas’s home… ask him our questions there?”

“Oddly enough, Judas lives in the asylum. He never leaves.”

“Why can’t you just break into the asylum at night, and force him to tell us whatever it is he knows?”

“I could do that. Interrogate him. Use torture methods to get him to talk.” He looks down at me as if I should understand why that’s a bad idea. “But what exactly am I asking him while I make him bleed? We don’t know. All we have is his name, right? Not to mention, that kind of interrogation isn’t effective. Manipulation is a powerful tool to get someone to talk and share even the secrets you don’t know they are keeping.”

I raise an eyebrow. That makes sense. We don’t actually know what to ask him.

“Then how will you manipulate him into spilling his secrets?” I ask.

Dessin thinks of this for a long minute. “He tried to help us last time we were there. He wasn’t willing to share why—”

“He told me once he was looking at the bigger picture. That’s why he was helping me,” I interrupt.

“If he thinks I was captured and brought right back to where I started… then maybe that won’t fit with whatever he has planned. If he gave you that key to get me out, maybe he wanted us to leave. And if that’s the case, then I can play on that weakness. Get him desperate enough to tell me whatever makes him so important.”

I blow out a breath, a hot cloud of fog whooshing from my lips. It’s a good plan…

“What if—I’m admitted with you?” I ask, knowing how he’ll react. “The twelfth room is vacant.”

“Not an option.”

But my mind is made up. “No, it is, actually. Think about it. Judas has always been in my corner. Scarlett’s too.”

“No.” A firm answer set in stone.

“You have your talents, but this one is mine.” My stance is unmovable. “I was able to get through to every patient in the asylum for a reason. What if I convince them to let me have daily sessions with Judas?”

“Did you hit your head on some ice? I said no.”

“It will work!”

He looks like he’s about to yell or break a tree in half. “Maybe it would. But you would also have to endure treatments every day. And that is out of the question.”

“Dessin,” I utter, taking two steps closer to him.

“Don’t. It’s not happening.”

But my hands find the hard muscles of his chest. “I make my own choices. I decide what I can handle.”

“Apparently not good ones,” he growls, but his dark-mahogany eyes are fixated on my hands stroking up to his neck.

“I can do this. Let me prove to you that I can handle whatever you can.”

I won’t let myself think about the simulated drowning, the chair binding, the induced seizures. Enduring Niles’s treatment was enough to scar me for life.

He shakes his head.

“I. Said. No.” The violent anger is now spilling from his alpha presence. He’s edging over a cliff, the end of his patience, the dark tunnel of no return.

But I don’t stop pushing. I won’t let him win this one.

“You can’t stop me. Asena said we have to act quickly.”

“Skylenna! I’m the one that won’t be able to handle it. I can bear my own pain and suffering every hour, every day. But it’s your pain I won’t survive. It’s your suffering I won’t be able to endure.” His large hands grip the sides of my face with unfiltered vehemence. Even the act of admitting this weakness is gutting him from the inside out. “I have enough guilt to carry on my back. I refuse to add to that weight by hearing your screams echo the walls of that demonic prison.”

He’s searching my eyes for understanding. A rare moment to plea for my help. To beg for my obedience.

I throw my arms around his neck, slamming my body against his. The need to quell his anguish is burying me, crumbling my stubborn behavior to rumble beneath our feet.

“I know,” I whisper, tucking my face into his neck. “I know. It was hell for me to watch them hurt you when I was powerless to stop it.”

He smells of cedar and a crackling fireplace. Of home and warm hugs. Of everything I’ll ever need.

“But I need you to believe in me the way I have always believed in you. I need you to treat me as your equal.”

His jaw sets. “I won’t be able to control myself if I see you in pain.”

“Control is one of your strengths,” I tell him. “You’re going to hold it together until we get what we need. You have to let me be strong too.”

The way his shoulders droop in defeat tells me I have won. That is an argument he won’t combat. He lets out a sigh of pure exhaustion against my braided hair.

“If at any moment it’s too much for you, I’ll put them all in an unmarked grave. Do you understand me?”

I nod, but I can’t let him go. Not yet. Not now. The asylum is about to unwittingly let a wolf into their pasture of sheep.

And they’ll never see it coming.