Chapter 4 #2
Viri spun to Meera, hoping to find an ally in her mentor. Instead, there was an apologetic yet unyielding expression on Meera’s face as she stated, “You visited a high-security prisoner without clearance.”
She knew Viri well enough to understand why, but even so—
“I’m sorry, Viri,” Meera went on, “but actions have consequences.”
Viri couldn’t help asking, “Would you still be saying that if I’d learned anything of use?”
“You didn’t,” Darik said, never one to pull his punches, “so that’s irrelevant.”
Ouch. Viri felt the sting of failure all over again.
She turned to the window, watching the blackmist drift over the crashing waves like an ominous, dark cloud.
“Fine. What’s my punishment? Extra sparring sessions?
Training the novices? Cleaning weapons?” She’d been tasked with all of those before, none of which were pleasant, but they were still better than—
“Desk duties,” Meera said, making Viri whirl back around in horror. “You’ll report directly to the Nox archives. One week. No hunting.”
Viri gaped. “A whole week?”
“Be grateful it’s not more,” Darik cut in, giving his gloves one last tug before returning his hands to his hips.
“But—”
“I’ll still expect you at training every morning,” Meera said, halting Viri’s objection with a warning look.
Viri knew that look—it wasn’t a warning not to argue; it was a warning not to push her luck.
If she fought the punishment, especially with Darik there, she could be locked out of the Guild for the full week—or longer.
At least this way she would still see Meera daily and keep up with any hunting news.
It was a compromise, one Viri knew few of her colleagues would be granted.
Swallowing her protests, she asked, “When do I start?”
“Straight away,” Meera said, causing Viri’s shoulders to drop. “Head Archivist Thornton has already been notified of your arrival.”
“We don’t tolerate laziness in the Nox, nor do we abide disrespect,” Darik cautioned. “For the next seven days, you’re an archivist’s assistant, not a hunter. Don’t forget that, or you’ll remain there for longer.”
Viri bit back her retort. She might not like the punishment, but she also wasn’t a delinquent child who was going to slack off, no matter how tedious she found the work.
“It goes without saying that you’re not to visit Ashton again,” Meera said, watching Viri closely, as if anticipating an argument. But Reeve was the last person she wanted to see.
“That won’t be a problem,” Viri said firmly enough to satisfy Meera. Darik, too.
“Good.” Meera dipped her head toward the door. “We’re due back at the council, but you know where the archives are, so head on down. And Viri?” Her jade eyes narrowed. “Don’t be late to training tomorrow. I won’t be forgiving if it happens again.”
Viri mumbled her agreement and hurriedly left the office, her tension easing at the sight of Soren resting against the wall, waiting for her.
His hair was still perfectly coiffed, his uniform still immaculate, but there was a trace of worry in his brown eyes that only faded when he saw she was in one piece.
“Next time I say ‘be quick,’ maybe consider listening,” he drawled as she approached.
“Lesson learned,” Viri said, scrunching her nose. “Are you in much trouble?”
“Me? The Nox’s golden boy?” He smiled wryly and gestured for her to follow him back through the Guild toward the elevator. “Nah. A slap on the wrist and some extra shifts patrolling the undercity. Nothing I can’t handle. You?”
“A week of desk duties.” Viri sounded as miserable as she felt. “Effective immediately.”
“Elders save you.” Soren chuckled. “Your worst nightmare.”
Viri only grumbled in reply.
“Was it worth it?” he asked as they continued along the green-marbled corridor. “Did Ashton tell you anything useful?”
“No, and no,” Viri said, annoyed all over again.
“I warned you that he wouldn’t speak,” Soren said, albeit gently.
“He did speak, just nothing that was worth hearing.”
Soren’s sandy brows shot upward. “You got him to talk?”
“It was getting him to shut up that was difficult,” Viri muttered, before remembering herself. Thankfully, they reached the elevator then, just as the doors opened and three hunters walked out, one of whom hailed Soren to ask about a recent arrest they’d shared.
Judging by the coy look on the attractive young man’s face, that wasn’t all they’d shared, and Viri barely hid a smirk as she told Soren she’d see him later.
Alone in the elevator, Viri just stood there for a moment, wishing she had time to go outside and clear her head, especially after her worthless visit with Reeve.
But she couldn’t afford to risk Darik’s threat, so with a deep exhale, she pressed the down button, ignored the prickle of ellixen as the lift began to move, and prayed to the Elders that she would get stuck between floors and have a valid excuse to skive off the rest of the day.
Unsurprisingly, the Elders weren’t listening—the gods of old apparently had better things to do with their time—and all too soon the doors were opening at the Nox archives.
A single step into the cavernous white-walled space was all it took to remind Viri why she hated the archives so much.
It wasn’t just the piles—and piles—of paperwork.
Nor was it the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that traveled farther than she could see, all overflowing with ledgers and reports covering everything from small crimes to serial killers.
It wasn’t even the stuffy desks crammed together in one corner and the weary-looking archivists sitting behind them.
None of those things were appealing, but nor were they bad enough to make Viri want to leave as quickly as she’d arrived.
Instead, it was the air itself that made her struggle not to flee—because she’d forgotten how strong the archives’ preservation wards were, the ellixen so powerful that it was like a physical attack on her senses.
Usually, Viri didn’t mind being more sensitive to magic than most, but at times like this, when it was concentrated enough to feel like an overstimulating assault, she wished she could be more normal.
Not even the Underlock cells used this much magic—but they also didn’t need to protect flimsy records from being destroyed in the moist inner-mountain air.
Standing still, Viri closed her eyes and breathed in the calming aroma of paper and ink as she waited for her body to adjust. Only when the feeling shifted from lightning bolts zapping her nerve endings to a soft humming beneath her skin did she shake off the sensation and reopen her eyes—to find every archivist in the room staring at her.
Clearing her throat, Viri started toward the group in the corner, but was intercepted by a short, bald man who appeared from between a set of bookcases.
“Viridia Solace?”
“That’s me,” she confirmed, realizing he wasn’t short so much as hunched, no doubt from years of bending over a desk.
“I’m Head Archivist Thornton,” he said with an imperious sniff, then turned and headed back into the bookshelves. “Come with me.”
Viri hadn’t had much experience with archivists, but Soren and his Nox friends always joked about the record keepers being a serious bunch. “Prickly” was the word they used. Thornton was already living up to the description.
Swallowing her pride, Viri followed like an obedient dog, her boots clicking on the pristine white floor as they passed row after row of bookcases, then finally reached a pale wall with an open door cut into it.
“This is where you’ll work while you’re with us,” Thornton said, gesturing for her to precede him into the room.
Viri nearly hissed as she stepped through the doorway and encountered another strong ellixen ward. She gritted her teeth until the feeling passed, then looked around the small, sterile office that had paperwork covering every surface, including the sole desk and chair.
“We’ve been understaffed for the last few months,” Thornton said, explaining the mess.
“Certain things have been neglected so we could prioritize more urgent cases.” He moved to the desk and picked up a pile of papers.
“Everything in this room is a crime, a complaint, or a concern that has been reported to the Nox. Noise disturbances, theft, graffiti, trespassing, assault, possession of illicit substances—you name it, and it’s here.
” He set the pile back down. “Your job is to sort through all this so it can be filed away.”
Viri gulped at the sheer amount of work ahead of her. “How?”
Thornton grabbed a page and pointed to the top, where the number seven was written in green ink, then reached for a different page that showed a blue number eleven, before he indicated the rest of the chaos so Viri could see all the various colors and numbers.
“Everything is coded into offense categories. All you have to do is put them into piles by color and arrange them by number.”
“Sounds idiot-proof,” Viri commented.
Thornton looked straight at her. “It is.”
Viri almost laughed. Prickly, indeed.
“I know you hunters are used to working at all hours,” the archivist went on, “but this week you’re on a strict day shift with me: eight a.m. to six p.m., with two ten-minute breaks plus a half hour for lunch.”
Viri sighed quietly at the unexciting daily structure, already missing the freedom of her hunting job.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Thornton said, heading for the door. “You’re only to leave this office for your breaks or if you have questions. Understood?”
He didn’t wait for her answer before vanishing from the room, leaving Viri alone with her mammoth task. She doubted she would sort through even half the piles before her week was up, but she silenced her misgivings, straightened her shoulders, and got to work.
The first hour passed slowly.
The second was glacial.
The third and onward were borderline torture.
But still, Viri sorted paper after paper, going one step further than the colors and numbers to also arrange them by date—partly because she was bored to tears and it gave her an added distraction, and partly because she didn’t want Thornton telling Darik she’d done a half-assed job.
Over the course of her shift, the Head Archivist returned a handful of times to see if she had any questions before quickly leaving again. When one of his midafternoon check-ins arrived, Viri had finally cleared a section of the desk large enough to notice a pattern that piqued her curiosity.
“There’s a lot of red here,” Viri commented to Thornton, who stood half in and half out of the doorway, eager to return to whatever he’d been doing.
He nodded. “Red is something reported as missing. It’s a common complaint.”
Viri reached for the small pile she’d sorted into that color. “Many of these are numbered ‘three,’ especially over the last six months. Before that, there were hardly any, maybe a couple each year—”
Thornton cut her off by saying, somewhat impatiently, “I told you not to worry about the filing code. That’s not your job.”
“What does the number three mean?” Viri pressed, unable to decipher the shorthand used in the reports. “What’s going missing?”
“Children,” Thornton said curtly. “And they’re only reported as missing, not necessarily actually missing or even still missing. Every case has been followed up by the Nox, who either resolved it or ran out of leads.”
Viri gaped at him. “These are missing children?” Her voice was pitched higher than normal. “All of them?”
The archivist shrugged, showing no sign of how disturbing the news was.
“Why haven’t you told the Hunters’ Guild?” Viri demanded. “If children are going missing, then it’s most likely reapers who are—”
“It’s not reapers,” Thornton interrupted again, his tone still impatient but now condescending, too. “Reapers don’t steal children—they kill them. The reports in your hands are for missing children, not dead children. Reapers leave bodies. You’re a hunter—you know that better than anyone.”
An image from last night flashed across Viri’s mind, the young boy who had been siphoned to death by the time she’d arrived in the cellar.
He wasn’t the first child she’d found dead by the hands of a reaper, nor would he be the last. Everything Thornton had said was true—they abducted to kill, not to keep.
“And as I said before,” the archivist continued, “these cases have all been followed up by the Nox and, after investigation, deemed nonurgent. Most missing children are back with their families within hours of their disappearance. So you can stand down, Hunter Solace, and focus on the job you’re here to do. ”
With that, he left again, and there was enough warning in his final words that Viri fought her urge to chase after him.
Thornton was right about kids going missing all the time and panicking their parents, only to be found with their friends eating candy in the market district or exploring the uncharted tunnels of the undercity.
Just because there were so many reports in the last six months, that didn’t mean anything nefarious was afoot.
Indeed, given the piles of paperwork still to be sorted, the numbers could be similar to the previous years and Viri just hadn’t gotten to those cases yet.
Resolved to ignore her concerns, Viri continued sorting, and whenever she added a new red three to the growing pile, she told herself it was nothing to worry about.
The Nox were good at their jobs, these cases were marked nonurgent for a reason—and if there was anything troubling going on, then Darik and Meera would know about it, as would the rest of the hunters and Nox. Everything was fine.
But despite trying to convince herself, Viri’s instincts were screaming that something more was happening here.
She just didn’t know what.