Chapter 28 #2
“Two people. Not beasts. But it was too dark to get a good look. They thought I was dead. Cut my throat and left me bleeding. But they missed the artery by a finger’s width.
I played dead until they left, then crawled to my neighbor’s house.
” He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m the only survivor.
Everyone else... my wife, my brother, his wife, their son. .. killed.”
“I’m so sorry,” Pip whispered.
He nodded once, accepting the sympathy without dwelling on it.
“We’re investigating a family that used to live in the Tangles,” I said. “The Kirrs. Malachi and Sera. They were killed five years ago.”
Recognition flickered across his face, in the subtle lift of his chin.
“The Kirrs, yes. Lovely people. Sera used to bring me honey cakes. Malachi helped me repair my roof one summer.” His expression softened with the memory.
“Their deaths were a tragedy. They called it a monster breach back then too, though...” He trailed off, his hand finding the bandage on his neck.
“Though?” Calder prompted.
“The wounds looked similar to mine. To my family’s. Maybe it wasn’t a monster back then either.”
My stomach turned. “What can you tell us of their daughter?”
The man’s face creased with confusion. “The Kirrs? No, you must have them confused. No children for them. Sera wanted them desperately, I remember that. She visited every apothecary in town looking for remedies, anything that might help. But it never happened for them.”
The ringing in my ears became so overwhelming, I had to stand to shake off the fear and disappointment. To think past the confusion.
“You’re certain?” Calder’s voice was carefully neutral as he took over.
“Absolutely certain. Ask anyone who knew them. Sera’s inability to conceive was something she grieved openly about. Why do you ask?”
“Just following leads,” I said quickly. “Thank you for your time. You should rest.”
He nodded. “If you find whoever did this... to my family, to the Kirrs... promise me they’ll face justice.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Calder said.
It wasn’t a promise. But it was all we could offer.
Outside, the rain had finally ended, and the afternoon sun felt too bright and normal for the weight of what we’d just learned.
“Pip,” Calder said quietly. “Can you check with the Circle? See if anyone can confirm the story about Sera Kirr and the apothecaries?”
“Who were the Kirrs?” Pip asked, hovering between us.
“Unfortunate victims of a senseless crime,” I whispered. The answer was smooth, practiced. A lie and a truth woven together so tightly you couldn’t separate them.
“Meet you back at Chancellery House.” Pip nodded and flew off toward the Tangles, her wings catching the light.
When she was gone, Calder turned to me. His expression was carefully blank, but I’d known him long enough to read the tension in his shoulders.
“We need to talk.”
Dread settled in my stomach like a stone. “About?”
He took a long deep breath, letting his shoulders rise and fall as he said, “About the fact that I’m not sure Vitoria is innocent.”
The words, though anticipated, still broke my heart. “Calder—”
“I don’t believe she’d do anything of her own free will,” he continued, his voice low and urgent.
“She had to have been blackmailed or coerced or something. There’s more to this story than we’re seeing.
But Syn—” He met my eyes. “Why else were these people killed? Why else would she lie about her entire past? Even to us?”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to defend her. But the evidence was stacking up like stones on a grave.
He continued. “She’d been acting strange for weeks. Not days. Weeks. Before any of this started.”
“People act strangely sometimes. It doesn’t mean—”
“She’s the one who told us about the docks.
” His voice was gentle but relentless. “Remember? She suggested it. And before she moved in, she asked me to leave with her. Had anxiety about wanting to get out of the city. I refused, but maybe she was running back then, too. Her mysterious client. Those disappearances every week. What if she wasn’t meeting a lover?
What if she were meeting with smugglers?
The hunters caught her, she escaped, and now Tiberius is using this whole thing as a ruse to force her back into the open. ”
“That doesn’t explain the Oracle,” I said, ignoring the fact that she’d never once asked me to run off with her without Calder.
“The poisoning. The attack. After getting to know Aureth, I’m sure those things happened.
Maybe it wasn’t Vitoria, but why accuse her then?
Not just the Magistrate, but Aureth too? ”
Calder’s jaw tightened. “Think about her behavior the night of the Nexus games. She kept looking toward the harbor. Toward the docks. Like she was waiting for something.”
“Or looking for an escape route.”
“Exactly. And the timing of her disappearance. She left before the Mortalis announcement. Before either of us knew she’d been accused. Which meant she knew it was coming.”
The logic was sound. Terrifyingly sound.
He took a step toward me, grabbing my shoulders as he forced me to look into his eyes. “I think she’s leaving the city. And these people who died, the Kirrs, this family, the other house, probably others we don’t know about, they were loose ends. Everything she told us about her past was a lie.”
My voice came out fiercer than I intended. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”
Five years of friendship. Three years of living together, sharing rent and food and fears. Watching each other’s backs through dangers both mundane and magical. She’d been like a sister to us both.
There was genuine pain in Calder’s voice. “I’m not saying she’s a bad person. I’m saying there’s a lot we didn’t know about her. And whatever she was wrapped up in, I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘she was framed.’”
“She’s not the Phoenix. I know it, Calder.”
“You can’t know for sure.” His eyes held mine. “And if she is, then the safest thing for her would have been to never speak it aloud. Not even to us.”
The truth sat on my tongue like poison. I do know. Because I’m the Phoenix. Because I’m the one we’re actually hunting.
But I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t risk it. Not even with Calder, who’d been my family for so long I couldn’t imagine life without him.
The guilt tasted worse than the fear. If he ever learned the truth... he’d never forgive me.
“You’re right,” I said finally, the words like ash in my mouth. “She couldn’t tell anyone. Not if she wanted to survive.”
Calder studied my face for a long moment. Then nodded, accepting what he thought was agreement. “We should get back.”
The walk to Chancellery House felt heavier than it should have. Each step carried the weight of growing certainty that we were missing something crucial. Something that would make all of this make sense.
Calder had been quiet for three blocks, his hand drifting to his pocket every few minutes like he was checking to make sure something was still there. Finally, he pulled out a folded newspaper, the edges already soft from handling. “Before we go back, I need to show you something.”
I took the paper, unfolding it carefully. The headline screamed across the top in bold print: Rail Lines Suspended Indefinitely: Magistrate Cites Security Concerns
“I know we already knew this,” Calder said quietly, “but seeing it in print makes it official. And there’s more. Come on.”
He led me through back streets with the confidence of someone who’d memorized every escape in the city. We climbed higher, toward the northern edge, where old warehouses gave way to the massive stone wall that surrounded Grimora.
The wall had always been there, a constant presence that most people stopped noticing after a while. Fifty feet of gray stone marked the boundary between civilization and the Ash beyond. Between safety and the monsters that prowled the burned lands. A staple in every major city in the world.
But today, the wall was different.
We stepped onto a service road that ran parallel to the fortification, and I stopped dead.
Hunters. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand. They lined the wall in both directions as far as I could see, groups stationed every five feet. But it wasn’t just the number that made my blood run cold.
It was their uniforms.
Grimora hunters wore dark gray with silver trim.
These wore every color imaginable. Deep blue with gold accents.
Black with crimson threading. Forest green with copper buttons.
Brown leather with brass buckles. Each one marking a different region, a different country, a different hunter’s guild from somewhere across the entirety of Fuerlis.
“What the fuck?” I breathed, instinct forcing me to step backward, seeking the comfort of the shadows.
Calder cleared his throat. “He called them all here. The Magistrate summoned hunters from all over. They started arriving two days ago, according to a scorched I talked to behind Chancellery House yesterday. Ships came in at all hours despite the weather. Then more on every tide. They’re not just watching the walls, either.
I checked the southern gate last night. Same thing.
Every entrance, every exit, completely locked down. ”
“Is that why the Magistrate wanted us at the docks?”
“Showing off his control and power is his favorite pastime.”
I watched a hunter in midnight blue march past, his hand resting on the pommel of a blade that looked like it had seen serious use. His face was scarred, weathered by sun and wind and violence. Not a city hunter. Someone who’d spent years in the Ash, hunting the things that lived there.
“How many?” I asked.
“Best guess?” Calder’s voice was grim. “Five thousand. Maybe more. And they’re still coming.”
“But that means... we can’t leave. Even if we found Vitoria, even if we wanted to run—”
“We’re trapped,” he finished. “All of us. The entire city.”
“Why would he do this? We’re supposed to be finding her.”
“He thinks he’s got her cornered,” Calder said.
“Shut down the trains, block the harbor, line the walls with hunters from every guild in Fuerlis. Create a cage so tight nothing can slip through.” He paused, watching another patrol pass.
“He’s probably right. Vitoria’s good, but she’s not that good. No one is.”
But something in his tone suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced.
“You think she’s already gone,” I said quietly.
“I think she’s smarter than Tiberius gives her credit for.” Calder turned to look at me, and I saw the conflict in his dark eyes. “I think she saw this coming and made plans. But—”
“But we can’t know where those plans led,” I finished.
“Correct.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion showing through his usual control.
“Even if we wanted to follow her, even if we found a way past five million hunters and whatever traps they’ve set up, we’d have no idea which direction to go.
The Ash is vast. Fuerlis is larger. You can disappear out there and never be found. I know. I’ve seen it happen.”
We stood there in the shadows, watching the hunters patrol. Watching the cage tighten around us all.
“We should get back,” Calder said finally. “Before someone notices we’re out here studying their defenses.”
But I couldn’t move yet. Couldn’t stop staring at the wall, at the hunters, at the sheer impossibility of what Tiberius had arranged.
A cage built from steel and magic and the collective force of every hunter’s guild in the world. Built to trap the Phoenix. And the ultimate machine to cut down every witch from here to the Sanctuary and back.
“Syneca.” Calder’s hand found my shoulder. “Come on.”
I let him steer me away, back toward the alleys, back toward Chancellery House and whatever came next. But the image stayed with me. All those hunters. All those uniforms. All that power focused on one goal.
“For what it’s worth,” Calder said as we walked, “I think she made it out. Before all this. Before the walls closed in.”
“You really think so?”
“I think she’s always been three steps ahead of everyone.” His mouth curved slightly, something like pride mixed with regret. “Even us.”