Page 93 of (Mostly) Human Resources

“Please, can you save him?” she asked.

“I can bring him back to you, yes,” he drawled. “But every favor has a price.”

She answered without hesitation, “I’ll pay it.”

She couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. She couldn’t let another person die at her hands, in her place, because of her. Not Nic.

Silas’s smile was the same cold, dead thing he showed her when he told her to find Elliot. It reminded her eerily of the Jackalope’sgrinning maw or the Hollow Walker’s skeletal visage. It was the smile of death, of suffering, of an endless winter.

Her fear of Silas’s darkness faded some as a familiar woman stepped within her line of sight.

Agnes, cloak covered in dust and face marred with rage, stormed toward them.

Alexys’s own anger reignited. Any lingering reservations she had about making a deal with Silas vanished. The woman who performed such cruelty, who stabbed Nic, who killed countless others. She could unleash that darkness on her.

Alexys looked to Silas and found his hand stretched out to her.

“Life for life. Shake on it, darlin’.”

The gravity of the choice she was making and the weight of the responsibility she was going to have to bear were going to haunt her for a long time, but she couldn’t turn him down.Better the devil you know …Alexys reached out and shook Silas’s ice-cold hand.

He winked at her, and Alexys turned to find Agnes almost upon them.

When Silas stepped forward, she saw some of the fire in Agnes’s eyes sputter out. Uncertainty took over her expression, and her steps faltered.

“Who are you?” Agnes snapped.

“Have you forgotten me already, little Aggie?”

Agnes’s face went white.

“Ah, there it is.” Silas chuckled, deep and menacing. “I thought you might remember.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” Agnes backed away from him slowly, a hand raised between them as if to ward him off. “Youcan’tbe here. Our magic is supposed to keep you out.”

Silas advanced on her, keeping pace with Agnes’s slow shuffle backward. “You think your little ritual can fight against one of my bargains?”

Agnes shook her head, faster and faster until it was a frantic blur. “It’s supposed to keep you locked away. That’s … That’s why wedo it.We kill them to keepyoucaged!”

Her voice was shrill, echoing through the mine and scraping against Alexys’s ears. The fear in Agnes’s eyes was primal and satisfying.

“You think I’m weaker thanHer?” The venom with which Silas spat the word made Alexys shrink down and hold Nic a little tighter. Agnes withered under his caustic gaze and turned a panicked gaze toward Alexys.

“What have youdone?”

Fear made Alexys’s heart lurch, but she held no pity for this woman, this monster.

“I’ve been plotting my escape for longer than you’ve been alive,” Silas hissed. “And the new bargain I’ve struck negates everything you’ve done.” Agnes’s eyes opened impossibly wide, darting around the room like a cornered animal desperate for escape. She was shaking, hands gripping her cloak with white knuckles. “Now, I’m going to kill you,” Silas announced calmly. “Every single one of you. And when I do …” His hand snapped out impossibly quick as he grabbed Agnes by the jaw and pulled her in close. “Her magic will fade. And She’ll have no hope of containing my wrath.”

Agnes opened her mouth to speak, and Silas drove the obsidian dagger under her chin.

Alexys’s own satisfaction at the blood that spilled from Agnes’s throat sickened her, but she couldn’t look away. She needed the retribution. To know that Nic, whether he lived or died, had been avenged. That Elliot, the poor, sweet Warden, had been avenged. Even more twisted was the disappointment thatherhand wasn’t the one to wield the knife.

Agnes dropped to her knees and then fell forward into the dirt. Blood began to pool around her, and Alexys finally looked away, repulsed by the sight.

She turned her attention to Nic, brushing her fingertips against his cheek, trying to will the color back into his skin. Begging his thick lashes to blink open and reveal those clever gray eyes. Her gaze slid down, and Alexys saw the blood still leaking from the wound on Nic’s chest. Panic seized her.

“Silas,” Alexys called. “I need you to—”