“Me neither. Maybe she was able to hide it with her bloodhound gift somehow.” She cleared her throat. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me.”
“Really? It would have mattered to me,” Ithan countered. “To everyone. Not only is Baxian not a wolf, he’s …”
“An asshole,” Hunt supplied without looking up from his phone.
“Yeah,” Ithan said. “I mean, I get that he just saved your hides, but … still.”
“Does it matter now?” Flynn asked. “I mean, no offense, but Danika’s gone.”
Bryce gave him a flat look. “Really? I had no idea.”
Flynn flipped her off, and the sprites ooohed at his shoulder.
Bryce rolled her eyes. Exactly what Flynn needed: his own flock of cheerleaders trailing him at all hours. She said to Flynn, “Hey, remember that time you set a dragon free and were dumb enough to think she’d follow your orders?”
“Hey, remember that time you wanted to marry me and wrote Lady Bryce Flynn in all your notebooks?”
Hunt choked.
Bryce countered with, “Hey, remember when you pestered me for years to hook up with you, but I have something called standards—”
“This is highly unusual behavior for royals,” Hypaxia observed.
“You have no idea,” Ruhn muttered, earning a smile from the queen.
Noting the way her brother’s face lit up, then dimmed … Did he know? About Hypaxia and Celestina? She had no idea what else might dampen his expression.
“Where’s Tharion?” Hunt asked, surveying the house. “Shouldn’t he be here?”
“He’s upstairs,” Ruhn said. They could fill Tharion in later, she supposed. And Cormac, once he’d finished with whatever his father wanted.
Declan suddenly cursed, frowning. Then he said, “There’s good news and bad news.”
“Bad news first,” Bryce said.
“There’s no way in Hel I can ever hack into this archival system. It’s ironclad. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s gorgeous, actually.”
“All right, tone down the fanboying,” Ruhn grumbled. “What’s the good news?”
“Their camera system in the Eternal Palace is not ironclad.”
“So what the fuck does that get us?” Hunt asked.
“At the very least, I can confirm whether Sofie Renast ever gained access to that room.”
“And where that room might be,” Bryce murmured. Ithan and Hypaxia both nodded. “All right. Do it.”
“Settle in,” Declan warned. “We’re in for a long night.”
Ithan was dispatched to get Tharion after an hour, and Bryce was rewarded with the sight of a sleep-tousled mer entering the living room wearing nothing but his jeans.
Tharion plopped onto the couch beside Hypaxia, slinging his arm around the queen’s shoulders and saying, “Hi, Pax.”
Hypaxia waved off the mer. “Sleeping all afternoon?”
“Life of a playboy,” Tharion said. Apparently, they’d become fast friends during the Summit. Bryce might have wondered if there was more between them, had she not found the witch with the Archangel the night before. She wondered if Tharion knew.
Wondered if it rankled her brother that the witch and the mer had stayed in touch since the Summit, and he’d had only silence from her. Ruhn didn’t so much as frown.
Around midnight, Declan said, “Well, holy shit. There she is.”
Hunt nearly trampled Ruhn as they hurried over. Bryce, of course, made it to Declan’s side first, and swore. Hunt shoved Ruhn out of the way with an elbow and claimed the seat next to his mate. Ithan, Tharion, Hypaxia, and Flynn—sprites in tow—pressed in around them.
“She looks so young,” Hunt murmured.
“She was,” Ruhn said. Dec had pulled up the photo from Sofie’s old university ID and had the program search for any faces that resembled hers in the footage.
Bryce had tried to call Cormac, but the prince hadn’t answered his phone.
So they kept silent as Declan played the footage of the wood-and-marble subterranean library. From the camera mounted on the ceiling, they could see Sofie Renast, clad in some sort of white uniform that could only belong to one of the archivists, stalk by the ancient shelves.
“Door Seven-Eta-Dot-Three-Alpha-Omega,” Declan said, pointing to a wooden door beyond the shelf. “You can make out the writing faintly beside it.”
They could. Sofie slipped inside the room, using some sort of ID card to bypass the modern lock, then shut the carved door behind her.
“Fifteen minutes pass,” Declan said, zooming ahead. “And then she’s out again.” Sofie walked from the room the same way she had entered it: calmly.
“She doesn’t have anything on her,” Hunt observed.
“I can’t make out anything under her clothes, either,” Ruhn agreed.
“Neither did the computer,” Declan said. “She carried nothing in, nothing out. But her face is white as death.” Just as Baxian claimed Sandriel’s had been.
“When is this dated?” Bryce asked. Hunt squeezed her knee, like he needed to touch her, remind himself she was here and safe with him.
“Two months ago,” Declan said. “Right before she went into Kavalla.”
“It took three years of working undercover to get access to this room?” Ruhn said.
“Do you know how intense the security is?” Hunt asked. “I can’t believe she made it in at all.”
“I know it’s fucking intense, Athalar,” Ruhn said tightly.
Bryce said, “Well, we’re going to have to beat her time.”
They all faced her. Bryce’s attention remained fixed on the screen, though. On the young woman walking out of the ancient library.
Hunt’s stomach twisted. He had a feeling he knew what she was going to say even before Bryce declared, “We need to get to the Eternal City—and into those archives.”
“Bryce,” Hunt started, dread rushing through him. He might have made peace with their involvement with Cormac and Ophion, but this … this was on a whole new level. Perilously close to what he’d done leading the Fallen.
“I want to know what Sofie knew,” Bryce said through her teeth. “What Danika was willing to risk so much to discover.”
After the truth Baxian had dropped, she needed the full story more than ever. It didn’t only have to do with wanting to use the intel as leverage against the Asteri. Danika had thought this information could change the world. Save it, somehow. How could she walk away from it now?
“You’re talking about breaking into the most secure place on Midgard,” Tharion interjected carefully. “Breaking into an enemy’s stronghold.”
“If Sofie Renast did it, I can, too.”
Ruhn coughed. “You realize none of us know our way around the palace, Bryce. We’ll be operating blind.”
Hunt tensed beside her, and Bryce knew that particular sort of tautness on his face. Knew he was shutting out his vivid memories of the throne room, the dungeons. Blood and screaming and pain—that’s all he recalled, he’d told her.
She leaned into his side. Offered what love she could through the touch.