House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)

“It is.”

Ruhn wished this were the first time he’d heard this conversation. Witnessed this song-and-dance number between Bryce and Cormac as the prince tried to teach her to teleport. But in the week since all that major shit had gone down, this had been the main highlight. Their enemies had been unnervingly quiet.

When Cormac wasn’t attending various Fae functions, Ruhn knew his cousin had been hunting for Emile. Ruhn had even gone with him twice, Bryce in tow, to wander the various parks of Moonwood, hoping the boy was camping out. All to no avail. Not a whisper of the kid anywhere.

Tharion had reported yesterday that he couldn’t find the boy, either. From Tharion’s unusually haggard face, Ruhn had wondered if the mer’s queen was breathing down his neck about it. But no more bodies had been found. Either the kid was here, in hiding, or someone else had gotten him.

Bryce inhaled deeply, then shut her eyes on the exhale. “All right. Let’s try this again.”

Her brow bunched, and she grunted. Nothing.

Cormac snorted. “Stop straining. Let’s return to summoning shadows.”

Bryce held up a hand. “Can I have a hall pass, please?”

Ruhn laughed. She’d had little luck with the shadows, either. Starlight, yes. Lots and lots of starlight. But summoning darkness … she couldn’t manage so much as a bit of shade.

If Apollion wanted an epic opponent, Ruhn was inclined to tell the Prince of the Pit that it might take a while.

“I think my magic’s broken,” Bryce said, bending over her knees and sighing.

Cormac frowned. “Try again.” They’d had no word from anyone, even Agent Daybright, about what had happened with the shipment of ammo and the new mech-suit prototype. The news hadn’t covered it, and none of Cormac’s agents had heard anything.

That quiet had Cormac worried. Had Ruhn on edge, too.

Ithan had settled easily into Ruhn’s house, weirdly enough. He stayed up late playing video games with Dec and Flynn, as if they’d been friends their entire lives. What the wolf did with his time while they were all at the Aux, Ruhn had no idea.

Ruhn hadn’t asked him about what the Hind had said at the bar regarding Bryce, and Ithan sure as Hel hadn’t mentioned it. If the wolf had a thing for his sister, it wasn’t Ruhn’s business. Ithan was a good housemate: cleaned up after himself, cleaned up after Flynn, and was excellent at beer pong.

Bryce sucked in a sharp breath. “I can feel it—like, this giant cloud of power right there.” She ran a finger over the eight-pointed star scarred between her breasts. Starlight pulsed at her fingertip. Like an answering heartbeat. “But I can’t access it.”

Cormac gave her a smile Ruhn assumed he meant to be encouraging. “Try one more time, then we’ll take a break.”

Bryce began to grumble, but was interrupted by Ruhn’s phone ringing.

“Hey, Dec.”

“Hey. Bryce with you?”

“Yeah. Right here.” Bryce jumped to her feet at the mention of her name. “What’s up?”

Bryce leaned in to hear as Declan said, “My program finally finished analyzing all the footage of Danika at the gallery. Jesiba was right. It found something.”

Bryce didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not that Declan had finally concluded his search. Sitting around her new coffee table—a sad imitation of the original, but one Ithan had paid for—an hour later, she watched Declan pull up the feed.

She hadn’t dared call Hunt. Not when one wrong move with Celestina could keep him away even longer.

Declan said to her, Ruhn, and Cormac, “It took so long because once it compiled all the footage I had to go through all the shots with Danika.” He smirked at Bryce. “Did you ever work?”

Bryce scowled. “Only on Tuesdays.”

Declan snorted, and Bryce braced herself for the sight of Danika, of Lehabah, of the old gallery library as he clicked play. Her heart twanged at the familiar corn-silk blond hair with its vibrant dyed streaks, braided down Danika’s back. At the black leather jacket with the words Through love, all is possible stamped on it. Had the flash drive already been sewn into it?

“This is from two months before she died,” Declan said quietly.

There was Bryce, in a tight green dress and four-inch heels, talking with Lehabah about Fangs and Bangs.

Danika was lounging at the desk, boots propped up, hands tucked behind her head, smirking at Bryce’s regular argument that porn with a plot did not equal award-winning television. Lehabah was countering that sex didn’t cheapen a show, and her voice—

Ruhn’s hand slid across Bryce’s back, squeezing her shoulder.

On the screen, Bryce motioned to Lehabah to follow her upstairs, and the two of them left. She had no memory of this day, this moment. She’d probably gone to grab something and hadn’t wanted to leave Lehabah alone with Danika, who was prone to riling the sprite into the hottest of blue flames.

A second passed, then two, then three—

Danika moved. Swift and focused, like she’d been using the time lounging at the table to pinpoint where she needed to go. She headed straight to a lower shelf and pulled off a book. Glancing at the stairs, she flipped it open and began snapping photos with her phone of the inside. Page after page after page.

Then it was back on the shelf. Danika returned to her chair and lounged, pretending to be half-asleep when Bryce and Lehabah returned, still arguing about the stupid show.

Bryce leaned in toward the screen. “What book was that?”

“I clarified the image.” Declan pulled up a frame of the book right before Danika’s black-sparkle-painted nails grabbed it: Wolves Through Time: Lineage of the Shifters.

“You can see her finger going to some text here,” Declan went on, clicking to another frame. Danika had opened the book, skimming over the text with a finger. Tapping something right near the top of the page.

As if it were exactly what she’d been looking for.

Bryce, Declan, and Ruhn studied the still frame of the book in Danika’s hands. Cormac had departed upon getting a call that he would not—or could not—explain. The book was leather-bound and old, but the title indicated that it had been written after the arrival of the Vanir.

“It’s not a published book,” Declan said. “Or at least it predates our current publishing system. But as far as I can tell, no other libraries on Midgard have it. I think it must be a manuscript of some sort, perhaps a vanity project that got bound.”

“Any chance there’s a copy at the Fae Archives?” Ruhn asked her.

“Maybe,” Bryce said, “but Jesiba might still have this one at the storage unit.” She pulled out her phone and dialed quickly.

Jesiba answered on the second ring. “Yes, Quinlan?”

“You had a book at the old gallery. Wolves Through Time. What is it?”

A pause. Ruhn and Dec picked up every word with their Fae hearing.

“So you did look into the footage. Curious, wasn’t it?”

“Just … please tell me. What is it?”

“A history of wolf genealogy.”

“Why did you have it?”