“I’ll meet you there after I send a team of Nox to the archives,” Darik said, smoothing the front of his uniform. “If they find more red threes, I’ll have them contact the families to see if their children are still missing. We’ll have confirmed numbers within hours.”
The way he emphasizedconfirmedmade Viri grit her teeth, since it was clear he wasn’t fully convinced of the threat. But he would know the truth soon enough.
“And I’ll—” Viri began, intending to say she’d start searching for leads, but she was interrupted.
“You’ll go home.”
Viri gaped at her mentor. “You can’t expect me to just—”
“I’ll make it an order if I have to,”Meera warned.
Viri opened her mouth to argue, but she was halted with alook.
“The entire Guild will be summoned for a meeting first thing tomorrow,”Meera said.“Every available hunter will be on this. If we’re going to find these kids, I need you at your best—and that means I need you rested. You’ve done well investigating these cases, but now the real work begins. Are you up for it?”
It was a rhetorical question, so Viri didn’t answer. Instead, an idea came to her. “What about Reeve?”
Darik leaned forward, his gaze narrowing. “Ashton? What about him?”
“He might know something, especially if the Priest is involved,” Viri said. She’d tried not to think about Reeve since she’d seen him last Friday, but he’d crept into her thoughts unbidden every day. Each time, she’d wanted to scrub her mind with one of Wynter’s experimental cleaning potions just to get rid of the image of his smirking face and stormy eyes. But now…he could be the key to solving this mystery.
“He’s still not cooperating,” Darik shared, which, while frustrating, didn’t surprise Viri.
“But you’re right that it’s worth a try,”Meera added, locking eyes with the Nox captain until he sighed and relented.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll head down to his cell and see if I can coax anything out of him.”
For the greater good, Viri dredged up the words, “I couldgo—”
“No.”Both Darik and Meera spoke at the same time, their expressions like steel.
Viri straightened her shoulders. “If his offer to talk to me still holds, then we can use that. Usehim.”
“And how far did that get you last time?” Darik asked, eyebrow raised.
Viri flushed, her failure still fresh.
“For now, you need to trust us,”Meera said, albeit gently.“You said yourself that Ashton likes playing games. Sending you to him will only give him another chance to toy with you, and I can’t risk you being distracted from what’s ahead. The missing children need you as focused as possible, as do your fellow hunters. That means—”
“I go home and rest,” Viri said, resigned.
Meera nodded approvingly, then rose to her feet. Darik did the same, leaving Viri little choice but to follow.
“We’ll skip training tomorrow so I can prep for the Guild meeting,”Meera said, walking Viri to the door,“but I’ll send for you if there are any updates in the meantime.”
With nothing left to say—or do—Viri was shuffled out of the office.
It was only as she was heading back to her apartment that she recalled Reeve’s parting offer from last week, something she’d firmly evicted from her brain in order to uphold the most sacred rule of hunting: Never bargain with a reaper. And yet, as his words returned to her now, Viri couldn’t so easily ignore them:
“Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you anything you want. That’s my offer, Viri—my freedom for your answers.”
7
Reeve’s smooth voice repeated in Viri’s mind for her entire journey home, his offer like a chant—my freedom for your answers; my freedom for your answers—until she finally managed to banish the words upon reaching her apartment.
He was a reaper, and reapers lied. Even if his offer was genuine, he might not know anything about the missing children. He might not even know where the Reaper Priest was, regardless of whether the Priest had anything to do with the kids. Reeve might know nothing at all, and just wanted an easy escape. Viri couldn’t risk that.Wouldn’trisk that.
But despite her resolve, her thoughts remained turbulent as she entered her apartment and found it empty, with Sarielle likely on her way to the emergency council meeting and Wynter no doubt off creating something illegal. Viri would have given anything for a distraction, even if it meant being her friend’s test subject, but she’d told Meera she would stay home, so she made herself keep her promise. Rest didn’t come easily, though, and after eating a late dinner—grilled cheese that she barely tasted—she paced up and down the living room, the normally tranquilview of the moonlit lake doing nothing to ease her tension as she waited for her guardian to return.
