Lila cut a look to Dixon, saw his fingers shaking in the air as he pressed them into bunched fists. Here he was in another life-or-death situation, just a week after his last, and she didn’t know how she’d get him out of it. The look that crossed over his face worried her. It was a mixture of sadness, fear, and…
Anger?
“Why?” Lila asked, hoping to buy enough time for Tristan’s people to rescue them. “I understand taking Oskar and Maria. After all, you traditionalists harbor some notion of restoring them to the throne, but—” Lila broke off, considering the man’s accent and the accent within it. “Oracle’s wrath. You’re not Germans at all. You’re Italians.”
The group of mercs eyed one another, shifting in their boots, hands upon their guns.
Their leader laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravissimo,” he said, his vowels and consonants changing completely. “It’s hard to speak your language with a German accent. Harder still to speak it perfectly, though a few of my men can fool your people well enough. It’s a pity you figured it out. I would have let you and your friends scamper back to the little police force at the capitol so you could tell them all about the bad German people who stole the prince.”
Lila’s shoulder ached, and she struggled to keep her hands up. “Why take Oskar?”
“Why not? Everyone wants him. Your highborn want to sell him to the highest bidder, your government wants to send him to Head Councilman Abbot so America can get a shiny gold star on its collar, and the German traditionalists want to put him or his father on the throne. Even the German loyalists want him.”
“The loyalists? I thought they wanted him dead?”
“Only the idiots, but they pay like crap.” The man snatched up one of the tranq guns on the table, peering at the trigger and darts loaded inside.
“King Lucas doesn’t pay like crap, does he?”
“King Lucas is the slyest one of all, maybe more than King Felipe. You know the easiest way to sway the public? Turn your enemy into a villain or a clown. King Lucas has never wanted Peter dead. He’d rather not make Peter and his children into martyrs, into sad legends the populace can rally around whenever they don’t like something he does or says. He hasn’t even had to do much. Give Peter a few drinks, put him around in front of the cameras, and let him make an ass of himself. It’s been delightful watching King Lucas work. I may not like the man’s politics, but you can’t doubt his sense of humor.”
“What about King Felipe? He wants to own the next king of Germany?”
“The next best thing to being an emperor is to control one. If the children are good and do as they are told, he might even send us to Germany to collect their father. Everyone will think King Lucas has finally gotten rid of the foolish man. That will take some explaining on his part, don’t you think?”
He dropped the tranq gun on the table and padded toward Maria. Squeezing her shoulder, he tossed a careless glance back at Oskar’s cage. “Does that sound good, boy? You can have your father back if you cooperate. You’ll be a prince and then a king and maybe even an emperor. You and your sister will wear nice clothes and eat delicious food, so long as you do what you’re told.”
Oskar didn’t say a word, his glazed eyes staring at the floor.
“Why take the oracles?”
“King Felipe wants proof that the witches are false before he agrees to war.”
“The militia will figure it out. You shouldn’t have used tracers to find Rebecca.”
“Ah, that’s how you found us,” he said with a shrug. “It was an acceptable risk. A few bugs in the FPS office, and we learned all about Rebecca’s new parents and their tea habit. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough, and it was much easier than hacking into the FPS files.”
“But—”
“Oh god, take off the woman’s ridiculous hood. I want to see her eyes while I shoot her in the mouth.”
Lila’s hands immediately went to her hood, but one of the black-clad guards held her arms in place. The mesh brushed against her skin and hair as it was pulled off.
Fry and Dice couldn’t help themselves. They turned their heads, their eyes bulging at the sight of Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph, chief of the Randolph militia. To their credit, they cut their eyes away before their captors noticed they’d caught such a big fish.
But the black-clad Italians knew her face, too.
“Well, well, well.” Their leader grinned. “It appears we have—”
A shot rang out.
Blood sprayed from the Italian’s forehead.
Chapter 29
The recoil nearly knocked the gun from Maria’s grasp, but she held on, firing at the next merc before she’d even aimed properly. Her shots were as wild as her eyes, but she managed to put two bullets into a fleeing merc’s chest before spinning to find a new target.
The mercs nearest Maria cursed in Italian and scattered. They did not draw their guns. The girl was worth too much money to harm.