Chapter 47
Syneca
If your own handwriting looks unfamiliar, check what you wrote yesterday. Someone’s been borrowing your mind while you sleep.
Aureth’s room was larger than mine, probably because there’d be less chance of her walking into furniture she couldn’t see. I sat on the edge of her bed, knee bouncing with impatience, while Pip did laps around the ceiling like a caffeinated hummingbird.
“They should be here by now,” I said for the third time.
“Patience is a virtue,” Aureth said serenely from her chair by the window.
“Patience is boring.” I pulled the vial of Vitoria’s blood from my pocket, turning it over in my hands.
I was going to wait for Calder, but since he and Wickett were off doing Furies knew what, I went ahead and told the others about her confession.
About needing to decide if we would break the oath or not.
After there was distance between her and me again, once my body was no longer pulsing to kill her, I felt breaking the oath was, once again, my only option.
There was just no world in which I would kill her.
No matter her crimes, I loved her. Still, it wasn’t only my choice to make.
Pip zipped past my head for the dozenth time. “Where are they? Calder’s always punctual. And Wickett,” she paused mid-flight. “Well, Wickett’s usually wherever you are, so this is extra weird.”
Heat crept up my neck. “He’s not always—”
“—He is,” Riot said from his chair near the floor to ceiling window.
“He absolutely is,” Pip agreed. “It’s like watching a very deadly puppy follow you around. Except the puppy can kill people with his bare hands and looks at you like—”
“Can we focus?” I cut her off before she could finish that sentence. “They’re missing. That’s the problem. Not... whatever else you think you’re observing.”
“I observe everything.” Pip settled on my shoulder, smug. “It’s my job as the team’s eyes in the sky.”
“Your job is reconnaissance, not gossip.”
“Those are the same thing.”
They absolutely were not, but arguing would just encourage her.
The minutes crawled by. My knee bounced faster. Pip resumed her aerial circuits. Even Aureth’s serene expression started showing cracks of concern.
“Something’s wrong,” I said finally.
“Perhaps they got lost,” Aureth started.
Someone knocked.
Pip dove for the door. Wickett stepped inside, and relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. Then I actually looked at him, and the relief curdled into something else.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Where’s Calder?” Riot asked, moving to his feet.
I tried to look around Wickett to the hall behind him. “He’s not with you? Where the hells is he?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was flat. Professional. The Ripper voice instead of the man who’d whispered promises against my skin just hours ago. “I haven’t seen him since last night.”
Wickett finally looked at me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. Silence stretched for a moment, everyone processing what the absence meant.
I took a tentative step forward. “We need to look for him. Now. Before whatever’s wrong gets worse.”
“Agreed.” Riot was already moving toward the door. “The question is how we search most effectively.”
“We should split up,” Wickett said. “Cover more ground. Syn and I together.”
“No,” Riot said, and for the first time, exacted command over everyone. “You and I need to search together.”
Wickett’s jaw tightened. “That doesn’t make tactical sense. We should pair strong with weak, divide our strongest.”
“We need to present a unified front if we’re dealing with official channels,” Riot said. “You have status as commander of the hunters. I have status as a Guardian of the Furies. Together, we represent legitimate power from Fuerlis. They can’t dismiss us as easily.”
“Assuming they respect Guardians here,” I pointed out. “Considering that Vitoria said she was ordered to kill not one but two fury-born, I’m not sure your title helps.”
Riot nodded. “Which is exactly why Wickett needs to be with me. If there’s hostility toward my kind here, I’ll need someone with recognized authority to negotiate.
And you need the freedom to search places we can’t.
The shadows, the civilian areas, the spaces where official authority would draw too much attention. Aureth must stay here.”
I hated that it made sense. And I wish Lucy were here to take my side. To bring a different kind of logic to the room.
Or, hells, even to guard the Oracle if she really wasn’t safe here.
“I know you can take care of yourself, Syneca.” Riot’s tone was gentle but immovable. “Which is why you’ll take Silas and Pip. Cover ground we can’t while maintaining a lower profile. We draw attention. You blend in.”
Wickett looked like he wanted to argue. His eyes found mine, and something flickered there—frustration, maybe, or an apology. He wanted to be beside me as much as I wanted him to, but when Riot took control, there was little to be done.
“Fine,” I said finally, voice tight. “One hour. We regroup in one hour.”
“Agreed,” Riot said.
Aureth rose from her seat and came to stand beside me. She took my hands, making a great show of the gesture. “The one who will offer you your freedom,” her grip tightened almost painfully. “Remember that no prison is meant to hold forever.”
I pulled away, but no one else in the room seemed to notice her words to me.
Her warning settled into the pit of my stomach.
Whatever was happening here, the fury-born was being affected more than any of us.
I scanned her forehead for sweat, worried there may have been illness settling in.
But she seemed fine, if not still tired.
“An hour?” I said carefully, staring up at the hunter.
Wickett barely acknowledged me. I walked out of the room before I let the unease of that consume me.
“So that was weird, right?” Pip flew past my head as we descended the stairs. “Wickett was being super weird.”
“He’s always weird.”
“Not that kind of weird.” She did a loop in the air. “Did you two fight? After the whole...” She made an exaggerated gesture. “You know. The thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you definitely did things that I’m too innocent to describe but also totally know about because the walls in this hotel are not as thick as you think they are and I’m not at all a child.”
Heat flooded my face. “We did not... there were no things.”
Pip rolled her giant blue eyes. “Sure. And I’m the Queen of Solaire.”
“Can we focus on finding Calder instead of discussing my nonexistent love life?”
“Fine. But I just want you to know I think it’s romantic. You know, the whole forbidden lovers thing.”
I kept my voice neutral. “We aren’t lovers. Drop it.”
We hit the street, and Silas materialized from the shadows like he’d been waiting. Which he probably had been.
“Go search,” I told him. “The dark places. Anywhere someone might be held or hidden. Report back if you find anything.”
He huffed and launched skyward, wings catching the strange light from floating Erelith chalices.
“Should I go up too?” Pip asked.
“Not yet. Stay with me for now. I need someone to watch my back.”
She moved to my shoulder, brushing my curls away to whisper. “Don’t worry. I brought my sword in my pack. Just in case.”
We moved through the streets, weaving between citizens in their elegant coats. Everyone looked prosperous. Content. Like they were living in paradise instead of a city hidden behind deadly flame.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Pip muttered, staying close to my shoulder. “Everyone’s too happy. Too perfect. Like they’re all wearing masks.”
“Maybe they are.”
She gasped. “Really?”
“No, not really. We call that sarcasm.”
“Rude.”
We searched for what felt like hours but was probably less than one. We asked questions that got us nowhere. Even with the sprites. Followed leads that dead-ended into more of the obsidian city and more smiling, useless people.
“This is pointless,” I said finally. “We’re not getting anywhere. It’s like the city itself is hiding him.”
“Maybe it is.” Pip landed on my shoulder again, her tiny weight comforting. “Maybe this whole place is designed to keep secrets.”
I was about to respond when I saw him. Not Calder, but someone else.
Just a flash, a figure in elegant black standing at the corner where two streets intersected. Beautiful dark features barely visible before he turned and disappeared around the corner.
Not looking at me. Not acknowledging my presence. Just... there and then gone. The man... the man that was at the Mortalis finale staring at me. Who I’d seen in the Tangles staring at me.
“Did you see that?” I asked.
“See what?”
“The man. In black. He was just—” But when I looked again, the corner was empty.
“I didn’t see anyone.” Pip flew up slightly, scanning. “Just more scary people.”
I started toward where he’d been anyway, something pulling me forward. A feeling I couldn’t explain and probably shouldn’t trust.
“Syn? Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Just... follow me.”
We turned the corner, then another, following a path that felt less like choice and more like inevitability. And there, another flash of him at the mouth of an alley.
Gone before I could focus.
“Okay, now I’m creeped out,” Pip said. “Are we following a ghost?”
“I don’t think he’s a ghost.”
“Just so you know, that’s not actually comforting.”
The alley opened into a small courtyard, and that’s when I heard them. Voices drifting from a gathered crowd. “The Heartless One has been honored with ascension,” a woman said to her companion, both dressed in matching emerald coats.
My blood went cold.
Calder.
“What did you say?” I pushed through the crowd. “The Heartless One. Where is he?”
The woman turned to me with empty eyes that made my skin crawl. “All will witness the honor. Midnight in the Master’s throne room.”
“All are welcome to witness the ascension,” her companion echoed.
A child appeared at my elbow, eyes too bright. “The Master’s throne room. Midnight.”