It was writtenin Ambrose’s familiar handwriting.
Lochlan read the paper over my shoulder. “The Employer?” he asked.
“The one who issues and pays the bounties for all the hunters,” I said breathlessly, still staring at the way the letters were formed. Ambrose couldn’t be the Employer. He was wheezy and bookish and dull. The Employer was supposed to be powerful and strategic and almost omnipotent. “The Employer controls the entire Syndicate.”
“And he took all of Roderick’s records,” Lochlan groaned.
I vividly recalled being in the Employer’s office and going through the filing cabinets. There had been a file listed asRevengein there, and I’d simply passed it by. I’d been so focused on getting to Roderick’s information that I’d skipped straight over what I really needed all along. Was Ambrose the Employer? No wonder he alone had access to the office and seemed to always have inside knowledge.
“We have to go back to the Syndicate,” I told Lochlan. “I think I may know where the records are.”
“The Syndicate was raided, remember?” Lochlan said.
I stared hard at the note. “That’s the problem. I remember too much,” I said softly, then shook myself. “But the Nightsworn might not have taken everything. I have to try.” If they had Ambrose, and Ambrose really was the Employer, they might get him to talk.
Lochlan took the paper from me. “We could ask the Nightsworn for help,” he suggested. “I know where their central location is.”
“Are you crazy? No!” I said. “They’d never help.”
“They helped me before,” Lochlan said quietly. He dropped the note back into the trunk. “That day I sold you to the slavers, I went straight to the Nightsworn and told them what was going on. I didn’t know if Peter and I would be able to extract you otherwise. I needed backup.”
An icy shiver ran down my spine. Lochlan had gone to the Nightsworn. The bounty hunter part of me that always avoided them was horrified, but the newer, girly side of me was touched that he would be willing to go to so much effort to make sure I was safe.
“They sent someone in to pose as a purchaser, then once it was confirmed, they organized a strike for about twelve hours later. They’re very efficient.”
Strangely, this information helped me to relax. The face of the woman the slavers had sold had still haunted me, and now Lochlan was saying it had all been a ploy. She was safe.
“Then at the wedding, I went to thank them,” Lochlan said. “But I didn’t want you to overhear. I thought you might be angry with me.”
“Did you tell them about the pixie dust as well?” I asked. A tiny drop of doubt niggled at the back of my head. If Lochlan was on speaking terms with the Nightsworn, and I’d seen them with the jar of pixie dust…he could’ve done that as well. “They raided our first hideout and took the dust.”
“That wasn’t me,” Lochlan said quickly.
My unease grew. Someone had told the Nightsworn about the pixie dust, and Lochlan had just told me he had sent them to the slavers’ warehouse. I couldn’t imagine that Peter or Roderick would’ve been in contact with them, and I knew I hadn’t, so that only left Lochlan…unless it truly had been a coincidence.
But there were too many coincidences to ignore. The raid for the pixie dust, the warehouse, then the raid on the Syndicate… They were being passed information, but through whom?
I bit my lip. The Nightsworn already had Ambrose, and they had raided the Syndicate the night before. If there was any chance that my family’s paperwork had been moved, I had to find out. I needed to know.
“I’m not going anywhere near the Nightsworn,” I said. “I don’t trust them. But Iamgoing back to the Syndicate to see if they left anything behind. Will you come with me?”
“If you didn’t invite me, I’d follow you,” Lochlan said with a grin. “I won’t let you go that easily.”
The Nightsworn were nowherein sight as Lochlan and I cautiously entered the Syndicate and picked our way through the broken glass and ripped papers that littered the floor. At least there weren’t any blood stains. Had the Nightsworn come in and only taken prisoners instead of injuring or killing people?
Ambrose’s office was a complete disaster. All the listed bounties had been ripped off the entire wall, and papers were scattered all over the room. Drawers had been emptied, cabinets flung open, and furniture tipped over. I stared around at the wreckage. If Ambrose truly was the Employer, it was a brilliant setup to remove the target from his back. He could claim he was in communication with the Employer, and everyone would overlook him as simply a messenger or secretary.
How could I have been so oblivious? All the bounty posters on the floor and notes strewn about were in that same familiar handwriting that Ambrose used each time I saw him jot down any kind of note. I’d never asked him how he became involved with the Syndicate, and now, the Nightsworn had him. What would he tell them? Had he assumed no one would ever figure it out and that he’d be safe to play secretary all this time?
Next to me, Lochlan dug through the papers, then paused after picking one up.
It was a picture of his father, with the offered bounty listed below. I brushed past him, still looking around to see if anything was missing. The Nightsworn would’ve wanted to shut us down; I understood that. But they should’ve taken more things. I would have, if I’d been able to successfully take down an enemy’s command center. But they seemed to have left everything here.
I moved into the Employer’s office, which hadn’t fared much better than Ambrose’s. The filing cabinets had been opened and files were strewn about the room.
Please, please, please, I thought, digging through everything, hoping to find something intact, and for once in my life, luck was on my side.
Halfway under the desk was the fat folder labeledRevenge. I eagerly dug through everything. Stamped across the top of each paper was a status:Recovered,Deceased, orIn Progress. I scanned each name, searching desperately. I flipped past the unfamiliar names as quickly as possible, desperate for more information, and then?—
