15. Griff #2
Griff settled in beside him, careful to leave some distance between them so that Cal didn’t get spooked. They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the heavy patter of rain.
“Go away,” Cal said.
Griff ignored him. He followed Cal’s gaze to stare out over the city.
Even well past midnight, a cavalcade of lights spread out through the city.
Banners whipped and lashed in the wind, making the empty streets appear alive and moving.
In the distance, dark waves rumbled against the docks, the many ships moored there bobbing in the stormy seas.
He heard Cal shift beside him, though he didn’t look over. His experience with interrogations had left him plenty comfortable with awkward silences. Sometimes, it was best to wait for the other person to break them.
“I came up here because I didn’t want to be found,” Cal said at last. “Leave me alone.”
“If you didn’t want to be found, then you shouldn’t have spent so much time around an investigator who can track auras,” Griff replied. “I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”
More silence. More pattering rain.
Griff let his thoughts wander as a low rumble of thunder washed over them.
His mind worked through the details of the case, trying to piece it all together.
The Brotherhood. The void orb. The Pentarchy’s private bank account.
The precarious situation with Nalax. It all fit together. The only question was how.
He was startled from his musing when Cal finally spoke, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain. “Kelsith didn’t only care about tonight. He wanted to recruit me again.”
“And? What did you say?” He glanced at Cal, relieved when Cal shook his head.
“I told him no. That I…that I wanted to do something more with my life.” He shuffled on the rooftop, and Griff’s pulse quickened when the movement left them closer together. “I don’t know if I can be more than a thief. Maybe that is all I am. But…I wanted to try.”
Despite the raggedness of Cal’s aura and the uncertainty in his voice, Griff felt a burst of pride. “All any of us can ever do is try our best.”
Cal fiddled with a broken hunk of stone in the half-wall that ran along the rooftop’s edge.
“Kelsith was only a couple years older than me when he took me under his wing. But he was the closest thing I had to a father growing up. He taught me all about thievery—how to pick a lock and disarm a ward. How to sneak around without being seen and identify potential marks. He took me on jobs, made me feel important…feel loved.”
“It sounds like he meant a lot to you.” Griff didn’t exactly approve of Kelsith’s methods, but he appreciated that at least someone was there for Cal growing up.
He hesitated, unsure if he should ask the question on his lips.
Ultimately though, curiosity got the better of him.
“So then why did you turn his offer down?”
Cal gave a hoarse chuckle. “Because he also made me feel used. At the time, I thought he cared about me, that his constant disapproval was a form of tough love. But looking back now, I can see how he treated me like just another valuable tool. It was my power he cared about, not me.”
Cal closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting the rain wash over his face.
“Our last mission together, we were supposed to carry out this big heist. We’d spent weeks planning it.
But when we got to the merchant’s estate, everything went to the Void fast. Someone must’ve spotted us or we must’ve triggered some alarm because there were protectors swarming us almost instantly.
And Kelsith…he left me there without a second thought.
I’d gone in first, and he didn’t even try to rescue me.
I barely made it out of there in one piece thanks to my duskflame.
When I returned to our safe house, Kelsith was gone. He’d cast me aside, just like that.”
Opening his eyes, Cal stared back out over the city. His aura seemed to strengthen as he set his jaw. “Kelsith is my past. He gave me a purpose and made me want to be useful. But you…you make me want to be better.”
Warmth unfurled in Griff’s chest. Hesitantly, he reached out and clasped Cal’s hand.
He was relieved when Cal didn’t pull away.
“You make me want to be better, too.” Cal gave a disbelieving snort at that, and Griff squeezed his hand.
“No, I’m serious. For a long time now, the only thing that has truly mattered to me is my job.
But when I’m with you, for the first time I feel like there may be something more.
I…I don’t know what that means or where it leads.
But I do know that I intend to fight like the Void not to let it go. ”
Cal finally turned to face him, and the look of wonder on his face stole Griff’s breath.
Cal’s captivating aura flared brighter, its jagged edges smoothing away like a gentling sea at the end of a storm.
Tentatively, giving him every chance to pull away, Griff reached up and rested a hand on his cheek.
Cal closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. They shifted closer, wrapping their arms around each other. And there on that rooftop, with the rain pummeling them and soaking them to the bone, they shared a soft, tentative kiss full of the promise of hope.
“So,” Cal murmured, pulling back and flashing Griff an uncertain grin. “Where does that leave us?”
Griff hesitated. He couldn’t tell whether Cal was referring to the case or to something more, so he opted for the safer answer. “Still on the investigation…if you want to be.”
“I do,” Cal assured him. He grimaced. “But I lost the void orb. Kelsith could be anywhere in the city with it by now. What do we do?”
With a confidence he didn’t quite feel, Griff said, “Simple: we find a way to get it back. I doubt Kelsith will sit on it for long—it’s too dangerous, and too valuable. He’ll return it to the Brotherhood.”
Cal slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. Kelsith and the Brotherhood have bad blood. I doubt he’s working for them. Which means…”
“Which means he must be working directly with whoever hired them to procure the void orb,” Griff said, nodding his understanding.
He furrowed his brow as he recalled his earlier ruminating.
“But we still don’t know who that is. Even if we’re right and it is a member of the Pentarchy, that leaves five options. ”
“We could always investigate them more in the morning,” Cal said. “See if we can link any of them to Kelsith.”
Griff shook his head. “Too risky. We have no idea what they intend to do with the void orb. We’ve already delayed their plans by over a week.
If we wait until morning, it might be too late to stop them from using it.
And even if they don’t, it will give them time to stash it where we might never find it again. Tonight is our best chance.”
Turbulent strands of crimson frustration seared through Cal’s aura. “But you said it yourself: we have no Dark-cursed clue which of those Void-eaters on the Pentarchy is behind this! If we guess wrong, we’ll probably be too late to catch them in the act. How do we decide where to go?”
Griff really wished he knew how to answer that. He narrowed his eyes at the rain-streaked city, racking his brain for a plan. But nothing he thought of seemed remotely plausible. No matter how he examined the problem, the conclusion remained the same: they were out of options.
“I don’t know,” he admitted with a heavy sigh. He bowed his head beneath the continued downpour. “Merciful Light, if only we’d gotten something concrete to go off of from the gala. But we’re no closer to answers than when you first told me a protector was involved.”
Cal tensed beside him. “Eternal Dark…” he whispered.
Griff looked up, frowning when he saw the trembling excitement in Cal’s aura. “What is it?”
“Tonight, when we were leaving the gala, I thought I recognized someone. I didn’t think much of it at the time—I only saw them for an instant, and I meet a lot of people under my various aliases.
But there was something about the way they carried themselves that struck a chord with me, and I think I’ve just figured out what it was.
I…I think it was the same protector who retrieved the void orb from Bald Locke! ”
Griff’s pulse quickened. This was exactly the sort of break they needed to deduce which councilor was most likely the culprit. “Who was it? What did they look like?”
Cal scrunched his brow for a long moment, then puffed out a frustrated breath.
“Void take me, I’m not sure. They wore a mask during the exchange, and I barely glimpsed their face in passing at the gala.
I don’t think I could describe it if I tried.
” He hung his head. “Sorry, Griff. It might be another dead-end after all. Maybe we could get a list of every guest in attendance? It wouldn’t help us find the void orb tonight, but it might still give us something to go off of.
” He shook his head. “I just wish my memory was better.”
A sudden thought slithered into Griff’s mind, and he groaned. Merciful Light, this was just what he needed.
Cal frowned at him. “What is it?”
Griff sighed, his hold on Cal momentarily tightening. “I think it’s time we paid Nathaniel another visit…”