But the actions were familiar, and maybe that was why I’d connected the two.
Where had I seen those actions before?
I paced the office faster, thinking over June’s research, and the demon attacks, and—then it hit me. My grandmother’s stories. Her old legends of demons and leylines. Of magic and spirits, and how my father had put it down to silly tales. I recalled questioning the existence of shifters if he didn’t believe in magic.
Your grandmother is an old sort, he’d once told me when I was a child.
But she said she sees things, Dad. I saw it happen!
And I realized that was where I had seen Bryce’s attacks—my grandmother’s ability to see things nobody else could ever see. She’d called it a name—clairvoyance. A vision into something that wasn’t there. At least not in plain sight. My thoughts and conclusions were disjointed, and I knew I couldn’t write them down and pin them up for the whole pack to see,but I could quietly ask Jackson if he knew anything about Bryce having clairvoyant abilities. The thoughts weren’t strange to me. Despite my dad’s warnings, I believed anythingcouldexist.
But why wouldn’t Bryce have mentioned anything?
Her words from earlier came back to me. I’d tried to rile her up just to get her to keep talking to me, but she’d given me her truth plainly.I’m comforted by you protecting me and grateful, but I don’t think I can trust you again.
It made sense that she wouldn’t confide in me about anything, especially potential abilities she had. But… was that how she’d learned the demons were djinn specifically? What else could she tell me? What else could this potential ability aid with?
Would Bryce be able to know where a target would be hit beforehand?
“What’re you thinking of?” Jackson asked, cutting through my whirlwind of thoughts.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Do you still have the reports you made on each fire? I want to go through them, and I wasn’t here for a handful. There’s got to be a connecting element somewhere.”
Jackson eyed me sharply before he nodded. “They’ll be in the other office, second drawer down.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Theo, I want you to head out to speak with Mrs. Hartley, all right? Find out what she can report about her recent attack, find out the damages sustained, and conclude where the fire started in her building.”
“Got it,” he called, and I was thankful for his cooperation, too high-strung to deal with his arguing at every turn. Dismissing the rest of my pack, I shut myself into the side office and yanked open the drawer, pulling out the files Jackson hadmade on every fire in the last month. Sighing, I sat down in the vinyl chair that was uncomfortable as hell but good enough.
Flicking through, I read through each report and highlighted specific things that jumped out. Reports of specific colored flames or similar starting points for the fire. I tried to assess what had been destroyed—if the djinn were trying to damage a specific thing, like history books, or old proof of their existence, just as another hunch, but found no correlation—and before I knew it, I was at the report of Bryce’s cottage in White Bay.
Paper-clipped to the top, right-hand corner was a picture of Bryce and Cassandra, their faces so similar, aside from the different color eyes and hair. They were both grinning, sat before an empty fireplace, in what looked like matching Christmas pajamas. It was cute, and I thumbed over Bryce’s dark hair, curled prettily, her face made up dramatically, as if she’d been out that night and come back to a cozy night in with her daughter. I lifted the back of the picture, finding a caption written in cursive that clearly belonged to Bryce, who wrote Cassandra’s message.
Uncle Jackson, this year will be my fifth visit from Santa! Mommy said to tell you what I asked for. Everyone in school keeps talking about their moms and dads, but I tell them about Mommy on her own. So, this year, I want something from my dad, whoever he is. Maybe just a picture, or something he may have owned. Mommy says she doesn’t like writing this down, but I insisted because she told me to say what’s on my mind.
Some nasty girls at school said my daddy’s like Santa because he’s not real, and I cried a lot.
Anyway, this is me and Mommy in the pjs you got us! Merry Christmas.
Love, Cassie.
I smiled at the childish innocence coming through in her message, and the unflinching stubbornness. She really was like her mom, the more I learned about her. But the part about her dad made my stomach drop. I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d received for Christmas that year, if Brycedidhave something to give her that reminded her of her dad.
The curiosity niggled inside me. I’d come so close to asking her about Cassie’s father earlier, but figured it wasn’t my place. At least not yet. I had no right to. I had to earn back Bryce’s trust first, and figuring out how to do that beyond watching over her would be hard, but there had to be a way.
It wasn’t just about finding out who Cassie’s father was, either. It was simply about having Bryce back in my life, getting rid of the hostility, hanging out with her and Jackson as we once had. I thought back to the picture Cassie had shown me on Jackson’s tablet, and smiled. The girl was intrigued, and she clearly hadn’t known she would be a shifter one day.
How come Bryce hadn’t told her yet?
The questions were useless, falling about in my head, until I was on my feet, heading out of the station, and I didn’t realize where I was going until I hit the bakery. Harvey’s—owned by Mr. Harvey, a retired pastry chef who’d come over from Europe in his fifties, and had started over in our town—wasn’t too busy at that time of the day, and I was just ahead of the dinner rush, along with a handful of others.
But I noticed it wasn’t Mr. Harvey himself at the counter, but his nephew, a man I’d already turned my back on. He’d tried to infiltrate my pack once, feigning loyalty, only to have bandedwith Theo once upon a time to turn on Bryce. They’d turned on others, too; younger wolves who had yet to learn the ropes.
I smiled tightly. “Freddie.”
He glared openly at me. “Mason.”
I sidelined any further conversation as I assessed the selection.
