“Hasn’t worked though, has it?” Morgren’s eyes fixed on Twelve and his grin widened. “Besides, I like messy.”

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

Twelve stared between Victory and Morgren, struggling to make sense of it. The weaponsmaster’s wild, disheveled appearance had vanished. She stood straight and tall, a little more bedraggled than usual perhaps, but otherwise her normal self. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find a goblin mage standing in front of her—if anything, she seemed pleased to see him.

Victory turned back to Twelve and took her by the arm, pulling her forward into the training ground. Twelve’s bewilderment only increased. The sky was dark above them, the lodge both familiar and strange. Torches burned with green flames, the sickly light distorting the shadows of hundreds of scurrying goblins. To one side of the octagonal space was a gaping hole, another tunnel entrance. Small figures crisscrossed the training ground from it, ferrying crates from its depths to the council house.

“What have you done?” Twelve cried, struggling against Victory’s grip. “Where are the other Hunters?”

In an instant, the weaponsmaster twisted Twelve’s arm behind her back, making her gasp with pain as Dog’s bite reopened.

“Don’t fight me, Twelve,” Victory whispered. “This can be easy for you or very, very difficult.” Her grip tightened. “I have to say, I’m a little disappointed. How many times do I have to say it? Constant vigilance. I shouldn’t have been able to surprise you like that.”

Twelve tried to wrench herself away and Victory twisted her arm even harder. This didn’t make any sense. Victory was part of the lodge, central to it. She and Silver were . . . The thought of Silver brought Twelve up short. Suddenly she was back in the training ground during the Grim attack, watching Silver and Victory fight the creature side by side, perfectly in sync . . . until Victory tripped, accidentally throwing Silver off balance.

Had it been an accident though?

Twelve couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt impossibly tight. “Silver,” she gasped, “did . . . did you . . . ?”

Victory’s grip loosened a little. “Silver was very dear to me for a long time,” the Hunter sighed, then her voice hardened. “But she was getting soft in her old age and I outgrew her. She would never have accepted this new era of the Hunting Lodge. I saw an opportunity and I took it. She died as she would have wanted, her swords in her hands.”

A strange numbness had fallen over Twelve, but Victory’s words burned through that. Anger flooded her, red-hot and as bitter as ash. “Died as she would have wanted?” Twelve spat. “Betrayed by her closest friend?”

“Well,” Victory allowed, “maybe not exactly as she would have wanted.”