Nicholas, all bright eyes and kindness and love of marshmallow-fluff, deserved a chance to explain. If he were somehow involved, deserved an investigation, a trial, official procedures being followed.
He did not deserve to be handed over to a buyer like an object, given to a sorcerer seeking a magical power-source to drain. Not to mention the illegality of that, in the first place.
Nicholas might have secrets—oh yes, absolutely had secrets, and annoyance skittered down Tom’s spine like spider-legs, betrayed and angry about it—but wouldn’t’ve killed a man.
Tom knew that. Or he thought he did.
He’d literally seen Nicholas help a shuffling blue-haired old lady across the street the day before. Cliché, he’d thought, and wonderful; he’d stood in the doorway smiling, foolish and fond.
He wo
