Sawyer
Angel is nowhere on the compound.
My fingers prickling, I walk along the concrete path connecting the homes of the castes. My eyes scan as thoroughly as ever, only to come up empty again and again.
The most obvious places were eliminated first. The dining hall, the kitchen, the showers, even the fields, as if he decided to pick up farming as a hobby with the other cultivators.
Then the Seraphs’ mansion, thinking maybe he didn’t believe me when I told him Liberty was gone. Maybe he needed to check for himself.
No.
The Bower. Maybe he found out that’s where they housed her?
No.
Each failure ratchets the knot in my chest tighter. The Sanctum isn’t endless, but it’s big enough that a man can disappear if he wants to.
Or—increasingly likely—he’s gone. He did what he came here to do, and he no longer has reason to stay.
Unthinkable, twenty years of friendship refuses to believe it. But the possibility is there. Even with electric fences and Keepers guarding the gate, I know he could find his way out. Or more likely, force his way out.
But there’s been no talk of explosions or walls crashing down. So I keep looking.
Snow crunches under my feet as I veer off toward the edges of the Grove, circling back to see if he’s returned to his room.
The air is sharp enough to sting my nose, and my toes go numb from snow melting over my shoes.
The whole place feels too still, like the trees themselves are holding their breath.
A Cultivator girl, probably sixteen, hauls a bucket of water down the hill. Our paths line up, but her head stays down after seeing me wave. Even from a distance, her blush is vibrant.
“Good morning,” I say, my voice way too chipper for how I feel. When she doesn’t respond, I jog to catch up with her hurried steps. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you, but have you by chance seen my friend, Mr. Sanchez? He was with me yesterday, during the ceremony for—”
As she slows to a stop, the bucket sways. Water sloshes onto the frozen ground. She stares down at the wasted effort with a frown.
“He—” She swallows, voice tiny. “He went to the Keep. Someone said he had business with Aurelius.”
The Keep…
I press my hand to my forehead and close my eyes.
He didn’t leave.
“Thank you.” Instinctively, my hand lifts to clasp her shoulder. I hover it a few inches above before pulling back and turning in the direction of the Keep. “Thanks so much!”
I give a wave over my shoulder and take off jogging, then running, my pace increasing until the Keep comes into view.
It rises above the compound like a fortress, even bigger today.
My run slows into a fast walk as I approach the door.
My pulse hammers harder than it should, like I’m going to find Angel’s eyeballs plucked out on the floor.
But his trick with the flour wouldn’t be discovered so soon; he’s way too savvy for that.
Yet Angel isn’t used to being challenged, and Aurelius isn’t used to people not bending to his will. If they’re together, they’re no doubt clashing.
The door opens with a groan. Inside, the Keep feels different from the rest of the Sanctum—quieter, air heavier, smelling faintly of cedar and old smoke. I move slowly, ears straining for voices. Nothing. Just the creak of the wooden beams and the whisper of my own breath.
First stop: the sitting room. Empty. A few logs stacked by the hearth, fire dead cold. The dining room is empty as well, and when I peek my head into the kitchen, all I spot are counters wiped clean, iron pots lined up like soldiers. If he was here, he didn’t linger.
The library? I head upstairs and nudge the door open. OCD-level organized shelves, leather spines, nothing out of place. No Angel.
I mutter under my breath, “Fuck…” and stalk down the corridor.
That leaves one place.
Aurelius’s study.
I keep my steps soft as I head to the other corridor. The door is closed, and no light spills from beneath.
I press my ear to the door and listen closely but hear nothing. Holding my breath, I crack it open and peer inside.
Angel is hunched over the laptop at Aurelius’s desk. His fingers fly across the keyboard like he’s trying to break the damn thing. His face is tight with focus, jaw clenched, hair sticking out in wild tufts like he’s been at it for a while.
Relief crashes over me—followed quickly by dread.
“Angel,” I hiss.
He jolts. “Shit,” he says, short of breath. He scrubs his hand over his face as I shut the door.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he mutters, softer this time, like he’s relieved I’m here.
I cross the room quickly, jaw unlatched. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”
Angel swivels the screen toward me, and for a second, the only light in the study glows ghost-blue across his face. His eyes are wide—but not careless. Fear and urgency, not quite panic.
“The flour… The fucking kids ingested it. And it’s working faster than it’s supposed to. We have to get antibiotics soon. Today. Now.”
For a beat, all I hear is the clock on Aurelius’s wall ticking steadily. Unaffected by the panic that should be setting in right now, if I wasn’t so relieved.
He already knows. He’s already working on it.
I’m not on my own.
He points at the screen. “But I can’t figure out this goddamn password.”
“I have the password for Luna’s compound. We can—”
“It’s being monitored.”
I force myself to keep my voice down. “What?”
Flipping the computer back around, Angel glances up but goes back to the screen, his mind half with me, half trying to figure out a riddle he has no idea how to solve. “The albino bitch is being monitored. I already checked surveillance; this is the only device that’s safe.”
“How did you—”
His hand snaps up as he jerks his fiery eyes to me. A flash of annoyance cracks as hard as a whip. “Can you just…” He gestures to the screen. “Help me. Please. Before I’m responsible for murdering a dozen children?”
Closing my mouth, I stride behind the desk to join him and lean down to the computer. I stare at the screen, locked behind a single password field.
“Move,” I mutter, pushing Angel gently aside. He pops from the chair and hovers by the desk while I sit down and pull the computer closer.
“Have you checked the desk? It could be written—”
“Of course I checked the fucking desk,” Angel snaps, though he’s more anxious than agitated. I don’t respond other than to start typing things as recklessly as Angel had.
“I already checked the obvious,” he says. “The Shadow Sanctum, Shadow Sanctum, Aurelius, I have no fucking idea where to go from there.”
My fingers pause over the keyboard. I close my eyes.
It could be something completely random… A mix of numbers and letters, a date I could never guess, some phrase I’d never know.
I think of Zephyr. Of the nonsense she used to spit.
AllIsAsItsSupposedToBe.
AIAISTB.
TenebraeVincunt (the shadows conquer).
I type four more before pausing yet again. It’s too obvious how ill-fitting that line of thinking would be for Aurelius.
He’s a sociopath who uses bullshit to control people. The Shadow Sanctum is his empire, not his soul.
I would never have made Paradise Island my password.
What does Aurelius truly care about? Besides money.
I peer around the room and land on the record player. “Go see what record is on the turntable.”
Without a moment of questioning, Angel strides to the records, his mind syncing with mine. He picks through the records until he finds the empty case and calls it out. “Sinatra.”
I type it in. Wrong.
MyWay
FlyMeToTheMoon
LuckBeALady
TheBestIsYetToCome
NewYorkNewYork
“Next.”
We go through the records one by one, starting with the most worn record casings first.
After a few minutes, it’s obvious we’re wasting time.
“Books.” I never look up from typing. It’s lucky there’s no password limit.
Persephone.
Dante.
ParadiseLost
Blah blah blah blah blah, we go through the bookshelf and my spinning mind.
I wipe my hand across my jaw and take another pause.
Think, you fucking bastard.
Think.
“How were you planning on contacting the outside before?” I growl while my fingers fly over anything my conscious mind can pull. It’d be easier if I had more time to think. “Did you even have a fucking plan?”
“I have a guy who’s coming in five days with three rounds of antibiotics. He’s going to parachute it over the fence on the south side… I have his information, but only as a backup. I wasn’t supposed to need it.”
I pause and turn to look at him. “Three rounds?”
He flicks a hand like it’s obvious. “You, me, and Liberty.”
My brows lift, and for a second we don’t have, I’m caught off guard.
He was prepared to save my life. Even before…
He’s always been the better friend, hasn’t he?
I lean back in the chair and blow out a long breath, roaming my gaze around the room but not really seeing anything. I’m at a loss, and I need to think.
It’s deeper than books and music. And of course it is.
It’s an easy guess for Luna, but Aurelius has lived. He’s loved. He’s lost.
My password was simple to guess, if you knew me. It was my mother’s name.
So who is Aurelius’s person? Who—
My gaze catches on the only photograph in the study, the one frame on the shelf. A little girl with skin as white as snow. Small, fragile, smiling like she didn’t yet know the hell was coming for her. My chest pulls tight.
Jesus Christ.
Angel hovers over me, restless. “If you’re stumped, switch me.”
I type the word. L-u-n-a.
The trackpad buzzes with rejection. Wrong.
My jaw flexes. I glance at the photo again, then type it in lowercase. With letters disguised as symbols. With what I’m guessing is her birth year.
Nothing.
But then…
My brow furrows while I type in the name they gave her at birth. The name he gave her. Daemonium. Demon.
The screen unlocks with a soft chime. Folders and tabs spill open, already waiting.
Angel exhales like he’s been drowning. “Oh, thank god…” He presses his palms to his knees as relief breaks through panic.
But it doesn’t so much as touch me. My stomach drops through the floor.
The tab blares red across the top: ACCOUNTS FROZEN. Beneficial Owner: LUNA COX.
Not Aurelius.