Bound by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #2)(45)

About half of the crowd surged toward Solin, eager to claim tickets, but quite a few of the humans shook their heads and turned to leave, muttering amongst themselves. From the snippets of conversation I overheard, it didn’t sound like they were planning on coming back to the Royale, and weary satisfaction briefly swept through me. Maybe I hadn’t been able to rescue those shifters tonight, but I’d put a dent in the Royale’s operation, and that would have to be enough to tide me over until I could crush them completely.

A handful of the attendees had been injured in the evacuation, trampled or smashed into walls, and those were led over to where Brin and Nila stood with a few other humans, a table with medical supplies set up. Brin looked like he’d been hurt, maybe by one of the shifters – Nila was binding his right forearm up with a length of gauze. My hands clenched into fists again, and I took a step toward them.

“Wait.” Annia placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let me go and talk to them. I can help out with the first aid and see if I can get anything from those two. You, on the other hand, don’t look like you’ve changed a bandage in your life, so you should wait for me here with Lakin.”

“Fine.” I wrinkled my nose at the accusation – I’d changed plenty of bandages, thank you very much – but I was playing the part of wimpy female tonight, so I hung back and watched as Annia made her way toward Brin and Nila. She introduced herself as an Enforcer from a neighboring town, and after answering a couple of pointed questions Brin and Nila seemed to accept her.

“That was incredible, what you did back there with the fire,” Lakin murmured in my ear from behind me. I shivered a little at the sensation of his warm breath on my neck, and turned my body at a three quarter angle so that I could see both him and Annia and also put some distance between us. “It was an illusion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” I looked up into Lakin’s eyes, and felt a pang in my chest at the admiration I saw there. I wanted to lean into that gaze, to soak up the affinity and the admiration my soul craved, but I knew I couldn’t trust that look. “I wasn’t going to start a real fire, especially not in such a small space.”

“Well you saved that tigress’s life.” Lakin squeezed my shoulder as he smiled down at me. “We may not have been able to free those shifters tonight, but you made sure that none of them died.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“No. You were just being you.”

Warmth flooded through me, and I turned away before Lakin could catch the blush on my cheeks. Annia was crouched down in front of a human, bandaging up his ankle as she talked to Nila, and I tuned in on their conversation, hoping they were talking about something useful.

“… amazing, the way you guys manage to keep the shifters under control like that,” Annia was saying. “Haven’t any of them lashed out and killed someone?”

“Oh, that happened once or twice in the early stages,” Nila said casually, as if she were talking about training a puppy who still hadn’t learned not to pee in the house. “But we’ve been doing this for a couple months now, and we’ve got those shifters under control.”

“How do you manage to get them here in the first place?” Annia asked. I was impressed at the admiration in her voice – if I didn’t know better I would have thought she was actually praising Nila. “I can’t imagine they’re happy to be here or that they came voluntarily.”

“They’re not happy to be here,” Brin said with a smirk. “But they only have themselves to blame. They should have been more careful about who they decided to default on their obligations to.”

“Indentured servitude?” Lakin hissed, drawing the same conclusion I did from Brin’s insinuation. “That’s not only barbaric, but illegal!”

I agreed, but something more important was rolling through my mind. “Lakin, Brin said that the shifters here all defaulted on obligations. Do you think those obligations could be financial?”

Lakin narrowed his eyes. “I suppose. What are you suggesting?”

“There’s a certain bank that’s been offering interest-free loans to shifters,” I said dryly.

Lakin’s eyes widened. “You mean Sandin Federal? Do you really think such a reputable bank would be involved in a dirty scheme like this?”

I shrugged. “Just because they’re interest-free doesn’t mean they’re payment-free. It’s possible that the shifters they took just couldn’t keep up with the payments.”

Except for Mika, a voice in my head reminded me. She was taken because of you.

“Alright,” Annia called, and I turned my head to see her walking back toward us. “Let’s head home.”

We all climbed into the purple and white steamcar in silence, the tension thick in the air as I waited for someone to stop us. But no one even spared us a second glance. Still, I held my breath until we were out onto the road, and didn’t relax until we were far from Turain’s industrial district.

“So,” Annia finally said. “You got everything Nila and Brin told me?”

“Yeah. Debt slavery.” I pressed my lips together. “I’d be interested to know who the investor is behind this, if we’re right about what Brin is saying.”

“And also why they’re giving out loans to these shifters,” Lakin interjected. I could see him scowling through the rearview mirror. “I interviewed nearly every one of those families, and none of them looked like they were in the position to take on a loan. Why would an investor extend credit to someone who almost certainly can’t pay it off?”