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.
The Helhound tucked in his wings. “The Asteri don’t have any of their palace blueprints on the interweb. Even their library cataloging system is secret. Anything digitized is highly encrypted.”
“And if we had someone who could hack into anything?” Bryce asked.
Baxian again smiled bitterly. “Then I guess you’d have a chance at finding out what was in that room.”
“This is a totally nonsensical way of numbering rooms,” Declan muttered, typing away on the sectional couch in Ruhn’s house. Bryce had run there with Hunt after leaving Baxian in the alley the tunnel had led to, a few blocks from Urd’s Temple. She was still reeling.
She’d turned on her phone to find several missed calls from Tharion. The Viper Queen had given him a heads-up about Ophion—only a few minutes too late. Flynn had nearly thrown a fit when Ruhn had explained what had happened.
At least no word had emerged about their connection to the rebel attack on Urd’s Temple, as the news was calling it. Pollux, Mordoc, and the Hind were hailed as heroes for stopping Pippa’s forces from desecrating the sacred space. The only failure: Pippa had escaped.
Bryce would deal with that later. Would deal with a lot of other shit later.
Declan scratched his head. “You realize that what we’re doing right now amounts to treason.”
“We owe you big-time,” Hunt said, sitting on the arm of the sofa.
“Pay me in booze,” Declan said. “It’ll be a comfort while I worry about when the dreadwolves will show up at my door.”
“Here,” Ruhn said, handing the male a glass of whiskey. “This’ll start you off.” Her brother dropped onto the cushions beside her. Across the couch, Hypaxia sat next to Ithan, quiet and watchful.
Bryce had let Hunt explain what they’d learned from Baxian. And let Ruhn explain the whole truth to the witch-queen and the sprites, who had draped themselves around Flynn’s shoulders where he sat on Declan’s other side.
But it was to Ithan that Bryce’s attention kept returning. And as Declan focused, Bryce said quietly to the wolf, “Did you know about Danika and Baxian?” His face had revealed nothing.
“Of course not,” Ithan said. “I thought she and Thorne …” He shook his head. “I have no idea what to make of it. I never once scented anything on her.”