His hand was on his sword.

At least he hadn’t taken it out. I knew there were other Bokor bases than the island, which meant that as soon as he recognized that Val was a Bokor, he wasn’t going to attack us, but the moment he recognized me, he had a lot of questions.

“Byler? What happened to you? Where’s Max? Who..? Why does she have Max’s sword?” Each one of his questions rolled into another.

“Master Ju… James.” I had to remember what Max’s Master’s real name was. The other Masters at the Island joked about how Master James only created ‘junk’ Potentials who couldn’t handle themselves. No one seemed to know if any of Master James’ Apprentices had ever been approved to become Bokor, which had earned him the nickname behind his back. After the little bit of time that I’d spent with Max, I had to admit the man hadn’t been ready for the life that Master Bran had been training me for, but in reality, in some ways, Max had been better equipped to deal with this mission than I had. I had been upset before we’d set out that I was getting paired with someone Master James had taught, but now I wasn’t so certain that he hadn’t been teaching something that I needed.

“Can we talk..?” I looked back at the city, then at the young, brown haired man that was with the Bokor. He was too old to be an apprentice, which meant he must be the runner from Gher. “Privately?”

If it had been any other Master, there was a good chance that we’d have already been dead. Instead, the gray haired, green eyed man nodded slowly. “Go on in, Toby. I need to talk to my colleagues about this.”

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The young man took the horse he had been riding and headed for the town. Fyga met him at the gate, but he must have told her that we wanted privacy because she didn’t get any closer.

The runes on Master Jame’s arms pulsed, “We can speak now. Byler please. What happened?”

“The first town…” I looked at Val. “The mayor was farming Zombies to help one of the Bokor pad their numbers. They were sacrificing people to become Zombies…”

That was all of the explanation that he needed to hear apparently. He held up his hand. “I knew there were towns doing that, but the Council…” He shook his head and looked at Val, then back at me. “The only way for you to survive being sacrificed was to make the change.” He looked at Val. “Max didn’t make it.”

I nodded. “I’m trying to finish my mission, to see if there is a cure…”

“There isn’t.” Master James looked in between us at the corpse half out of the barrel. “Well, maybe there is something here we could use.” He walked over and knelt down next to the failed experiment. “I’m Master James.” He looked up at Val,”Who are you?”

“Val…” She was keeping out of the other Bokor’s reach, though I knew she was still too close to have enough time to react if he decided to attack.

“Wrangler?” Master James turned back to the cured Zombie.

“Yes.” Val didn’t seem very happy at being so easy to read.

“The researcher?” Master James nodded at Fyga, who was still waiting by the wall.

“Assistant.” I looked around, but I couldn’t see Narder or Winey. “I don’t see the brewer.”

“That’s… odd.” The older man looked over at her and motioned for her to come over. “I would have thought we’d have to restrain the person who discovered this from coming out here to check.” He shook his head. “Let’s see what she can tell us.”

Fyga got there and she looked like she had been crying. She ran over to Val. “It’s terrible! Winey’s been murdered!”