Effigest by Amy Campbell

Author:Amy Campbell [Campbell, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781736141830
Publisher: Amy Campbell

Chapter Twenty-Five

Impulsive as a Weasel in a Hen House

Jack

* * *

Jack stormed out of Wells’s overstuffed temple of opulence, stalking to the stables. Circumstances forced him to make an abrupt pivot when he realized that in his anger, he had forgotten his saddlebag of clothing and supplies. He avoided Malcolm and Flora as he traipsed to the guest quarters, irritated as a flea-bitten manticore. Once he had the bag slung over his shoulder, he made his way back out to the stables.

He blazed a path to Zepheus, although the pegasus was pissed at him, too. The stallion called Jack rash and impulsive as a weasel in a hen house. “I wasn’t rash. I’d been planning this for years,” the outlaw grumbled to no one in particular.

“I understand,” a soft voice said from a nearby stall.

The outlaw tensed. Blaise. He had forgotten the Breaker had fled before the rising tide of his argument with Flora. Blaise rested his forearms against the top of Emrys’s stall, peering at him with haunted eyes.

Blaise was the last person he expected to understand, but then again, Blaise had been imprisoned in the Cit for months. Jack knew firsthand how the treatment foisted upon mages could twist and blacken a person’s soul. Jack had hoped Blaise would prove more resilient. “Do you?”

The Breaker lowered his head until his chin rested atop the wood of the stall. “I understand, but I don’t agree with what you did.”

Jack didn’t let the relief that flickered through him show on his face. Maybe they hadn’t broken Blaise to the core as he had feared. “Didn’t expect you would.”

Emrys walked up beside Blaise, thrusting his head out and snorting at Jack, as if to emphasize that Blaise was a better person than him in every way. The stallion wasn’t wrong.

“Did you come for me?” Blaise asked.

Jack frowned. Damn it, of course Blaise would ask that, all the while looking like a kicked puppy.

“It’s okay if you didn’t. That would be a stupid move on your part, and you’re not usually stupid.”

Jack set his jaw, then realized that the Breaker had sassed him on purpose. Even fresh from the torture of the Cit, he was trying to help someone else. That was good. He wasn’t broken. Jack was tempted not to let the barb go uncontested, but he wasn’t foolish. Blaise was a Breaker, and after the abuse of the Cit there was no way to know how he might respond. So Jack held his tongue. He went the route of the truth because if anything Blaise would appreciate that. “I came because Emmaline ran off.”

That caught the Breaker’s attention. He straightened, the corners of his eyes creased with concern. “Then why are you here?”

Jack couldn’t help it. He chuckled because Blaise had the right of it. “I found her. And she humbled me.” He rubbed his forehead. “Here I thought she ran off to free you. She wanted to, by the way.”

Blaise smiled, though the corners of his mouth quivered with the effort.

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