Chapter 20 Syneca
Syneca
If you hear your name whispered in the forest, answer not; the trees only call out when they are hungry.
Our apartment looked exactly as we’d left it—controlled chaos that only made sense to us.
My eyes went immediately to the chessboard on the side table.
The pieces had been moved. She’d been here. The white queen was in the corner instead of the center. The black knight faced the window instead of the door. And the rook... the rook she had placed in the far corner, in the position we agreed meant only one thing: goodbye.
My knees nearly buckled. She was alive. Gone—but alive.
And probably fucking terrified and feeling so betrayed.
“Interesting game,” Lucette said, suddenly beside me.
I forced my voice to be steady. “Vitoria liked chess. Could never finish a match, though.”
“Hmm.” She studied the board with those dark green, knowing eyes. “Funny how the queen has protected herself by hiding. She would be more powerful if she were more aggressive.”
“Says the competitor,” I answered, sharing a smile with her as I took control of the conversation. “I heard you’re about as good at Nexus as your brother was. Some even say better. Why didn’t you play more professionally?”
She lifted a shoulder, turning away to examine a pile of books.
“No one was as good as my brother. Ask my parents. If you spend your whole life on the Nexus fields, practicing in the shadow of a legend, somewhere along the way, merely being good loses its luster. I never quite knew how to get away from it until now. But maybe there’s a new purpose for me here, on this hunt. ”
“Maybe,” I echoed, trying to keep from seeming too eager as I sidestepped toward Vitoria’s room. My eyes found Wickett across the cluttered living space. “Vitoria’s room is the one on the left.”
He moved toward it without hesitation, and I followed. Of course.
“What are you doing?”
“Searching.” I pushed past him into the small bedroom, my chest tight. “Or did you think I’d wait in the hall?”
The room smelled of her. Lavender and smoke. Her bed was unmade; blankets twisted like she’d left in a hurry. Books stacked everywhere. Poetry mostly, the tragic kind Mrs. Deliana had mentioned. A scarf hung from the mirror. Her daggers’ empty sheaths sat on the desk.
I forced myself to move methodically, hands steady despite the grief clawing at my throat. I basically lost her and Eda Mire in a span of days and my heart was hurting for both. Mourning both, though one still lived.
I started with the desk. Pulling out drawers, dumping them, checking for false bottoms. Nothing.
I really didn’t think I was going to find anything, but I desperately needed to.
And I was racing a hunter to find clues he wouldn’t recognize while he searched for.
.. Furies knew what. He worked the other side of the room with practiced efficiency, but I could feel him watching me. Measuring my reactions.
“Check under the floorboards,” I said, dropping to my knees beside the bed. “She was paranoid about hiding things.”
“Paranoid or careful?”
“Does it matter?” I shoved my hand under the bed frame, fingers searching.
He knelt across from me, close enough that I caught the scent of rain still clinging to his coat. His hands moved with surgical precision, testing boards, searching cracks.
I found myself tracking those movements. The way his fingers pressed and probed, the controlled strength in them. The way his hair curled at the ends because it was wet.
Focus.
I yanked my attention back to the search, pulling books from the shelf beside her bed and shaking them.
Pages fluttered. Nothing fell out. I threw each one onto the growing pile with more force than necessary, hiding my wince as they landed.
I was desperate for answers, and I knew there had to be something here, but.
.. books were precious. Burned to nothing every single time a Phoenix rose, it took ages to rewrite and rebuild.
That was why most of my favorite stories came from my father’s whimsical mind instead of from fresh ink on pages.
“Thorough,” Wickett observed, drawing me back into the room.
“I’m not a fan of wasting my own time. I want answers. Don’t you?”
He studied me for a moment too long. “Yes.”
The mattress sat there, mocking me with its ordinary appearance. Vitoria would have hidden things where no one would think to look. Where destruction was required to find them.
“Give me your knife.” I held out my hand.
Wickett’s eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“The mattress. I need to cut it open.”
“You realize what you’re asking?”
“Since when is a hunter unwilling to cause a little damage?” I kept my hand extended, steady, knowing the destruction wasn’t why he hesitated. Arming his enemy was. “Hand it over.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Challenge accepted. He pulled the blade from his belt and placed it in my palm, handle first. Our fingers brushed. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for heat to spike up my arm. I couldn’t believe the Ripper had just handed me his knife. Fool.
Turning away quickly, I moved to the bed. The knife sank into the fabric with a satisfying rip, and I dragged it down the length of the mattress. Stuffing spilled out like guts from a wound.
“Vicious,” Wickett said approvingly behind me.
“Effective.” I cut again, crosswise, then began pulling out handfuls of batting, my hands moving quickly, desperately. There had to be something. Some clue. Some direction.
Come on, Tor. Let me help you.
Wickett joined me without comment, making quick work of the mattress’s far side. We worked in rhythm cutting, pulling, searching. As the mattress stuffing flew everywhere, the room seemed to grow smaller.
“You’re not what I expected,” he mumbled.
“And what did you expect?”
“Someone weaker. More afraid. Witches bend, they cower.”
“Disappointed?”
“Intrigued.”
That certainly sounded like a confession.
I risked a glance up and found him watching me with an intensity that made my pulse stutter.
Not the clinical assessment from before, this was something hungrier.
I swallowed and returned to the search, fingers diving deeper into the ravaged mattress.
My hand hit something. Paper rolled up tight.
My heart stopped.
The scroll was small, bound with red thread, the exact shade of that sprite’s hair.
The one who always summoned Vitoria secretly.
The one whose identity I’d never pushed to learn because Vitoria’s secrets were her own.
The one who only delivered messages at night, summoning her to a mysterious player in this hunt.
Every instinct screamed to hide it. To palm it and claim I’d found nothing. But Wickett was right there, watching, and if he saw me hiding evidence, it would undo everything I set up tonight. The trust. The leadership. The carefully constructed image of the grieving woman desperate for truth.
“I found something,” I heard myself say.
Wickett moved closer, his chest nearly against my shoulder as he leaned in to see.
His breath warmed my neck. I unrolled the parchment with hands that wanted to shake but didn’t.
The inside was almost blank. No message.
No instructions. Just the outer edge, decorated with delicate filigree in gold ink that spiraled and looped until it formed a single word at the center.
Crossing.
The word meant nothing to me. A surname? A place? Some code I wasn’t supposed to understand?
“Crossing,” Wickett repeated, testing it. “You know what it means?”
“No. But she clearly didn’t want anyone to find this.”
He took the scroll from my fingers, studying the elegant script. “This ink is expensive. Sprite-made, probably. And the paper...” He held it up to the dim light, turning it until something caught the fading candlelight. “Look at this.”
I leaned closer. Pressed into the fibers was the faintest shimmer, not quite a watermark, more like an echo of strange magic that had touched it once.
“Fury made,” he said quietly. “You can tell by the way it holds light. Regular paper absorbs it. This... reflects it back. Like it remembers being touched by something wrong.”
My stomach dropped. “How do you know that?”
“My father collects artifacts. Teaches us to recognize them.” His jaw tightened slightly. “This kind of paper is rare. Expensive. Made by Fury artisans who’ve learned the old craft. Most of it gets bought by collectors or used for official documents between powerful families.”
“She had connections I didn’t know about,” I said carefully. “Obviously.”
Wickett’s eyes found mine, sharp with calculation. “Or someone wanted to send her a message that couldn’t be intercepted. Artisan paper doesn’t burn. Doesn’t dissolve. Can’t be magically traced.” His mouth curved slightly. “Good work, little witch.”
“We should tell the others,” I said, shifting away.
“Should we?” He moved with me, following. “Or should we see where this leads first?”
“That’s not—” I stopped as my back hit the wall. “We agreed. No secrets.”
“Did we?” He braced one hand beside my head, caging me without touching. “Because I think you’re keeping plenty from me.”
“I gave you the scroll.”
“How long did you consider hiding it?”
My pulse hammered. “About two seconds.”
“The truth?” His other hand came up, fingers hovering near my jaw.
“Yes.” The word barely made it past my throat.
He smirked—and fuck me if it wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Then he stepped back, pocketing the scroll. “Come on. The others need to see this.”
He was playing with me. Pushing buttons just to test my reaction.
Jerk.
I knew this was dangerous. He was dangerous.
Not just because he’d promised to kill me, but because some reckless part of me was starting to wonder what would happen if I let him get close enough to try.
He was so worried about my secrets, but every second that passed in his presence was proof that he had scores of his own.