The Invisible Ring

tell you what I think happened. You arrived at the auction ground as soon as it opened and spent the day going from auction block to auction block until you found all of the people you’d come for. Probably took you the best part of the day, too. I imagine you bought a couple of the others while you were searching so that it wouldn’t be obvious you were waiting for particular slaves to come to the block, but you would have been careful not to overspend at that point. Then, once you had the five you came for, you still had enough marks to buy three or four more slaves. But you wouldn’t have settled for the first ones who came on the block after that. You would have looked for people who could still appreciate the gift of freedom. Since there were so many and you could take so few, making those hard choices took some time. Right?”
    Reluctantly, she nodded.
    “Now, by the time you’d made your next-to-last purchase, there were still plenty of gold marks left to buy the double passage that would get you to a Coach station close to the Tamanara Mountains. And don’t give me any nonsense about the escorts bringing the marks with them for the next step of the journey. I had originally trained as an escort, Lady, and no man who serves in that capacity would have let you leave without making sure you had the means to get home on your own.” He raised his voice to drown out her indignant sputters. “So there must have been a secondary plan if you couldn’t meet them as agreed. Which meant you had the funds for that second passage.”
    “I told you—”
    Jared pressed his finger against her lips again. ‘“You came to buy five, and they were expensive purchases. Brock and Randolf would have been expensive, too. But Garth? You might have paid more than a simple, expendable laborer was worth, but it wouldn’t have lightened your purse by much.” When she started to protest, he held his hand firmly over her mouth. “Raej might be the prime slave fair and slave-owning might be an aristo indulgence, but even there a young, half-Blood male like Tomas wouldn’t go for much. With the way aristo Blood males have been mounting Ian-den females, you can go into just about any village and buy a starving little bastard of either sex. And little Cathryn— a pretty Blood female that an aristo male would use as a breeder after his broken wife produced the one child she’d be capable of bearing. But Cathryn’s only nine, and if healthy offspring are the intention, she isn’t going to be useful for several more years. So she wasn’t going to go for much either. Thera? I can’t imagine you had much competition bidding for a broken Black Widow with a vicious temper. Which leaves me.”
    She stared at him, wide-eyed.
    Jared took his hand away from her mouth and found he needed a moment to steady himself. “It was me, wasn’t it? Until you bought me, you still had the funds to buy passage on another Coach.”
    Lia shook her head, but he saw the truth in the shadows that darkened her gray eyes.
    “I know where the bidding starts for a fully trained pleasure slave—even a vicious one. And even though you weren’t bidding against anyone, the auction steward wouldn’t have accepted a price that was much less than the starting bid would have been. So I was the purchase that emptied your purse a little too much.”
    She wouldn’t look at him.
    “You can’t tell me I have things in the wrong order, Lia. It was almost closing when you came down to those pens. So I was the last one.” Taking the handkerchief, Jared wiped the fresh tears from her face. “Why, Lia? Why were you even down there?”
    “I don’t know,” Lia said, her voice catching. “I just needed to go down there. I knew there was something I needed to see.” She gave him a defiant look through eyelashes that were spiky from the tears.
    Jared frowned. “A compulsion spell?”
    Lia jerked. Her eyes widened, then narrowed thoughtfully. After a moment, she shook her head. “I would have sensed it.”
    “Would you? If a darker Jewel—”
    “You wouldn’t believe the drills I was put through,” Lia replied sourly. “No. I know what compulsion spells feel like. And I was drilled in how to look for all kinds of illusion webs, which is why I sensed something odd about Thera.” She shook her head again. “If it was a compulsion spell, it was awfully subtle.”
    He wouldn’t have expected any other kind if it came from Hayll. Subtle and twisted. Now was probably not a good time to remind her that being able to