Pip’s wings stilled. “Red-haired? There’s dozens of?—”
“This one was specific,” Calder cut in, understanding immediately where I was going. “Always came at night. Blue suit with gold trim. Wore glasses that sat at the edge of his nose.”
“Gold wings,” I added. “Very formal. Very punctual.”
Pip’s eyes widened. “Oh! I think you mean Crimson. He does high-profile message work. Very exclusive clientele.”
“Why do you need him?” Lucette asked, her voice sharp with suspicion.
I met her gaze directly. “Because Crimson came here regularly to summon Vitoria.”
Wickett stepped closer. “You think this sprite knows where she is?”
“No. I think he knows who she was working for—and that person might know where Vitoria’s run off to.”
It was a lie, of course. Vitoria would never expose herself to a network of professional gossips. But the red-haired sprite had to knowsomething,and he was my only lead to whomever had been pulling Vitoria away from us on all those nights. So, I needed to find him before anyone else did.
“Can you arrange a meeting?” I asked Pip.
“Tell him the Rune Weaver needs to discuss a matter of mutual survival. Tomorrow. Before anyone else thinks to ask him questions.”
Her eyes widened with understanding. “Before the hunters find him, you mean.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
Chapter 21
Wickett
In the hunter’s house, speak only truths that can be proven. Lies spoken have a way of carving themselves into flesh.
The pre-dawn corridors of Chancellery House held their own kind of silence, the sort that came before the city woke and remembered to be afraid. I moved through the third-floor hallway alone, the Grimora Gazette tucked under my arm feeling heavier than it should. “The Venatori: Heroes or Harbingers?”screamed the current headline hovering above five faces that would either save the world or cause it to burn.
Three hunters were waiting at Lucette’s door when I arrived, standing at attention with the rigid posture that came from spending years in my father’s service. This group was hand-selected for this search, and they were competent, thorough, and, most importantly, loyal only to me.
“Sir.” The lead hunter, a woman named Kessa, dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “We’re ready when the shifter is.”
I knocked on Lucette Varrow’s door. Once, sharp and final.
She opened it immediately, already dressed in the uniform left for her... mostly. The pants she wore were definitely not her size. Blonde braids and twists coiled at her nape and not a trace of sleep dimmed her calculating eyes.
“Your apartment search was approved,” I said, ignoring the way she’d rolled the bottom of the uniform’s pants just to keep them from dragging on the floor. “If you still want to accompany them.”
Lucette’s mouth curved. “That was quick.”
I’d approved it myself last night, signed the authorization with my father’s seal and my authority. He’d learn about it later, scowl, lecture me about overstepping bounds that had never been clearly defined. But the hunters standing behind me didn’t need to know the authorization had come from me rather than him.
“They’re leaving now,” I said, gesturing to the waiting hunters. “Every room gets searched. Thoroughly.”
“And you?” Lucette asked, studying me with sharp eyes that missed nothing.
“I’ll wait for the debrief.”
Lucette nodded once, then fell into step with the hunters, never once addressing why her pants were so large. I watched them disappear down the corridor, Kessa already giving quiet instructions about what to look for and proper search techniques.
The rest of the Venatori still slept. A benefit to me. I preferred my private time, where I could think for myself rather than sitting in a vat of the world’s expectations. The common room called, and I moved toward it with the newspaper still tucked under my arm.
The space pretended at comfort with its cushioned chairs arranged around a fireplace; the shelves lined with approved reading material, the windows letting in weak morning lightfiltered through protection wards. The enchantments woven into the walls hummed with constant surveillance. Tracking spells monitored who came and went, their magic leaving trails only trained hunters could read. The fireplace burned with a contained flame that never needed new wood, fed instead by runes carved into the hearth that pulsed with a steady, amber light.
