House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

“It’d better,” Ember grumbled.

But Hunt caught Bryce’s look, and summoned his lightning to the ready. He knew her starfire was already warming beneath her gloves. With Theia’s power now united within her … he couldn’t decide if he was eager to see what that starfire could do, or dreading it.

“Is it a trap?” Ember said as they approached the towering, sealed gates and abandoned guard post.

Hunt peered into the frosted window of the booth, then yanked open the door. The ice was crusted so thickly he had to use a considerable amount of strength to pry it free. A swift examination of the interior revealed rime coating the controls, the chairs, the water station. “No one’s been here for a while.”

“I don’t like this,” Ember said. “It’s too easy.”

Hunt glanced to Bryce, her eyes teary with cold, the tip of her nose bright red. In these temperatures, they wouldn’t last ten more minutes before frostbite set in. He and his mate would recover, but Ember and Randall, with their human blood …

“Let’s get this booth warmed up,” Bryce said. She stepped inside and began brushing frost off the switches. “Maybe the heater still works.”

Ember gave her daughter a look that said she was well aware Bryce and Hunt had avoided addressing her concerns, but stepped inside as well.



* * *



They got the heater working—just one of them. The others were too frosted over to sputter to life. But it was enough to warm the small space and offer her parents a sliver of shelter as Bryce and Hunt again explored the frigid terrain, studying the wall and its gate.

“You think it’s a trap?” Bryce said through the scarf she’d tugged up over her mouth and nose. She’d found some pairs of snow goggles in the booth, and the world was sharp through the stark clarity of the lenses. Was this how it had looked through Hunt’s Umbra Mortis helmet?

Hunt said, wearing polarized goggles of his own, “I’ve never known the guard station at the Northern Rift to be empty, so … something’s up, for sure.”

“Maybe Apollion did us a favor and sent a few deathstalkers to clear it out.” As she spoke the demon prince’s name, the wind seemed to quiet. “Well, that’s not spooky at all.”

“This far north,” Hunt said, turning in place to survey the terrain, “maybe all those bullshit warnings about not speaking his name on this side of the Rift are true.”

Bryce didn’t dare test it out again. But she walked to the lead gates in the wall and laid a gloved hand on them. “I heard the wall and the gates both had white salt built into them.” For protection against Hel.

“Hasn’t stopped the demons from slipping through,” Hunt noted, face unreadable with the goggles and his own scarf over his mouth. “I hunted down enough of them to know how fallible the wall is. And the guards, I suppose.”

“I hate to imagine what’s been getting past without guards here.” Hunt said nothing, which wasn’t remotely comforting. “So how do we get through?” Bryce asked.

“There’s a button inside the booth,” Hunt said. “Nothing fancy.”

Bryce nudged him. “Easy-peasy, for once.” A blast of icy wind slammed into her back, as if throwing her toward the wall. Even with the layers of winter gear, she could have sworn the cold bit her very bones.

“We should go before we lose the light.” Hunt nodded at the sun already sinking toward the horizon. “Daylight’s only a few hours up here.”

“Bryce?” her dad called from the booth. “You guys need to see this.”

They found Ember and Randall in front of a flickering monitor.

“The security footage.” Ember pointed with a shaking gloved finger. Bryce knew the trembling wasn’t from cold. Her mom hit a key on the computer and the footage began rolling.

“Is that …,” Bryce breathed.

“We need to get to the Rift,” Hunt growled. “Now.”





71


“You set foot in that Den without an invitation from the Prime or Sabine and you’re dead, pup.”

“I know,” Ithan said, packing yet another crate for Jesiba. The task was stupidly mundane given all the shit that was going down. But when he’d burst into the office moments ago to tell her the good news, Jesiba had refused to speak to him until he earned his keep for a few minutes. So here he was, packing and talking at the same time. “But if Hypaxia and I are heading off to the Eternal City, we might … die.” He choked on the word. “I want them to know the truth.”

“And what truth is that?”

Ithan straightened from where he’d been bent over the crate. “The truth of what I did to Sigrid. That Sigrid exists, I guess, even if she is a Reaper. That—”

“So it’s about you easing your guilty conscience.”

Ithan cut her a look. “I want them to know what happened. That yeah, Sigrid is a Reaper, and I totally failed at trying to undo that, but … they do technically have an alternative to Sabine—even if it’s a half-life. It’d be radical and unheard of to accept a Reaper as Prime, but stranger things have happened, right?”

Jesiba began typing away on her computer. “Why do you care?”

“Because the wolves have to change. They need to know they can choose someone other than Sabine.” He looked down at his palm, willing ice to form there. It cracked over his skin in a thin film before melting away. “They need to know there’s an antidote that might grant them powers beyond hers. That they don’t need to be subservient to her.”

“The wolves will need proof regarding that bit,” Jesiba said, “or you won’t walk out of there alive.”

“Isn’t this enough?” He formed a shard of ice on his fingertip, as much as he could reliably control. He supposed he’d need to seek out the Fae or some sort of ice sprite to teach him how to command this new ability.

Hypaxia had taken the antidote minutes after him. She’d blacked out, as he had, but awoken thrumming with power. He could have sworn a light, playful breeze now played about her hair constantly—and that a steady sort of power seemed to emanate from her, even when she wasn’t using it.

He’d offered Jesiba a vial upon telling her the news, but the sorceress had said, It won’t help me, pup. And then ordered him to begin this miserable work while he explained the rest.

Jesiba now said, “Knowing the wolves, they’ll think Quinlan asked me to do something to you that made you … unnatural.”

“They know Bryce is a good person.”

“Do they? As far as I recall, they’ve been anything but kind to her since Danika and the Pack died. You included.”

Ithan’s cheeks warmed. “It was a rough time. For all of us.”

“Danika Fendyr would have skewered all of you to the front gates of the Den for how you treated Quinlan.”

“Danika would have …” Ithan trailed off as a thought struck him. “Danika questioned the wolf power structure, you know. Even she thought it was weird that the Fendyrs went unchecked for so long.”

“Did she?”

Ithan turned toward the sorceress’s desk. “Bryce and I found some research papers Danika had hidden. She wanted to know why the Fendyrs were so dominant—I don’t think she approved of it, either.” He nodded to himself. “She would have encouraged the others to take the antidote. To kick Sabine to the curb.”

Jesiba’s brows rose. “If you say so. You knew Danika far better than I ever did.”

“I know she hated her mother—and thought the hierarchies were grossly unfair.” Ithan paced a few steps. “I have to get those papers. I’ll bring them to the Den to show everyone that it’s not just me questioning this, but that even one of the Fendyrs disagreed with their unchecked dominance. It might help sway them toward accepting an alternative to Sabine. Sigrid’s a Fendyr, but she’s not in the direct line. That might help them accept her as an alternative.”