I left the conversation to sniff out any clues around the remains of the mansions, as the Lords and Jax were already moving on to logistical details that I could be briefed on later. To me it was more important to uncover any evidence that could be traced back to the culprits behind this attack, and the rest of my team agreed.

The houses had been mostly torn down, with fragments of walls and support pillars still standing here and there. The bodies had all been recovered, and I was left with a large number of piles consisting mostly of burnt wood, ashes, and rubble. My olfactory sense was bombarded with a base note of death and charred flesh, something akin to a barbecue gone wrong, and it broke my heart.

Nevertheless, I had to focus. Closing my eyes as I stood in the middle of what had, until earlier, been the residence of House Xunn, I homed in on the other, more elusive scents. Heron was somewhere nearby, looking through the rubble near the center of the first explosion for anything that could help us understand what kind of explosives were used.

I caught a whiff of something sharp and heavy, and it scratched at the back of my throat like charcoal powder. It was different from everything else I’d identified so far as common household items, including soaps and cooking oils. I followed the trail and found myself standing in front of Heron. He pulled out a thin stick of what looked like melted plastic.

He noticed my gaze fixated on the object in question, and handed it over. I brought it up to my nose and took a deep breath.

“This is it,” I murmured, then coughed as the smell invaded my airways like sticky dust. It reminded me of gunpowder, but it seemed more potent and intense. It was a foreign chemical, and I had no way of ascertaining what it was, exactly, but there was one thing I could do while Heron continued to dig through the pile. “Do you have a lighter?”

Heron gave me one of the two he always kept with him—it was team policy to always carry a source of fire for Caia to have handy, in case she ever lost hers. Mine had been destroyed during my attempt to leave the planet. I flicked it open and produced a small flame, then placed the flame against one end of the melted stick.

It burst like a raging firework. I yelped and dropped it, especially alarmed because I was still reeling from the earlier interplanetary spell disaster that had nearly claimed my life. My body had already healed, but my inner wounds were still fresh. Both Heron and I stared at the stick as the fire ate away at it—it popped and hissed as sparks flew out.

I glanced to my left, where the Lords and the rest of my team were standing, and noticed the frowns on the Exiled Maras’ faces.

“That’s ephelis,” Caspian said, his eyes on the rapidly burning stick at my feet. “It’s a powder we make from certain mineral deposits in the caves around the mountain. It’s highly flammable. Our craftsmen blend it into a paste and make those sticks out of it. We use them to blow up sections of stone… It’s how we built the levels of Mount Azure.”

“So it’s a local explosive,” I concluded.

“Yes, and that’s a major problem because we only have one workshop that manufactures these things, and its ephelis reserve is meant to be under lock and key,” he replied, then snapped his fingers at one of the Correction Officers waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The uniformed Mara came up, and gave Caspian a brief nod. “Go check in on Master Dresdel. The explosives came from his workshop.”

The Correction Officer obeyed and rushed downstairs to one of the lower levels of the city. Heron and I started digging through the rubble and cleared out another handful of melted sticks.

“These didn’t ignite all the way, I’m guessing,” I said, looking at Caspian while pointing down at our finding. His nod confirmed my suspicion. I shifted my focus back to the rubble at our feet. “This was very sloppily put together, then. Had the detonator been more accurate, these would’ve substantially amplified the explosion.”

Heron found the tip of a slim black tube, and tugged it until it revealed a small piece of what must have been a mechanical device. There was another tube attached to it, but it led nowhere, as the other end had been torn in the explosion, and the flames must have burned through the rest.

“This must have been a part of the detonator,” Heron said slowly.

He then glanced around, his jade eyes looking for other traces of the tube. I gripped the burnt end of the detonator tube and sniffed it. There was something rubbery in it, with a faint note of sulfur. It was enough for me to start tracing its remains around the center of the explosion. Heron noticed me moving toward the back of the house, and quietly followed.

“Stop,” he said, then bent down and retrieved a solitary piece of the same detonator tube. “Yeah, you’re going the right way.”

“Good. This has to lead somewhere. There’s definitely a main mechanical detonator, a shock tube of sorts. Air pressure was used to ignite the one in the house. I’m sure it was detonated remotely, but it wasn’t well made,” I replied.

“Which means that whoever did this isn’t exactly an expert with explosives,” Heron muttered, watching as I walked closer to what used to be the kitchen door leading out to the back garden.

“And that could also mean that they may not be experts at concealing their tracks, either.” I nodded and picked up the scent of more burnt tubes.

Heron found another fragment, this one longer. The farther we got from the center of the blast, the better preserved our evidence was. Soon after that, we found a junction piece—two slim shock tubes, one of which came from House Xunn, tied up into a thicker one.

“Follow the main shock tube,” I suggested to Heron, “and I’ll follow this second one.”

He nodded and scoured the back garden, its grass and flowers burnt down, embers still glowing in the fractured remains of the wooden gazebo. This had once been a corner of comfort and peace, and it made my stomach churn to see it like this.

I traced the second tube to House Kifo. There was another detonator buried under the pile of wood and stone that had once been the kitchen. I pulled it out of the rubble as Caspian stared at me and the object, apparently in a stupor.

“You mean to tell me the second explosion came from my house?” he said, almost out of breath. Harper stood next to him, her eyes wide with shock, her brow settling into a concerned frown.

“It appears so.” I shrugged, sniffing the melted device, then looking down. “But this was also poorly put together. There are several intact sticks of ephelis at the bottom. I can see them from here.”

“Found the main detonator.” Heron came out of the woods behind the tattered stables facing House Xunn, holding another, larger mechanical device in his hands. The main shock tube was still attached to it, and it covered several yards in length. It had been built with a pump, from what I could tell at first glance. “It was twenty yards behind the stables, at the base of a tree.”

“Remote detonation.” I nodded slowly. “Just as I thought. This was planned, but it required knowledge of both the Xunn and Kifo households to plant the explosives. If this was retaliation for what we did in the gorges, then their timing was way too good.”

“True.” Heron came by my side, and we both looked at the Lords and the rest of our team. “They only had what, three, four hours since we left the Valley of Screams?”

They all mulled over the information for a while. Heron and I continued to look through the rubble of the Kifo mansion for anything else that could be of use. We then moved our search into the woods, where Heron had found the main detonator.

“Maybe I can pick up a scent here,” I said as we walked over to the tree in question.

“Avril, I… I need to talk to you.” Heron caught my right forearm before I could circle the tree for foreign scents. I gazed up at him with both eyebrows raised.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to hold it together. His touch triggered tiny electrical currents flowing through my arms. My heart started pounding, a sensation I was still getting accustomed to whenever he was near me.

He needed a few moments to put his thoughts in order, judging by the way his eyes absently darted around me before they settled on my face.

“I… I need you to be more careful from now on,” he replied, his eyebrows drawn closer, his gaze clouded.

“What do you mean?” I shrugged. “We already know what happened here. No one’s coming at us at this point. It would be foolish.”

“I’m not talking about this. I’m talking about you. Just… Please, be more careful. No more volunteering for swamp witch travel spells and stuff like that. It’s just… Just don’t.”

“Neither of us knew what was going to happen up there, Heron. It’s not like I had any plans to get myself burned alive.” I sighed.

“I know, but… but I almost lost you back there.” The pained look on his face floored me, and I had to swallow back the bundle of emotions working its way up my throat for some reason. “I have never experienced something like that, Avril, and I don’t want to feel it ever again.”

“What… What are you talking about?” My brain slowed down, leaving my body in charge as he gently pulled me closer to him.

“I like having you around,” he replied, his expression softening a little as the shadow of a smile passed over his lips. “So, you know, just be careful.”

I needed a minute to take it all in. Was this Heron’s way of telling me that he liked me? That he was into me? …Maybe as much as I was into him?

“Okay, I promise to do my best not to get myself blown up again.” I gave him a wink, trying to diffuse some of the tension I felt building up. The longer we gazed at each other, the thicker the air between us grew.

He licked his lower lip, then bit it. He let go of my arm, put his hands behind his back, and looked away, somewhere to his left. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and I had a feeling he had more to say, so I waited patiently. I continued asking myself the same questions in the back of my head—what was he really telling me with “I like having you around”?

“You know, I’ve never done Pyrope before, with anyone,” he breathed, then shifted his focus back to me. “It’s a very important ritual to me. I was hoping I’d share my first Pyrope with my soulmate one day.”

It hit me then what he was talking about. I’d offered him my blood back in the Valley of Screams, of my own accord. He’d taken that as Pyrope, the Mara ritual in which non-Maras give their blood willingly, either as a one-off or as a recurring experience. The only solid example I was aware of was the deal between Jax and Zeriel, King of the Tritones. But I also knew that Pyrope was often practiced by mixed couples, and it was a very intimate thing to do.

“I… I’m sorry,” I mumbled, lowering my head and suddenly feeling out of place. “I guess I ruined Pyrope for you, but you know we had no choice. I mean, you were injured, and we needed you healed fast, given our circumstances.”

His fingers gripped my chin as he lifted my head. His gaze found my eyes again, and he gave me a soft smile that sent waves of sunshine through my body, rippling toward the tips of my fingers and toes. He’d never looked at me like that.

“Don’t be sorry,” he replied. “I just didn’t expect my first Pyrope to happen so… fast and unexpected, so broken from tradition, that’s all. I’m not unsatisfied by it happening.”

I stilled. Was I hearing him right? He’d just mentioned experiencing his first Pyrope with his soulmate, but that the circumstances were different from what he’d imagined. Was this his veiled way of telling me that I meant more to him, or was this just me misinterpreting his words?

“Wait… what do you mean, Heron?” I asked, feeling my heart thudding in my chest.

“I guess I—”

“Heron, Avril, come over here for a minute,” Hansa called out, interrupting him.

Argh… Horrible timing!

Heron gave me an apologetic look, and I gave him a brief nod in return, hoping we’d get to resume this conversation later. I took a deep breath and followed him back to the group on the edge of the first level.

My only fear was that I’d misunderstood what he’d just said. It scared me more than I’d thought it could, probably because I was genuinely falling for Heron and I dreaded the thought of it all being one-sided.