Branded by Fire

CHAPTER 35

Councilor Nikita Duncan stared at the book sitting in the center of her desk, bound in leather that was stained and marked with coffee rings, the edges curling, and asked herself why she’d tracked down a copy of this very rare, very out-of-print volume. It had cost her a considerable amount of cash to acquire.

She could, of course, have infected the bookseller’s mind with a mental virus and simply taken it, but she’d wanted to do this without attracting any attention whatsoever. So she’d created a false identity, that of an eccentric human collector. Because the bookseller would never ever have knowingly let this volume fall into Psy hands.

She’d patiently ensured his security checks came back to the same rich human identity. And then she’d paid the exorbitant price for this stained, browned book. The pages were moth-eaten at the edges, but the words . . . the words were visible. That was why it had been so expensive. Nothing was missing, nothing had been torn out.

Nikita knew she should destroy it and reclaim the cost from the Council coffers. None of her fellow Councilors would blink an eyelash—this was a legitimate expense. But she hadn’t bought it to destroy it, though if anyone did ever track the sale back to her, that was what she’d tell them.

She picked up the book, redid the packaging, and put it in a simple brown waterproof envelope. Then she wrote the name of the recipient on the top: Sascha Duncan.

Again, she asked herself why she was doing this. “Power,” she told herself. That was why she did anything.