Page 102 of Roguefinder

A horrible suspicion formed in my mind, a dark cloud coalescing, reluctant to be named.

With shaking hands, I touched my face and slowly patted upward. Something hard and flat covered my eye sockets, the edges soldered to my skin.

My eyes were gone.

I yanked my hand off the wall, and the cell snapped back around me. I could see again. My heart hammered, and my head went light and floaty, dark spots dancing at the edges of my vision.

What the fuck had I just seen? Panic gripped me, and more spots dotted the air. I pressed my hands flat on my thighs and took deep breaths.

Okay.

Okay.

When the panic receded, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift until one thought remained.

I want to see something else.

Maybe talking to my magic was dumb, but it wasn’t like anyone was around to laugh at me.

Show me something else.

I touched the wall.

This time, I spun into nothing and landed on my feet. I stood in the foyer of the opera house, my body whole and intact. Blinding sunlight filled the foyer and struck sparks on the gilded mirrors.

Tension eased from my shoulders. This was like the little museum, where I’d observed Romans having a social hour. I wasn’t trapped in someone else’s skin.

Ulfrik burst from a corridor.

He tore across the foyer, blond hair streaming behind him. The mirrors multiplied his naked body, throwing back a dozen copies of his scorched torso. Several sets of puncture wounds circled his thick neck.

Shouts rose behind him. He sprinted for the doors. Pets rushed him, and he spun and bolted the other direction, but more pets poured from other corridors, cutting off every exit.

He roared something in a harsh, guttural language as they swarmed him and took him to the marble. Stun guns crackled against his skin.

He bellowed and heaved, throwing bodies off him. A pet strode from a corridor, lifted something to his lips, and blew.

A silver dart sprouted from the center of Ulfrik’s chest.

He slumped and gave a final, hoarse cry that made the crystals in the chandeliers shiver.

I jerked back from the wall, head spinning and blood rushing in my ears.

Ulfrik had been a prisoner in the opera house. But when? It had to be before he turned me. Before he went rogue and ended up on a jogging trail in New York. Which meant…what? He’d escaped? Carlo had lost him?

None of the pieces fit together, and my brain was too bogged down with silver to unscramble the puzzle.

The cell door clanked and swung open.

Two pets filled the doorway. The first was the bald bodybuilder who’d kicked us out of the opera house. He looked the same, nothing but traps and swollen thighs. The second was just as big, with a blond buzz cut and a stupid little mustache riding his upper lip.

They crossed the cell and hauled me to my feet.

“Get the fuck off me!” I tried to yell it, but my head swam and the silver sucked at my strength, so I ended up sounding like some breathless porn star pretending to resist. My punches were just as embarrassing, my fists landing like throw pillows.

The bodybuilder smirked. “I hope you like your cell. You’re never getting out of here, stronzo.”

Whatever that meant, it wasn’t flattering.