by Laura Legend
Kumiko put down the kettle and took her seat at the head of the table. She took a sip of her tea, then locked eyes again with Cass.
“Yes,” Kumiko said with a cold simplicity. The hard edge in her voice indicated that Cass had, unknowingly, touched a deep nerve. “It is impossible. They are beyond saving. The only way forward is to wipe them from the face of the earth.”
Cass broke eye contact and, a little embarrassed, took a sip of her own tea.
Zach swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything.
Without consciously intending to, Dogen absently rubbed a long, nasty scar that twisted around his forearm like a ragged, purple snake. He agreed with Kumiko: “Kumiko is right. There is only one way forward, dark as it may be.”
Grey spoke up, trying to turn the discussion in a more practical direction. “I have a lead on the relic’s location. We may be able to steal the coat out from under them. But I need more time.”
Kumiko folded her hands in her lap, gathering her thoughts. Everyone else waited in silence.
Zach took a sip of his tea but almost sprayed it across the room when, under the table, Cass trailed her hand up his leg and rested it high on his thigh. He gulped hard, coughed, and placed his cup back into its saucer with a bit of a rattle.
Kumiko gave Zach a weary glance.
With her head bowed solemnly, Cass gave no sign that she’d noticed anything.
“Let’s buy you some time, Grey,” Kumiko offered. “Let’s attempt a bit of misdirection and leak false information to the Lost that we already have the holy coat and have secured it here at the monastery. This will cause confusion and slow them down, creating some room for you to operate.”
Dogen nodded his head in agreement and, after considering it for a moment, Grey followed suite.
Then everyone turned to Cass.
She still had her doubts about this approach as a long term strategy, but she could agree to it as a short term tactic. What choice did she really have? At least for the moment, Kumiko wasn’t going to bend on this point.
“Okay,” Cass said.
With the decision made, they finished their tea and the meeting was adjourned.
Cass, lost in her own thoughts, started to wander away, back toward her room. But Zach caught up with her and pulled her aside.
“You need to come with me,” he said, his voice urgent. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, and dialogue are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Blameless. Copyright © 2018 by Laura Legend. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be produced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Cover art by Momir Borocki
First edition
EPub Edition November 2018
Print Edition November 2018
ISBN: 9781796703931
