Chapter 11 #2
My eyes felt wet as I turned to Anton and whispered, “Lanche’s icicle’s gone.
It… it was on my nightstand.” Last night, I’d had trouble sleeping, so I’d brought the thing in here with me.
Having it close by had… soothed me and helped me fall asleep quickly.
I had no idea why, but I’d wanted it close by. “I can’t find it.”
Anton’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t say anything.
He walked over and looked for himself, then moved my entire bed and nightstand out of the way, just to be sure.
I kept looking, crawling around on the floor, pulling my sheets off the bed, even checking in my closet, although I had no idea how it could’ve possibly gotten there from across the room.
“It’s not here,” Anton muttered after we searched for another five minutes. “You’re sure you didn’t move it when you woke this morning or before you left for your date?”
I covered my face with my hands, not wanting Anton to see the tears that decided to leak from my eyes. “I didn’t move it. I even… before I left the house, I came back in here to… to run my fingers over it.” It’d been a weird compulsion I hadn’t been able to ignore. “It was here when I left.”
Anton stood from where he was feeling around on the carpet. “Okay… okay. So… someone broke into your home and stole Lanche’s icicle. Who knew you had it?”
I shrugged. “Um… everyone at work, plus Oakley and Roman, I guess? Uh… Tan knows, so maybe Garrick too… Anton, these are all people I trust with my life. I mean, they’re… they’re all your family, aren’t they?” Hell, most of them had come here to help me just now.
“None of them would’ve done it. So… that leaves Lanche’s people, I suppose.
We’ll have to find out who he told.” He was quiet for a few seconds.
“Unless someone at the bookshop overheard us when you opened the box. We were in the breakroom, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t overhear us. We weren’t trying to be quiet.”
True enough. “Okay, so… can we look at footage from the shop if nothing turns up from them tracking the guy?”
“Certainly.”
I wiped the tears off my face, ignoring the ache in my chest. I was surprised by how badly this was hitting me. Part of it was guilt. Most of it, probably. Lanche had trusted me with something so integrated with his body, with his soul, and I’d lost it.
Fuck. I felt terrible, and I was terrified of the ramifications.
If that icicle really did have a piece of his magic, someone could take control of him, and from the little I’d seen, they could do terrible things with that power. Not to mention the mental toll that’d take on the snow yeti. I couldn’t imagine being in that position.
The guilt ate at me.
But something else ate at me too.
It felt like I’d lost a piece of myself too.
How was it possible for that one little piece of ice to feel so much like a part of myself after one day? How was it possible to feel so… connected to it?
And to Lanche?
And that connection only made the guilt and worry for him feel bigger. Scarier. Harder.
I had to find his icicle. I had to. There was no other choice.
Just as I was about to suggest to Anton that we join the tracking party, Jed and the others crashed back into my apartment, and my heart sank.
My friend frowned at me. “We lost the scent near the bus stop down the street. We canvassed the surrounding area to see if we could pick it up again, but there’s nothing. It’s as if the person hopped on a bus… or used other magic to change his scent and leave—perhaps both.”
“Fuck,” I hissed out, covering my eyes again before I started crying.
A hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Oakley standing in front of me.
“We’ll keep searching, Dain, okay? We all have the scent, right?
” They glanced around the room and got a few nods and grunts of agreement.
“Then let’s make a plan and search the city.
Surely, we can find something. Between Dad’s guards and Tan’s security business, they’re likely to pick up some chatter if someone’s selling the icicle or even bragging about it on the web or anywhere.
We’ll review the surveillance videos from the bookshop and any buildings around this area and try to find an ID.
We’ll figure this out and get Lanche’s icicle back. ”
I took a breath and stared at my friend. “Okay… okay. Thank you.”
They nodded and squeezed my shoulder. “In the meantime, I think you need to call Lanche and let him know so he isn’t surprised if someone calls on his magic.”
I blanched at that. “I… I… can I… can I wait? Until we have more news?”
Oakley stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t think that’s the best idea, but it’s your call.”
I bit my cheek. “Let’s at least look at the surveillance footage first.”
They nodded before they turned and started giving out jobs. Anton, Jed, and the other vampires looked bemused by this—probably because they were all a million years old, and Oak was younger than me—but they let Oakley take the lead.
Anton pulled up the bookstore footage on a tablet someone retrieved from his car, and everyone got to work.
I swallowed thickly, pushed the tears that wanted to escape down, and jumped into the fray.