“Where’s Calder?” Riot asked, moving to his feet.
I tried to look around Wickett to the hall behind him. “He’s not with you? Where the hells is he?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was flat. Professional. The Ripper voice instead of the man who’d whispered promises against my skin just hours ago. “I haven’t seen him since last night.”
Wickett finally looked at me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. Silence stretched for a moment, everyone processing what the absence meant.
I took a tentative step forward. “We need to look for him. Now. Before whatever’s wrong gets worse.”
“Agreed.” Riot was already moving toward the door. “The question is how we search most effectively.”
“We should split up,” Wickett said. “Cover more ground. Syn and I together.”
“No,” Riot said, and for the first time, exacted command over everyone. “You and I need to search together.”
Wickett’s jaw tightened. “That doesn’t make tactical sense. We should pair strong with weak, divide our strongest.”
“We need to present a unified front if we’re dealing with official channels,” Riot said. “You have status as commander of the hunters. I have status as a Guardian of the Furies. Together, we represent legitimate power from Fuerlis. They can’t dismiss us as easily.”
“Assuming they respect Guardians here,” I pointed out. “Considering that Vitoria said she was ordered to kill not one but two fury-born, I’m not sure your title helps.”
Riot nodded. “Which is exactly why Wickett needs to be with me. If there’s hostility toward my kind here, I’ll need someone with recognized authority to negotiate. And you need the freedom to search places we can’t. The shadows, the civilian areas, the spaces where official authority would draw too much attention. Aureth must stay here.”
I hated that it made sense. And I wish Lucy were here to take my side. To bring a different kind of logic to the room.
Or, hells, even to guard the Oracle if she really wasn’t safe here.
“I know you can take care of yourself, Syneca.” Riot’s tone was gentle but immovable. “Which is why you’ll take Silas and Pip. Cover ground we can’t while maintaining a lower profile. We draw attention. You blend in.”
Wickett looked like he wanted to argue. His eyes found mine, and something flickered there—frustration, maybe, or an apology. He wanted to be beside me as much as I wanted him to, but when Riot took control, there was little to be done.
“Fine,” I said finally, voice tight. “One hour. We regroup in one hour.”
“Agreed,” Riot said.
Aureth rose from her seat and came to stand beside me. She took my hands, making a great show of the gesture. “The one who will offer you your freedom,” her grip tightened almost painfully. “Remember that no prison is meant to hold forever.”
I pulled away, but no one else in the room seemed to notice her words to me. Her warning settled into the pit of my stomach. Whatever was happening here, the fury-born was being affected more than any of us. I scanned her forehead for sweat, worried there may have been illness settling in. But she seemed fine, if not still tired.
“An hour?” I said carefully, staring up at the hunter.
Wickett barely acknowledged me. I walked out of the room before I let the unease of that consume me.
“So that was weird, right?” Pip flew past my head as we descended the stairs. “Wickett was being super weird.”
“He’s always weird.”
“Notthatkind of weird.” She did a loop in the air. “Did you two fight? After the whole...” She made an exaggerated gesture. “You know. The thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you definitely did things that I’m too innocent to describe but also totally know about because the walls in this hotel are not as thick as you think they are and I’m not at all a child.”
Heat flooded my face. “We did not... there were no things.”
Pip rolled her giant blue eyes. “Sure. And I’m the Queen of Solaire.”
“Can we focus on finding Calder instead of discussing my nonexistent love life?”
