Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
An empty glass case. An unsettling feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.
Lucy and I exchanged worried glances. Leaning in, I read the display sign on the case.
“This crystal is composed of a rare mineral known as Lunarimar,” I muttered. “The crystal is a rare and precious gemstone found deep within caverns.”
Then, a smaller font of letters described the physical appearance of the crystal: Almost translucent, deep purple and vibrant blue hues with smooth surfaces.
My eyes were fixated on the empty glass box that should have held the precious Lunarimar.
“The Lunarimar is missing,” Lucy said in a low, shaky voice, drawing my attention to her face.
Her thin eyebrows furrowed in a line, and her gaze filled with worry. My initial panic reaction subsided as I walked around the white display box.
“There has to be an explanation about why it’s missing,” I said, walking a full circle around the empty case.
No additional signs explained the absence of the crystal.
With big, wide eyes, Lucy paced around the white box, her face flushed with anxiety. I also knew what it would mean for us to go back to the werewolf kingdom empty-handed.
Death and a lost war.
The fight with the vampire Queen hinged greatly on me holding the Lunarimar, offsetting Victoria’s compulsion power.
A terrifying image of Victoria holding her silver sword, compelling Dad’s werewolf warriors to walk into her blade, popped into my mind.
The image was a part of Torin’s memories and forever etched in my mind.
My fingers twitched, but I clenched my hands to steady my nerves.
“We’ll figure this out, Lucy.” I blocked her way, making her halt before me.
“I want that woman dead once and for all,” Lucy said in a low, threatening voice. “My mate died because of her.”
The same woman was abusing my mate.
Torin is not my mate anymore. What was I thinking?
Nodding, I grasped Lucy’s shoulders. “We’ll find the crystal and win the war. I promise you, it won’t be a repeat of thirty years ago.”
She attempted to smile, but her lips didn’t quite turn up.
I released Lucy and scanned the hall again. “Let’s think this through. If I were an exhibit employee, what would be my duties?”
If it were a rare book I had left on display at the library exhibit, I or another library employee would have to maintain it until the book returned to the vault.
“Maybe the crystal was pulled out for maintenance,” I said, my gaze falling on a small crowd gathered around a painting. “Follow me, Lucy.”
I rushed to the nearest wall, bumping shoulders with people and apologizing.
I finally stood before their tour guide.
When I felt Lucy’s supernatural presence, I knew she was right behind me.
I waited a moment until the woman took a breather after explaining the history of the painting hung on the wall.
“Excuse me,” I said, and the slender woman’s eyes settled on me.
“Did you have a question about the painting, dear?”
I stepped out of the circle of people closer to the tour guide.
“No, I was wondering about the Lunarimar crystal over there,” I said, pointing in the general direction of the empty glass case. “The gemstone is not there, and I hoped you knew where it was.”
She smiled. “It’s probably pulled for maintenance.”
Lucy scoffed behind me, making the tour guide’s eyebrows shoot up.
Undergoing regular maintenance was an explanation that was too mundane for such a valuable item, but to humans, the crystal was only a rare mineral to display.
For the werewolves, Lunarimar was a lifeline.
Several visitors approached the tour guide and asked her a question, but Lucy interrupted them.
“And what does the maintenance entail exactly? And who does it, and where can we find this person?”
The woman’s smile never faltered. “The crystal has to be polished and wiped with a special cloth. Only the exhibit director is allowed to do that,” she said and faced the other visitors interested in the painting she was talking about.
Lucy sidestepped me and tapped the woman on her shoulder gently. “What is his name, and where can we find him?”
The woman sent her a sharp look, still smiling. “Greyson Blair. His office is on the fifth floor. Why don’t you pay him a visit?”
Her voice sounded steady, but with a hint of annoyance.
“Thank you,” Lucy said, turning and walking down the hall.
I followed her to the elevators.
She pressed the button continuously. “I can’t understand how you can stay so calm, Breanna.”
“I’m also nervous about finding the crystal, but I have to keep a cool head, or I’ll lose my sanity,” I said, shrugging.
For Torin’s sake, the kingdom people, and my allies, I wanted to add.
Like Lucy, I also wanted to avenge my mate, but I understood Lucy’s deeper motivation. Her mate was dead, but although killed by my own kind, Victoria had sent him on a dangerous mission against his will.
Torin, I hoped, was still alive.
The elevator ding pulled me out of my thoughts, and Lucy and I rode it to the fifth floor. After walking in the hallway, it became clear that only offices and supply rooms occupied this level. We stopped before an office door with a Greyson Blair sign.
Lucy banged on the wooden door with a bit too much force.
“I’m going to compel him to quickly tell us where the crystal is,” she said and knocked again.
“Let’s talk to him first. He might be agreeable.”
She twisted her head to look at me with raised eyebrows.
“Why would he want to let us steal the crystal? Because basically, that’s what we’re doing.
” She gave me a serious look. “We can’t reveal that the supernaturals exist, so even though you have the best intentions, I don’t see another way but to compel him, Breanna. ”
It seemed that was our only option. We couldn’t exactly take a crystal out of the exhibit without Lucy’s compulsion power. But compelling a human against their will didn’t sit well with me.
I sighed and nodded toward the door handle. Lucy pushed it down, and the door clicked open.
“Hello? Mr. Blair?” I asked, walking inside his office while Lucy held the door open for me.
“What in the world is happening here?” Lucy muttered behind me.
Greyson Blair wasn’t inside, but the interior of his office resembled a living space rather than a professional room.
Stuff crammed the small room. A narrow desk near a large window held a mess of papers, pens, and a computer.
Adjacent to it sat a small glass-top coffee table cluttered with dirty paper plates and to-go cups.
A toothbrush and paste lay on a mini fridge stuck in one corner.
A bulky old microwave occupied the rest of the surface.
“That’s not a healthy work-life balance,” Lucy said, and I followed her gaze to a foldable camping cot without a mattress.
“It looks very uncomfortable,” I said.
After walking to the desk, Lucy opened one of the drawers. “Let’s start searching for the crystal before he comes back.”
She frantically opened and closed drawers, opened the mini fridge, and made a disgusted face. Books and boxes lay on the ground, and sheets of paper littered the carpeted, stained floor. After searching for a while and digging through piles of stuff, Lucy and I huffed and sighed.
“It won’t be that easy, will it?” Lucy asked.
We stood in the middle of the space when the smallest rustling sound drew our attention to the open door. A man’s head peeked inside, his bright-green eyes as wide as the moon. His face appeared smoothly shaved. He blinked and then disappeared.
“He’s running away,” Lucy said as she followed him, sprinting out the door.
I hurried, running in the hallway behind Lucy.
“He’s a bit too fast for a human,” Lucy said, glancing over her shoulder.
Her words struck my mind, and I finally let my instincts take over. I felt the faint presence of another supernatural, reminding me of how I felt Adrian’s presence. He wasn’t completely a werewolf, and his supernatural aura wasn’t as strong as Lucy’s.
“He’s not completely human,” I said, breathless.
The man I presumed was Greyson Blair wore a wrinkled white dress shirt and beige pants. His slender back reminded me more of a vampire figure than the bulky and muscled werewolves. But somehow, he didn’t feel like either of those supernaturals.
The man disappeared around a corner, and when Lucy and I turned, he was gone. Lucy let out an annoyed hiss, and suddenly, she winced in pain. I barely stopped myself before running into her. Lucy rubbed her forehead, glaring at the white wall before us.
“How could I not see the wall?”
I looked around. “Something feels strange. It’s almost like the hallways have changed.”
Lucy nodded, gazing around.
The hallway at Greyson’s office was bright, but our current corridor was dim and odd. Lucy and I stepped away from the dead-end wall and retraced our steps until we arrived in another hallway with framed artwork and potted plants I didn’t remember seeing before.
Walking slowly, we rounded the corner, and the corridor suddenly shifted. The white office walls transformed into a maze of mirrored surfaces reflecting distorted images of me and Lucy—some reflections of us were short, some made us look tall, and some showed our faces abnormally long.
“This would have been fun if we were at a carnival,” Lucy said.
Our reflections multiplied, creating an eerie sense of disorientation.
Twisting her head in each direction, Lucy went on high alert. “How is he doing that?”
“I think I’ve seen such illusion magic before,” I said, thinking of the two other times when the reality as I knew it had changed somehow.
The first time was when I wrongly saw Torin kissing Layla in the kingdom manor, but I clearly saw Torin’s memory. He didn’t kiss my cousin. The second time I suspected such an illusion was when Torin was tricked into drinking water when it was poisoned with silver.