Reeve cursed and pinched the bridge of his nose, but then his expression steeled with determination as his eyes locked with Viri’s. “We need to get to Brae. I know where he is, but you’re the only one who can find him.”
Viri’s brow furrowed at the convoluted words. “What do you mean?”
“It’s why I sought you out in the first place,” Reeve went on. “I can’t get to him without you.”
“Hang on.” Viri raised her palm in a stop motion. “I was the one who came to you—inprison, remember?”
He held her gaze. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I let myself get arrested?”
An incredulous laugh left her. “You were caught. There’s a difference.”
“Was I, though?”
Viri stilled at the look on his face—part proud, part calculating, all confident. A knot formed in her stomach as she belatedly recalled that no one had come forward to take credit for his capture.
“It’s like he just…appearedhere,”Soren had said.
But if what Reeve was saying was true, then that meant…
“What are you playing at?” Viri demanded.
“I needed your attention,” Reeve said without a hint of shame. “So I found a way to get it.” He looked ruefully around the lab. “Granted, I didn’t expect it to take a whole week, but here weare.”
Viri wasn’t sure what she felt more acutely: disbelief or anger. “There were a million ways you could have reached me that didn’t involve a prison. Or a prisonbreak.” She thought of what they’d done to Soren—and Darik—and scowled fiercely. “You made me an accomplice for no reason.”
“You’d be surprised how few options I had,” he replied, an odd, bitter tinge to his voice. “This was the only way to do what needs to be done without watching eyes.”
“Whose eyes? What needs to be done?” Viri’s scowl deepened. “What the hell is going on, Reeve?”
He looked at Jonas and Sage, just a brief glance, as if to bolsterhimself, then said, “I need to tell you something—it’s the reason I wasted a week in a cell just to get to you, so when I say it’s important, I mean it.”
Viri braced, sharing her own look with Wynter, who was watching with rampant curiosity.
“I know how you feel about me—you’ve made yourself perfectly clear,” Reeve continued, that odd bitterness returning to his voice again before it vanished once more. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m not even asking you to believe me. I’m just asking you to listen. Can you do that?”
Whether it was the way he was looking at her—earnest and pleading—or the desperation in his words, Viri couldn’t deny his request. But before she could tell him as much, aclicksounded as the door to the lab opened and Soren burst through, looking more panicked than Viri had ever seen him.
“Thank the Elders you’re here,” he panted, running over to where they were clustered around the couch.
Viri and Wynter leapt up at his wild-eyed entrance, but he barely glanced at them, moving straight to where Reeve stood beside Sage and Jonas.
For a brief moment, Viri wondered if Soren was going to pay Reeve back for knocking him out earlier, but he didn’t attack. Instead, he said the last four words she ever expected to hear from her rule-abiding best friend.
“I need your help,” Soren rasped to Reeve.
Reeve’s eyebrows shot upward—as did everyone else’s.
“What’s wrong, Sor?” Wynter reached for his arm. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Jessalyn.” Soren’s voice shook so hard that goosebumps rose on Viri’s skin.
“What about her?” Wynter asked. “Is she hurt? Sick?”
Realization slammed into Viri the second before Soren answered, along with a wave of dread, stronger than anything she’d felt that night.
“Worse,” Soren croaked out. “She’s missing.”
The Journal of Celestial Mage Kadmus Castro
