I look down at the ring. It’s heavy. Like… heavier than a gem this size should be. Heavy like it’s got magic in it. “No. I have a bag of rings back at the sanctuary. It was left in place of the Book of Debt, which you ended up with, obviously. I don’t know where the rings came from, but I was sure they were for all the new monsters.”
“What do you mean? Why would you think that?”
“Because… well. Rings, in my world, allow you to go through doors. There were fifty rings and fifty new monsters, so…” I shrug. “I just assumed that these were for those monsters and they would enable them to walk out of the sanctuary. And I couldn’t have that, so I hid them, and, well, it didn’t work out the way we thought.”
“Explain.” He’s still growling.
“Well, this morning one of the rings in the bag came at me like a fucking bullet, slid onto my finger, and melded into… well… this.” I hold up my hand to display the ring. “Except it wasn’t this ring. It was a different ring. And then I walked through the portal and it turned into this.”
Tarq stares at it for a few moments. Then a few more. And a few more. Until it’s completely awkward.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know what to make of that. I think you should just go to work.”
“Agreed.” I stand up and turn, ready to get the hell out of here.
“You can’t go like that, Pie.”
“What?” I look over my shoulder at him.
He nods his head towards me. “You can’t wear those clothes. You can’t wear any clothes. It’s forbidden. It’s Fireday. You must surrender yourself to the queen.”
I make a face.
“I’m sorry,” Tarq says. “If you walk out of here in those clothes, you’ll be arrested for treason. And I don’t think you’ll like what happens to monsters in the palace dungeon. Luciano saved you back in the lobby. Next time you see him, you should convey gratitude.”
“How come he wasn’t naked? He looks like a human, but he’s not. He practically admitted it, so I know.”
“He’s a no-breed. Even lower than a half-breed. He has no citizenship here. He’s a slave, Pie. Slaves don’t count.”
“What? But he’s your friend.”
“He is. A good one, too. But I don’t make the rules.”
Something comes over me when he says this though. A memory, first. About the spellbook. And then a sense of certainty that he’s lying to me. “Funny,” I say. “You are the one with the source code, though, right?”
Whatever he’s feeling when these words come out of my mouth, he hides it. And his tone is calm when he replies. “I control the book, that’s true. No one else can open it. But the magic is another thing entirely.”
“What do you mean? You literally told me it was a cheat! That you were the ghost in the machine!”
“I don’t know what that means, but now that we’re here, at this point, I will tell you the truth. I don’t control the magic in that book. Not completely. I was missing one very crucial thing.”
He doesn’t have to say it. I already know what comes next.
But he says it anyway. “You, Pie. I was missing you. This is why you’re here. This is why the queen wants you. And this is why you will be mine.”
Wow. Yeah. This is starting to make sense. Not good sense, though. But sense, nonetheless. “You need me to get things done.”
“I do.”
“You want out of here. This bitch of a queen has you on a tight leash, doesn’t she?”
Tarq snarls at me, baring sharp teeth. “I do and she does.”
“And you want to take the book with you.”
“Correct again.”