Dain’s voice made me jerk my attention to him.
“Hey, big guy, you with me? Can you hear me?”
I swallowed thickly and nodded. “I… I’m with you.”
He sent me a sad smile. “Okay, good. I know you’re freaking out right now—I am too—but I need you to stay calm, okay? We’re doing everything we can to find it. It’s… it’s going to be alright.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself, but either way, he clearly didn’t believe the words.
Neither did I.
How could it be okay? Someone had a piece of me, and they could use it against me at any moment.
“You have every right to be mad at me, Lanche. Trust me, I’ve never been more upset, disappointed, and pissed at myself than I am right now.”
I blanched. “Dain—”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Lanche. I… it’s all my fault, and I’m so, so, so fucking sorry.”
I squeezed his hand again, lacing our fingers together, trying to calm us both. “It’s not your fault.”
He let out an unamused bark of laughter. “Yeah, it is.”
I glared. “Dain, how in the hell is this your fault? Unless you hired someone to steal it or gave it away, there’s no way in hell this is your fault. You can’t control other people.”
He wiped at his eyes. “Yeah, but if I’d been more careful—”
“Careful how? Did you go around waving the thing at strangers and proclaiming what it is? Most people wouldn’t even understand the significance of it anyway. This isn’t your fault.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then blew out a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m over here making you comfort me when it should be the other way around.”
I sent him a small grin. “Honestly, needing to help you knocked me out of my panicky spiral, so you were still helping.”
He snorted, then wiped his face with his free hand again. “Ugh. I’m… I’m just so sorry, Lanche. I swear that we’re all trying to find it. We tried to track the person last night, but they useda bunch of magic to block their scent. They even busted through my wards, which I didn’t think was possible. Granted, I never let Tan and Remi come back to shore them up even though they wanted to… which I’m seriously regretting now.”
“Who’s we?”
“Um… Anton, Jed, Phea, Beshiro, Tray, Kat, Oakley, Roman, Tan, and Garrick… although I might’ve missed someone.”
My eyebrows rose as he listed everyone off. “Tan and Garrick, as in the king and agusha?”
“Yep.”
“Holy shit.”
He sent me another sad smile. “They’ve been helping all night, but we all decided to go home and get some sleep before we go out again.”
I really wished he would’ve called me. “But… you’re not home sleeping.”
He snorted. “I need to eat first, and I… I wanted to see you.”
Despite the horror of the situation, his words made my belly swoop a tiny bit. But then I remembered that he no longer had my icicle, and I had to keep myself from frowning. “I wanted to see you too.” I cleared my throat. “So they broke through wards and used scent-blocking magic?”
He nodded. “Yes. And the only thing they took was your icicle. They left everything else alone.”
“Shit,” I whispered. That likely meant they had plans… plans for me and my magic.
That… that was the worst news yet.
