House of Earth and Blood

Hunt read her beat of silence. “It didn’t go well.”

“No. That visit was the first time I met Ruhn, too. I came here—stayed in FiRo for the summer. I met the Autumn King.” The lie was easy. “Met my father, too,” she added. “In the initial few days, the visit wasn’t as bad as my mother had feared. I liked what I saw. Even if some of the other Fae children whispered that I was a half-breed, I knew what I was. I’ve never not been proud of it—being human, I mean. And I knew my father had invited me, so he at least wanted me there. I didn’t mind what others thought. Until the Oracle.”

He winced. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It was catastrophic.” She swallowed against the memory. “When the Oracle looked into her smoke, she screamed. Clawed at her eyes.” There was no point hiding it. The event had been known in some circles. “I heard later that she went blind for a week.”

“Holy shit.”

Bryce laughed to herself. “Apparently, my future is that bad.”

Hunt didn’t smile. “What happened?”

“I returned to the petitioners’ antechamber. All you could hear was the Oracle screaming and cursing me—the acolytes rushed in.”

“I meant with your father.”

“He called me a worthless disgrace, stormed out of the temple’s VIP exit so no one could know who he was to me, and by the time I caught up, he’d taken the car and left. When I got back to his house, I found my bags on the curb.”

“Asshole. Danaan had nothing to say about him kicking his cousin to the curb?”

“The king forbade Ruhn to interfere.” She examined her nails. “Believe me, Ruhn tried to fight. But the king bound him. So I got a cab to the train station. Ruhn managed to shove money for the fares into my hand.”

“Your mom must have gone ballistic.”

“She did.” Bryce paused a moment and then said, “Seems like the Oracle’s still pissed.”

He threw her a half smile. “I’d consider it a badge of honor.”

Bryce, despite herself, smiled back. “You’re probably the only one who thinks that.” His eyes lingered on her face again, and she knew it had nothing to do with what the Oracle had said.

Bryce cleared her throat. “Find anything?”

Catching her request to drop the subject, Hunt pivoted the laptop toward her. “I’ve been looking at this ancient shit for days—and this is all I’ve found.”

The terra-cotta vase dated back nearly fifteen thousand years. After Prince Pelias by about a century, but the kristallos hadn’t yet faded from common memory. She read the brief catalog copy and said, “It’s at a gallery in Mirsia.” Which put it a sea and two thousand miles beyond that from Lunathion. She pulled the computer to her and clicked on the thumbnail. “But these photos should be enough.”

“I might have been born before computers, Quinlan, but I do know how to use them.”

“I’m just trying to spare you from further ruining your badass image as the Umbra Mortis. We can’t have word getting out that you’re a computer nerd.”

“Thanks for your concern.” His eyes met hers, the corner of his mouth kicking up.

Her toes might have curled in her heels. Slightly.

Bryce straightened. “All right. Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“A good sign.” Hunt pointed at the image, rendered in black paint against the burnt orange of the terra-cotta, of the kristallos demon roaring as a sword was driven through its head by a helmeted male warrior.

She leaned toward the screen. “How so?”

“That the kristallos can be killed the old-fashioned way. As far as I can tell, there’s no magic or special artifact being used to kill it here. Just plain brute force.”

Her gut tightened. “This vase could be an artistic interpretation. That thing killed Danika and the Pack of Devils, and knocked Micah on his ass, too. And you mean to tell me some ancient warrior killed it with just a sword through the head?”

Though Lehabah’s show kept playing, Bryce knew the sprite was listening to every word.

Hunt said, “Maybe the kristallos had the element of surprise on its side that night.”

She tried and failed to block out the red pulped piles, the spray of blood on the walls, the way her entire body had seemed to plummet downward even while standing still as she stared at what was left of her friends. “Or maybe this is just a bullshit rendering by an artist who heard an embellished song around a fire and did their own take on it.” She began tapping her foot under the table, as if it’d somehow calm her staccato heartbeat.

He held her stare, his black eyes stark and honest. “All right.” She waited for him to push, to pry, but Hunt slid the computer back to his side of the table. He squinted. “That’s odd. It says the vase is originally from Parthos.” He angled his head. “I thought Parthos was a myth. A human fairy tale.”

“Because humans were no better than rock-banging animals until the Asteri arrived?”

“Tell me you don’t believe that conspiracy crap about an ancient library in the heart of a pre-existing human civilization?” When she didn’t answer, Hunt challenged, “If something like that did exist, where’s the evidence?”

Bryce zipped her amulet along its chain and nodded toward the image on the screen.

“This vase was made by a nymph,” he said. “Not some mythical, enlightened human.”

“Maybe Parthos hadn’t been wiped off the map entirely at that point.”

Hunt looked at her from under lowered brows. “Really, Quinlan?” When she again didn’t answer, he jerked his chin at her digital tablet. “Where are you with the data about Danika’s locations?”

Hunt’s phone buzzed before she could reply, but Bryce said, reeling herself back together as that image of the slain kristallos bled with what had been done to Danika, what had been left of her, “I’m still ruling out the things that were likely unconnected, but … Really, the only outlier here is the fact that Danika was on sentry duty at Luna’s Temple. She was sometimes stationed in the general area, but never specifically at the temple itself. And somehow, days before she died, she got put on watch there? And data shows her being right there when the Horn was stolen. The acolyte was also there that night. It’s all got to tie together somehow.”

Hunt set down his phone. “Maybe Philip Briggs will enlighten us tonight.”

Her head snapped up. “Tonight?”

Lehabah completely stopped watching her show at that.

“Just got the message from Viktoria. They transferred him from Adrestia. We’re meeting him in an hour in a holding cell under the Comitium.” He surveyed the data spread before them. “He’s going to be difficult.”

“I know.”

He leaned back in the chair. “He’s not going to have nice things to say about Danika. You sure you can handle hearing his kind of venom?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really? Because that vase just set you off, and I doubt coming face-to-face with this guy is going to be any easier.”

The walls began swelling around her. “Get out.” Her words cut between them. “Just because we’re working together doesn’t mean you’re entitled to push into my personal matters.”