Chapter 6 #2
By the third day—Viri’s fourth in the archives—she’d checked on twelve different families spread across the undercity, uppercity, and inside Mount Tembris, and all their children were fine.
Viri almost abandoned her mission, and would have, if not for the continually growing pile of red threes—and if not for what happened on her fourth day of investigations.
Because that was when she visited another family during her lunch break, one whose eleven-year-old daughter had gone missing over a month ago…and still hadn’t been found.
It was as if the floodgates opened after that, with each new family Viri sought out revealing—with tears in their eyes—that their children were still missing.
Thirteen-year-old Avelin, missing for two months.
Nine-year-old Dale, missing for six weeks.
Twelve-year-old Makir, missing for fifteen days.
Ten-year-old Lilly, missing for three months.
The list continued, the ages ranging from seven to thirteen years old, all children young enough not to have undergone the Impartation ceremony yet, their ellixen strong—and ripe for siphoning.
Viri felt sick every time she knocked on a new door to find another teary-eyed parent looking at her with hope, only to see that bleed away when she had no news.
As the numbers passed into the tens, then continued into the twenties and beyond, the gravity of the situation became clear.
Someone was abducting children. The question was: Who? And why?
Meera didn’t know the answer, nor did Darik, the two of them grim when Viri reported her findings on Thursday night after her final shift in the archives.
She’d been updating Meera daily, but her mentor had wanted the Nox captain to join them in her office at the Hunters’ Guild so they could pick apart everything Viri had discovered during her week of investigating.
“At my count, thirty-two children are missing, but I only made it through half the case files,” Viri said upon finishing her debrief, the moon well and truly risen above the sea cliffs visible through Meera’s window wall. “Elders know how many more red threes might be in those piles.”
“I’ll assign some Nox to go through the rest as a matter of priority,” Darik said, his black eyes flinty as he stared down at Viri’s notes spread across the desk. “I’ll also have them confirm your numbers, since I struggle to believe the extent of what you’re saying.”
Viri bit her cheek to hold in her response. She had no reason to lie, and Darik knew that.
“If it is true,” he went on, “then it’s alarming that this slipped by unnoticed until now. The archivists have never made such a grave mistake before.”
“I don’t think it was their fault,” Viri said. “Thornton told me they’ve been understaffed for months, and everything in the room where I worked was deemed nonurgent.”
“And that is something I’ll be looking into as well,” Darik said tightly. “Not just because it doesn’t make sense.”
Seeing Viri’s confusion, Meera explained, “Files don’t get sent for sorting unless they’ve been signed off by me, Darik, someone in the Legal Guild, or someone on the High Council.
That’s how the cases get color- and number-coded—we make those notes—after which they’re sent to the archives with an urgent or nonurgent classification. ”
“So you’re saying somebody screwed up, multiple times,” Viri realized, before a more alarming thought hit her. “Or they did it deliberately.”
“Maybe more than one person,” Darik said, fiddling with the cuffs of his black gloves. Pointedly, he added, “Assuming, of course, this is all true.”
Viri had to bite her cheek again, and this time she tasted blood.
“For the sake of this conversation, we’re assuming it is true,” Meera said, just as pointedly, “and that means our priority should be the children, not the negligent paperwork. We’ll ask the Magistratus to launch a cross-Guild inquiry to determine who signed off on the cases, but our focus needs to be on finding the kids and bringing them home. ”
“If they’re still alive,” Darik muttered. “Reapers aren’t known for their mercy.”
“We don’t know for sure that reapers are responsible,” Meera said, then continued over Darik’s objections.
“With children being the targets, the likelihood is high, but this kind of large-scale kidnapping doesn’t match any known reaper behavior.
Most of them don’t have the self-control to keep their victims alive for minutes, let alone months. And yet, we don’t have any corpses.”
“Most of them,” Darik repeated, his dark eyes locked on Meera’s, sending a silent message that caused Viri’s mentor to still.
Viri froze as well. She didn’t need to read their thoughts to know what they were thinking—or rather, who they were thinking about.
Because there was one reaper who had shown time and again that he had self-control in spades. He wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden for so long without it.
“You think the Priest has something to do with this?” Viri rasped out.
Meera turned quickly to Viri. “We don’t know anything. It’s guesswork at best.”
“But we have to entertain the possibility,” Darik asserted. “It’s the most likely scenario, after all.”
Viri’s fingers dug into the velvety armrests of her chair, her skin turning clammy at the mere thought of the Priest being involved with the abductions. If that was true, those children were as good as dead.
“We can’t do anything else tonight, not until we’ve notified the council,” Meera said soothingly, likely noting the way Viri was clenching her seat. “I’ll head up to the Summit now and call an emergency meeting to share what we know.”
Viri’s grip tightened as she thought about how Sarielle would take the news, her soft heart a curse when it came to matters such as these, even if her professional mask never slipped when she was acting as the Magistratus.
“I’ll meet you there after I send a team of Nox to the archives,” Darik said, smoothing the front of his uniform. “If they find more red threes, I’ll have them contact the families to see if their children are still missing. We’ll have confirmed numbers within hours.”
The way he emphasized confirmed made Viri grit her teeth, since it was clear he wasn’t fully convinced of the threat. But he would know the truth soon enough.
“And I’ll—” Viri began, intending to say she’d start searching for leads, but she was interrupted.
“You’ll go home.”
Viri gaped at her mentor. “You can’t expect me to just—”
“I’ll make it an order if I have to,” Meera warned.
Viri opened her mouth to argue, but she was halted with a look.
“The entire Guild will be summoned for a meeting first thing tomorrow,” Meera said.
“Every available hunter will be on this. If we’re going to find these kids, I need you at your best—and that means I need you rested.
You’ve done well investigating these cases, but now the real work begins. Are you up for it?”
It was a rhetorical question, so Viri didn’t answer. Instead, an idea came to her. “What about Reeve?”
Darik leaned forward, his gaze narrowing. “Ashton? What about him?”
“He might know something, especially if the Priest is involved,” Viri said.
She’d tried not to think about Reeve since she’d seen him last Friday, but he’d crept into her thoughts unbidden every day.
Each time, she’d wanted to scrub her mind with one of Wynter’s experimental cleaning potions just to get rid of the image of his smirking face and stormy eyes.
But now…he could be the key to solving this mystery.
“He’s still not cooperating,” Darik shared, which, while frustrating, didn’t surprise Viri.
“But you’re right that it’s worth a try,” Meera added, locking eyes with the Nox captain until he sighed and relented.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll head down to his cell and see if I can coax anything out of him.”
For the greater good, Viri dredged up the words, “I could go—”
“No.” Both Darik and Meera spoke at the same time, their expressions like steel.
Viri straightened her shoulders. “If his offer to talk to me still holds, then we can use that. Use him.”
“And how far did that get you last time?” Darik asked, eyebrow raised.
Viri flushed, her failure still fresh.
“For now, you need to trust us,” Meera said, albeit gently.
“You said yourself that Ashton likes playing games. Sending you to him will only give him another chance to toy with you, and I can’t risk you being distracted from what’s ahead.
The missing children need you as focused as possible, as do your fellow hunters. That means—”
“I go home and rest,” Viri said, resigned.
Meera nodded approvingly, then rose to her feet. Darik did the same, leaving Viri little choice but to follow.
“We’ll skip training tomorrow so I can prep for the Guild meeting,” Meera said, walking Viri to the door, “but I’ll send for you if there are any updates in the meantime.”
With nothing left to say—or do—Viri was shuffled out of the office.
It was only as she was heading back to her apartment that she recalled Reeve’s parting offer from last week, something she’d firmly evicted from her brain in order to uphold the most sacred rule of hunting: Never bargain with a reaper.
And yet, as his words returned to her now, Viri couldn’t so easily ignore them:
“Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you anything you want. That’s my offer, Viri—my freedom for your answers.”