Part 23 (1/2)
Seeing no reason to swear to a lie, Collins shrugged. ”The guards didn't find it. Did they?”
Quinton studied the rock. ”I just didn't know it could work that way.”
”Try it,” Collins suggested.
The woman's features remained pinched with doubt. ”Doesn't it... well . . . eventually come out.”
Worried they might start collecting and examining his excrement, Collins shrugged. ”Mine hasn't.
Maybe it got stuck, but it hasn't come out. At least, not yet.” Needing to change the subject, he questioned. ”So you're saying Zylas-?”
”Maybe I will try it.” Gaze still fixed on the stone, Quinton did not seem to realize she had interrupted.
”As soon as I'm with someone who can't understand every word I say without it.” She smiled. ”You don't know how long I've waited to talk to someone in English. I mean real English. And to hear the answer in good old English, too.”
”Real English?” Collins laughed. His aunt and uncle had once visited Great Britain, returning with quaint stories of loos and lifts, windscreens and tellies. ”I'm not sure anyone outside the United States would call what we speak 'real English.' Not enough u's, for one thing. Slangy and sloppy for another.”
Quinton smiled. ”It's real enough for me.” She slapped the stone down on the arm of her chair, deliberately not touching it. She stretched luxuriously, showing off a long, lithe, and very feminine figure. It seemed almost impossible that she and Falima came from the same gender and species, though, in a way, they did not. ”So,” she purred. ”How is Zylas doing?”
Collins shrugged, too vigorously this time. The movement ached through his body. ”He seemed fine, but I have nothing to compare it with.”
”Too bad.”
Collins' brows rose. ”You don't like him, I take it.”
”No,” Quinton admitted, then clarified. ”Oh, he's charming all right. Friendly, easy to get along with, seems like a real straight shooter, right?”
Collins recalled times when he thought the rat/man might be hiding things from him; but, for the most part, he found the description accurate. ”Yeah. Are you saying it's an act?”
”You betcha. And a d.a.m.n good one.”
”Why do you say that?”
Quinton met Collins' gaze with directness and sincerity. ”Because he's a famous troublemaker, a rebel leader with plans to destroy the natural order and the kingdom.”
”What?” Laughter jarred from Collins before he could think to stop it.”It's not funny.” Quintan's horrified expression gave Collins instant control.
”I'm sorry.”
”He lured me here. He lured you here.” Though it seemed impossible, Quintan's gaze became even more intense. ”And I was not the first.”
Now, Collins could not have laughed even had he wished to. ”What?”
”Don't you remember?”
Collins shook his head carefully, though it still increased the ache. ”Remember what?”
”The janitor. The one who disappeared about five years before I did.”
Collins tried to recall. ”The papers said he ran off with a young coed. Left a shrewish wife and three in-and-out-of-trouble teenagers to make a new, secret life.”
Quinton's expression remained stony. ”Want me to show you his body? And the coed's, too? Her name, by the way, was Amanda.”
”Not...” Collins gulped. ”... necessary.”
”Before that was the kid who played that weird game, what's it called?”
Collins knew who Quinton meant. ”Dungeons and Dragons.”
”Yeah, that's it. Got too wrapped up in the game and lost track of reality.”
”Wound up in a mental inst.i.tution, as I recall.”
Quinton finished, ”Rambling about ancient ruins, magic, and people who transform into animals.”
”Oh ... my G.o.d.”
Quinton fell silent and pressed her hands between her knees, letting the whole scenario sink in.
”Oh, my G.o.d,” Collins repeated. ”d.a.m.n.” His mind moved sluggishly. ”So you're saying that my following Zylas was no accident?”
”Nor me.” Quinton leaned forward. ”He led us here on purpose.”
Collins had to admit it seemed right. He remembered chasing the rat into the proper room, losing it several times, only to find it again by what seemed like impossible luck. ”Why?”
”To get this.” Quinton dangled and returned the blue crystal again.
”Why?” Collins repeated.
”I don't know.” Quinton sighed. ”No one here does, but it has to have something to do with the rebels'
plan to overthrow the kingdom.”
Collins slumped in his chair, his world crumbling around him. Nothing made sense. The people he had dared to trust, to whom he owed his very life, were frauds. True, Zylas saved my life; but it was his fault I needed it saved in the first place. Other past uncertainties clicked into place. No wonder he shushed the others when they grumbled about my underwhelming grat.i.tude. And why he didn't dare hold Joetha against me.
Apparently noting his distress, Quinton softened her tone. ”I'm sorry. They had me fooled, too.”
”They?” Collins repeated, not wanting to believe Falima had had a hand in the deceit, although she surely must have.
”Zylas and his accomplices. Different ones than you would have met. We caught the snake and the chipmunk.”
”And?”
”And what?”
Collins had to know, could not help subst.i.tuting Falima, Ialin, and Vernon for the snake and the chipmunk. ”What happened to them?”