Gentry
The next few days for Gentry were a study in the extreme. Every morning, Kit left to search for the children, his usually cheerful mask no longer on his face. Sad. Then Gentry had to force herself to switch between meditating, checking on her mother and sister, and surveying Skadra for any signs of the missing witchlings. Again, sad. Then Adrienne and Wren’s visit. Happy. Then Kit came home.Veryhappy. Then she had to take the dreaded tonic. Horrific. Then Kit would wake her up and then comfort her with either his mouth or his fingers. Bliss.
The twisted routine provided a strange sense of stability, yet Gentry could sense it coming to an end. The five-day mark passed for her sister and mother to come home, and the deadline forced her to take her meditation very seriously.
She eavesdropped on Drayer’s thoughts and occasionally through his eyes with increasing frequency. She learned his likes, his dislikes, and his extremely volatile temper. The more she learned, the more she started thinking of Drayer as ashe.Everything about Drayer was female — from the way she scrunched her nose in the mirror to the way she flirted withother females. She was sophisticated, driven, and her own unique brand of petty.
Each little detail she learned about the politician, she fed to Wren during their sessions. The necromancer had grown quiet the last couple sessions, more serious.
“I’m very close,” she told Gentry, “but there’s one detail I need to make sure I don’t kill you.”
“What is it? I’ll get you anything.” Gentry said quickly, not liking how desperate she sounded.This is taking too long.Every day, she could feel Drayer growing more impatient, more relentless in her search for Gentry’s family. Who knew how much money it’d take to find an untraceable cruise ship?
“I’ll need the real name of the person whose past you’re really seeing.”
Dread filled her stomach. That would be a problem. While she’d discerned that the person who’d stolen Drayer’s body was a female Cobalt member who’d been publicly executed, that only narrowed down the list to about ten. The Weavers had killed several Cobalts in that fashion. It also didn’t help the information on the internet was sorely limited on the subject.
Wren seemed to sense her hesitation. “If you don’t want to wait any longer,” she said softly, “maybe today or tomorrow, we can attempt the excision without the name. It’s your life to risk. Or we can delay as long as you wish to.”
“I won’t tell Clea that you said that,” Adrienne drawled to her girlfriend, a teasing smile on her face. “Although I doubt Gentry would ever choose to delay it. All that prep looks… unpleasant.”
Gentry looked at the taller Weaver in surprise. The more quiet of the two, Adrienne rarely interjected unless it was to show her snarky side. But this time it seemed as though the witch was… emphasizing with her? “Thanks, Adrienne,” she said, meaning it.
The other woman waved her hand. “Forget about it”—she picked her book back up—“Merle, bring Gentry her present.”
That cursed bag started to shake before she’d even finished speaking, and Gentry wasn’t surprised to see that Merle had donned his disturbing octopus skin this time. Against all the laws of physics, he was dragging a thick stack of manila folders with the majority of his tentacles while he dragged himself forward with just two. Gentry wrinkled her nose with disgust and snatched the folders up, no longer afraid when Merle whipped at her with one of his tentacles. “Are these the Cobalt files?”
“One and the same,” Adrienne confirmed, “it took a while to find them all, and I didn’t want to give you false hope.”
Gentry fought back a wave of emotions at the unexpectedly thoughtful gift. She knew Adrienne didn’t want any of that. So, she sat the stack of papers to the side and simply said, “Thanks.”
Wren ruined it for the both of them as she clapped her hands enthusiastically and did a little dance. “Ooooh, I knew you were spending all that time in the library for a reason, Ade! You. Are. So. Sweet.”
Adrienne dragged her girlfriend out of the apartment before she could ask Merle to pull off any of his more extravagant ghostly gifts. Which left Gentry alone with a stack of papers that would hopefully give her Drayer’s true name. A small ball of dread formed in her stomach. Everything she’d learned about Drayer thus far had been unpleasant. If anything was going to throw her into another flashback or another livestream of that evil woman’s activities, it’d be those files.
Get this over with, coward. Don’t you want to break the curse?She psyched herself up, imagining the day where she could get a papercut and not worry about it, or not hiding out in an Underground apartment for days on end. Seeing her mother and sister. Breaking the curse would be more than worth it.
Gentry then flipped open the first folder.
forty-four
Kit
Kit returned from yet another fruitless day of searching, his heart heavy. The enforcers were close to diminishing the number of resources they’d given to the case, and not even Mary’s impassioned arguments could sway them to keep the pace up. The vampyres in the Underground were all either in hiding or had already been questioned about the van they’d found at the edge of town close to a manhole. A manhole that led directly to the most complex tunnels the Underground had to offer.
Worst of all, the backpack they’d found had had no DNA on it, so a magical tracker couldn’t be deployed yet.
It was starting to look hopeless, but Kit refused to give up. Ten children didn’t just go missing without due cause. Perhaps they were looking in the wrong direction.
All those thoughts circled in his head uselessly as he knocked on apartment -651’s door. No answer. His heart sped up. Gentry always answered the door, her beautiful face lit up at the sight of him. It was the one bright spot of his day.Shewas his one bright spot.
Wasting no time, Kit disengaged the wards and practically threw himself through the door. He instantly spotted the small woman on the floor, her eyes open and her pupils flickering up erratically in her skull.
“Gentry!” He knelt down by her, his heart in his throat. It almost looked like she was having a seizure, her limbs trembling slightly. He pressed a hand to her forehead and felt even more alarm when it felt warmer than even his skin. Magic. There had to be magic involved.
But if it was, it was unlike any he’d ever seen on a magic-less person. There were no strings or paths he could sense attaching her to a magic user. Rather, it was coming from inside her.
Drayer Netherton. It had to be that bastard.
