Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(18)

Emmy nodded her own head then, as if to reiterate the point. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met, Will, but I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of the sols—and then you fell asleep before I could get any answers out of you, and we couldn’t wake you up.”

Flashes of images drilled into my brain, Cyrus’s face was so clear for a moment, and then it was gone again. What did he do to me? How long had it been since he switched the soul-link? And were the Abcurses okay?





Five





Dru approached before we could continue our conversation, dropping an arm over my shoulders and nudging Evie out of the way so that he could stand between us. He also dropped an arm over her shoulder, but she was so tiny that she basically started to get sucked into the space between his arm and his meaty torso.

“Evie?” I called out, perhaps louder than was really necessary.

I heard a muffled reply, before Dru announced, “She’s fine. The important question here is what are you doing here?”

I knew that he was talking to me, because he was staring at me, but I wasn’t quite ready to answer his question yet. Mostly because … I had no idea what I was actually doing there. Apparently, I had blacked out and then returned to consciousness without being aware of what I was doing, whilst actively plotting to join in on a very important meeting for the future of Blesswood—acting as a fake official dweller representative. Either Cyrus had somehow manipulated me into doing something while I wasn’t entirely aware of it, or else I had finally gone insane.

“She was invited,” I finally answered Dru, spurred into saying something simply to escape my thoughts. “She’s an official dweller representative.” I was motioning to Emmy, who was frowning at me.

“I was talking about you,” Dru clarified.

He sounded genial enough, as though we were old buddies and he was pleasantly surprised by my sudden, unwarranted appearance … but there was something more in his eyes. Something that glimmered. Something that didn’t belong there—and I couldn’t place what it was. Anger, maybe? Suspicion. Yes, probably suspicion.

It was suspicious, after all. I wasn’t an official representative, I hadn’t been invited—I shouldn’t have even known about the meeting—and yet there I was, standing right outside a building with stone columns lining a front courtyard and giant oak doors leading into a huge hall teeming with sols. It seemed as though the most important sols of Blesswood had not been the only people fortunate enough to be invited to the meeting.

“I’m here because …” I fumbled for an answer as I stared past the doors, following the robes of the people as they passed into the crowd and began to clump into little groups, conversing with each other in hushed little whispers. “Someone put an enchanted necklace on me, because my soul was trying to eat me, and then I passed out. Because it hurt, you know? Anyway, when I woke up, I wasn’t really aware of waking up. I don’t remember it at all, but apparently that version of me really wanted to come to this meeting, so I just walked into the cart. I don’t think the other sols cared enough to count how many dirt-dwellers were in the other seat. We were probably just one big, dirty blur to them.”

Dru chuckled. “I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth—but I have to admit, it’s almost worth it to never get a direct or honest answer from you.”

“I just told you everything,” I deadpanned.

“Right.” He chuckled again, before allowing me to escape from beneath his arm.

I reached around for Evie’s arm, and pulled her out too, almost expecting her to have suffocated at some point—though she looked more or less the same, with only a few extra inches of frizz added to her hair.

“So are you going to let me go to the meeting?” I asked Dru, since Emmy and Evie were standing there and staring at him instead of moving toward the building like the others.

I couldn’t actually see any other dwellers standing around, so I assumed that we were waiting for Dru’s approval. There was every chance that the other sols present in the hall would object to our appearance, so we would need everyone from Blesswood, at least, to support our attendance. I supposed that was why Emmy and Evie had spent so much time sucking up to Dipshit, Numbnuts, and Fred.

Dru was sizing me up, his small eyes flicking from my head to my feet, as though trying to visualise what the other sols would see when they looked at me. I also looked down, and then sideways at Emmy, and then at Evie.

“We’re all dressed,” I stated dryly. “We have all the same parts you have. The head. The arms. The legs. The lack of ball—”

“We were assigned to be present at this meeting,” Emmy cut in quickly, “by the new Chancellor himself.”

“Then you’d better get the hell in there,” Dru said, his smile stretching into a grin. “It’s about to start.”

Emmy and Evie didn’t waste another click, and they each grabbed one of my arms and started dragging me toward the hall, as though I would cause irreparable damage if left alone with a single sol for any period of time. They were probably right. I was already craning my neck to look suspiciously over my shoulder as Dru followed us. What was his deal? He gave up that fight way too easily. He was a terrible sol. Sols were supposed to make it hard for the dwellers to feel special. It was basically written into their genetic makeup.