Page 30 of The Tree of Spirits (Paragons #2)
THE INTERROGATION
T he bag the Rebels put over my head must have been soaked in sedatives because I couldn’t remember leaving the room. Or the Black Obelisk, for that matter.
“She’s waking up.”
I blinked a few times, and my vision slowly began to clear.
“Already? She must be resistant to the herbs.”
The hood was gone. I saw I was in an ugly living room with raggedy carpeting, gauzy curtains, and walls painted poo-brown.
“She’s pretty tough for such a little girl.”
Something thick and braided scraped against my skin. They were tying me up with ropes.
“Ow! She scratched my face!”
“Hold her steady!”
More hands grabbed me, holding me in place. I couldn’t move anymore. The Rebels tied me to a very thick, very rustic wooden post at the center of the room, one of several support beams that was holding up the ceiling.
I focused on the pair of Rebels standing in front of me. One was a tall, slender girl with long silver hair and emerald-green eyes. The other was a boy with violet eyes and black hair pulled back into a long braid. Both looked a few years older than I was.
“So, you’re Rebels.” I struggled against my restraints, but these guys really knew how to tie up people. “And this is your, what, hideout?”
“One of them,” said the girl. “I’m Angel. And that’s Cedar.”
“Why have you abducted me?” I asked, struggling to stay calm. It was kind of hard, though, when I was tied to a post like some kind of ritual sacrifice.
“Don’t worry,” replied Cedar. “We have no intention of keeping you here any longer than necessary.”
“So said every villain ever.”
He clenched his fists. “We are not villains.”
“Then why did you tie me up?”
Right now, I was seriously reconsidering every word I’d ever said in defense of the Rebels. And that made me mad. I really didn’t want the General to be right about them.
Angel tightened the ropes holding me. “It’s just a precaution. We’re not bad people.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell that to the bump on my head. The good guys don’t hurt innocent people.”
“We didn’t hurt you. At least not on purpose. We…well, we kind of dropped you on the way back here.” Angel gave me a sheepish look.
“So you’re not evil; you’re just clumsy?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Then untie me.”
Her brows drew together in confusion. “What?”
“Untie me. If you’re not evil, then you’ll let me go.”
Cedar stepped in front of her. “We can’t do that. Not until you’ve answered a few questions.”
“Such as?”
He grew silent for a few moments, pacing in front of me. Then he spun around to face me and said, “Tell us what you and the General talked about.”
“Well, first we braided each other’s hair, and then we moved on to manicures.”
“Wow. You do speak your mind, don’t you?” Angel laughed softly.
“How do you know that about me?”
“We’ve been watching you.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘spying’,” I snapped back. “You’ve been spying on me? Why?”
“We’ll be asking the questions here,” Cedar said sternly. “And you’ll answer them.”
“Yeah, because I’m so good at following the rules.” I saturated my words with plenty of sarcasm. “If you’ve really been spying on me, then you must already know that you can’t bully me.”
“Tell me about your conversation with the General,” Cedar said again. “What did you tell him about us? Did you reveal any of our secrets?”
“Uh, that would be pretty hard to do since I don’t know anything about you,” I said. “Or your secrets.”
Angel exchanged looks with Cedar. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?” she asked him.
Cedar shrugged. “Better set her on fire just to be sure.”
“Set me on fire?” I croaked. I pushed against the ropes holding me, but they didn’t budge. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!”
“He’s just kidding,” Angel said, but the way she shooed Cedar away from me was not very convincing. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to talk. Tell us what you told the General about us.”
“I didn’t tell him anything about you,” I said for the two-hundred-and-twentieth time. “Because I don’t know anything about you.”
“Did you reveal the locations of our hideouts?” Cedar asked me.
“No, because I don’t know where any of your hideouts are. I don’t even know where I am.”
This conversation made my brain hurt. I tried to rub my head—but then I remembered my hands were tied to a stupid pole.
“The General is a frightening man,” Angel said, her voice sympathetic. “We totally understand how you could be frightened into telling him our secrets.”
“FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON’T KNOW ANY OF YOUR SECRETS!”
Cedar shook his head. “Speaking a lie very loudly doesn’t make it true.”
These guys were really starting to get on my nerves. I narrowed my eyes, the only part of me that I could still move.
“The General is on a witch hunt, and it’s going to get a lot of people hurt. Just tell us what you’re planning with him, and we’ll let you go.”
“I. Am. Not. Planning. Anything. With. The. General,” I said through clenched teeth as I tried to covertly free my hands from the ropes.
Cedar clicked his tongue at me. “None of that now.”
He lifted his hand, sending a fiery spark down the ropes.
I swallowed half a dozen swear words.
“Let’s try this again.” Cedar put out the tiny magic fire before it touched me. “When will the General make his move? And which of our hideouts will he hit first?”
“No idea. And how the heck would I know?”
He set another spark on my ropes. Only for a moment. Just long enough for me to tell it was really hot before he put it out again.
“That hurt!” I growled. The flame hadn’t touched me, but I’d still felt how hot it was.
“That’s how these things work. We hurt you when you don’t answer our questions.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“We said we didn’t want to hurt you,” Cedar said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t.”
“That’s barbaric!”
“Well, we tried giving people chocolate-sprinkled muffins to encourage them to answer our questions, but it just didn’t have the same effect.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Yes.”
“Somehow I forgot to laugh.”
“Cedar thinks he’s funnier than he actually is,” Angel told me, then glanced down at her watch, which had just begun to glow.
“Have somewhere important to be?” I asked.
“Yes,” replied Angel.
Cedar flicked his hand, using his magic to light the candle on the table opposite me. It smelled sweet, like strawberries and vanilla.
“We’ll be back soon,” said Cedar. “Try not to miss us too much while we’re gone.”
“I’ll be counting the seconds until your return,” I shot back.
Cedar followed Angel to the door, but he turned around just as he was about to leave. “Don’t go anywhere.”
The sound of his chuckles followed him out of the room.
He thought he was sooo funny. I should have set his braid on fire to see how he liked that .
I made a mental note to master the gift of fire.
I waited for something to happen. That was the cue for my magic to come out and save me.
Nothing happened. Clearly, my magic wasn’t interested in playing along today.
I did feel kind of drowsy, however. My gaze snapped to the candle Cedar had lit. It had to be some kind of sedative. The Rebels obviously didn’t want me wandering off. Like I could wander anywhere when I was tied to a post.
My head was feeling heavy. It was getting difficult to hold it up. My chin dropped to my neck. And just when I’d formed a totally unrealistic plan to get out of this mess, I dozed off.
I dreamt I was a dragon who flew to a quaint country village in search of a snack. But before I turned the whole village into a fiery oven, the sound of Conner’s voice snapped me awake.
Angel and Cedar were back in the room again, as well as another teenager, a girl with a sunny smile and a perfect pair of French braids.
And then there was Conner. I frowned when I saw he wasn’t attacking them or trying to free me. He just stood there in his shimmering dragon scale armor, shaking his head at the Rebels.
And that’s the moment everything clicked.
The secrecy.
The sneaking around everywhere while invisible.
Telling me he wasn’t supposed to be here.
Pleading with me not to tell anyone that I’d seen him.
Now I saw it all in an entirely new light.
Conner was one of them. He was a Rebel.