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

She was a bloodhound. With that preternatural sense of smell, she’d know better than anyone how to hide a scent—how to detect if any trace of it had remained on her.

“I wasn’t at the gathering. She sought me out while she was there.”

“Why?”

“Because she was researching shifter ancestry. Mine is … unique.”

“You shift into a dog,” Bryce raged. “What’s unique about that?” Even Hunt gave her a disapproving frown. She didn’t care. She was sick of these surprises about Danika, about all the things she’d never known—

“She wanted to know about my shifter ancestry. Really old shifter ancestry that manifested in me after years of lying dormant. She was examining the most ancient bloodlines in our world and saw a name on an early ancestor’s family tree that could be traced all the way to the last living descendant: me.”

“What the Hel could you even tell her if it was that ancient?” Hunt asked.

“Ultimately, nothing. But once we knew we were mates, once we’d sealed it … She started to open up about what she was looking into.”

“Was it about the synth?” Bryce asked.

“No.” Baxian clenched his jaw. “I think the synth was a cover for something else. Her death was because of the research she was doing.”

Through love, all is possible. One last clue from Danika. To look where she’d stamped the phrase—right on this male.

So Bryce said, “Why did she care about any of this?”

“She wanted to know where we came from. The shifters, the Fae. All of us. She wanted to know what we’d once been. If it might inform our future.” Baxian’s throat worked. “She was also … She told me she wanted to find an alternative to Sabine.”

“She was the alternative to Sabine,” Bryce snapped.

“She had a feeling she might not live long enough for that,” Baxian said hoarsely. “Danika didn’t want to leave the wolves’ future in Sabine’s hands. She was seeking a way to protect them by uncovering a possible alternative in the bloodline to challenge Sabine.”

It was so … so Danika.

“But after we met,” Baxian went on, “she started hunting for a way into a world where we could be together—since there was no way Sabine or Sandriel, or even the Asteri, would have allowed it.”

Bryce clicked the safety back on the gun and lowered it to the ground.

Baxian said with quiet ferocity, “I was so fucking glad when you killed Micah. I knew … I had this feeling that prick was involved in her death.”

Glad someone finally put a bullet through Micah’s head, Baxian had said when they’d first met. Bryce surveyed the male who’d loved her friend—the male she’d never known about. “Why wouldn’t she have told me?”

“She wanted to. We didn’t dare talk on the phone or write to each other. We had a standing agreement to meet at a hotel in Forvos—I could never get away from Sandriel for long—on a given day every two months. She worried that the Asteri would use me against her to keep her in line, if they found out about us.”

“Did she tell you she loved you?” Bryce pushed.

“Yes,” Baxian replied without a moment of hesitation.

Danika had once claimed she’d only said those words to Bryce. To her, not to this … stranger. This male who’d freely and willingly served Sandriel. Hunt had been given no choice in that matter. “She didn’t care that you’re a monster?”

Baxian flinched. “After I met Danika, I tried my best to counteract all I did for Sandriel, though sometimes all I could do was … lessen Sandriel’s evil.” Yet his eyes softened. “She loved you, Bryce. You were the most important person in the world to her. You were—”

“Shut up. Just … shut the fuck up,” Bryce whispered. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Don’t you?” he challenged. “Don’t you want to know all of it? Isn’t that why you’ve been digging around? You want to know—need to know what Danika knew. What she was up to, what she kept secret.”

Her face hardened into stone. She said flatly, “Fine. Let’s start with this one, if you knew her so well. How did Danika meet Sofie Renast? You ever hear that name in all your secret little conversations? What did Danika want from her?”

Baxian bristled. “Danika learned about Sofie’s existence while investigating thunderbird lineage as part of her research into shifters and our origins. She traced the bloodlines—and then confirmed it by tracking her down and scenting her. Being Danika, she didn’t let Sofie walk away without answering some questions.”

Bryce stilled. “What kind of questions?” Hunt put a hand on her shoulder.

Baxian shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know how they pivoted to working together on the Ophion stuff. But I think Danika had some theories about thunderbirds beyond the lineage thing. About their power in particular.”

Bryce frowned. “Do you know why Sofie Renast might have felt the need to carve a series of numbers and letters on herself while she drowned a few weeks ago?”

“Solas,” Baxian murmured. And then he recited the sequence from Sofie’s body, down to the last numeral. “Was that it?”

“What the fuck are you playing at, Baxian?” Hunt growled, but Bryce snapped at the same time, “What is it?”

Baxian’s eyes flashed. “It’s a system of numbering rooms used in only one place on Midgard. The Asteri Archives.”

Hunt swore. “And how in Urd’s name do you know that?”

“Because I gave it to Danika.”

Bryce was surprised enough that words failed her.

“Sandriel was the Asteri’s pet.” Baxian turned to Hunt. “You know that, Athalar. She made me serve as escort on one of her visits to their palace. When they brought her down to the archives for a meeting, I saw them go through that door. When Sandriel emerged, she was pale. It was odd enough that I memorized the series of numbers and letters and passed it to Danika later as something to look into. Danika became … obsessed with it. She wouldn’t tell me why, or what she thought might be in there, but she had theories. Ones that she said would alter this very world. But she couldn’t go in herself. She was too recognizable. She knew the Asteri were already watching her.”

“So after she met Sofie, Danika gave her the information, and had Sofie sneak in to investigate,” Bryce murmured. “Since Sofie’s record wouldn’t have shown anything suspicious about her.”

Baxian nodded. “From what I gleaned from the Hind’s reports, it took Sofie three years of work to get in. Three years of spying and going undercover as one of the archivists. I’m assuming she finally found a way to sneak into that room—and ran to Kavalla soon after. By that time, Danika was … gone. She died without ever learning what was in the room.”

“But Sofie did,” Bryce said quietly.

“Whatever she learned was in that room,” Hunt agreed. “That must have been the intel Sofie planned to use as leverage against Ophion—and against the Asteri.”

“Something war-changing,” Bryce said. “Something big.”

“Why wouldn’t this room identifier come up on search engines?” Hunt asked Baxian.