House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City)

by Sarah J. Maas

  Ruhn tugged her away, toward the screen and open air beyond—

  The movement shook her loose. Snapped the droning in her ears.

  She yanked her body free from his grip, not caring if anyone else saw, not caring that he, as head of the Fae Aux units, had the right to be here. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  Ruhn’s mouth tightened. But he looked over her shoulder to Hunt. “You’re an asshole.”

  Hunt’s eyes glittered. “I warned her on the walk over what she’d see.” He added a touch ruefully, “I didn’t realize what a mess it’d be.” He had warned her, hadn’t he? She’d drifted so far away that she’d barely listened to Hunt on the walk. As dazed as if she’d snorted a heap of lightseeker. Hunt added, “She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need you deciding what she can handle.” He nodded toward the alley exit. “Shouldn’t you be researching? We’ll call you if you’re needed, princeling.”

  “Fuck you,” Ruhn shot back, shadows twining through his hair. Others were noticing now. “You don’t think it’s more than a coincidence that an acolyte was killed right after we went to the temple?”

  Their words didn’t register. None of it registered.

  Bryce turned from the alley, the swarming investigators. Ruhn said, “Bryce—”

  “Leave me alone,” she said quietly, and kept walking. She shouldn’t have let Athalar bully her into coming, shouldn’t have seen this, shouldn’t have had to remember.

  Once, she might have gone right to the dance studio. Would have danced and moved until the world made sense again. It had always been her haven, her way of puzzling out the world. She’d gone to the studio whenever she’d had a shit day.

  It had been two years since she’d set foot in one. She’d thrown out all her dance clothes and shoes. Her bags. The one at the apartment had all been splattered with blood anyway—Danika’s, Connor’s, and Thorne’s on the clothes in the bedroom, and Zelda’s and Bronson’s on her secondary bag, which had been left hanging beside the door. Blood patterns just like—

  A rain-kissed scent brushed her nose as Hunt fell into step beside her. And there he was. Another memory from that night.

  “Hey,” Hunt said.

  Hey, he’d said to her, so long ago. She’d been a wreck, a ghost, and then he’d been there, kneeling beside her, those dark eyes unreadable as he’d said, Hey.

  She hadn’t told him—that she remembered that night in the interrogation room. She sure as Hel didn’t feel like telling him now.

  If she had to talk to someone, she’d explode. If she had to do anything right now, she’d sink into one of those primal Fae wraths and—

  The haze started to creep over her vision, her muscles seizing painfully, her fingertips curled as if imagining shredding into someone—

  “Walk it off,” Hunt murmured.

  “Leave me alone, Athalar.” She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t stand him or her brother or anyone. If the acolyte’s murder had been because of their presence at the temple, either as a warning or because the girl might have seen something related to the Horn, if they’d accidentally brought her death about … Her legs kept moving, swifter and swifter. Hunt didn’t falter for a beat.

  She wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t dissolve into a hyperventilating mess on the street corner. Wouldn’t scream or puke or—

  After another block, Hunt said roughly, “I was there that night.”

  She kept walking, her heels eating up the pavement.

  Hunt asked, “How did you survive the kristallos?”

  He’d no doubt been looking at the body just now and wondering this. How did she, a pathetic half-breed, survive when full-blooded Vanir hadn’t?

  “I didn’t survive,” she mumbled, crossing a street and edging around a car idling in the intersection. “It got away.”

  “But the kristallos pinned Micah, ripped open his chest—”

  She nearly tripped over the curb, and whipped around to gape at him. “That was Micah?”

  24

  She had saved Micah Domitus that night.

  Not some random legionary, but the gods-damned Archangel himself. No wonder the emergency responder had launched into action when he traced the phone number.

  The knowledge rippled through her, warping and clearing some of the fog around her memories. “I saved the Governor in the alley.”

  Hunt just gave her a slow, wincing nod.

  Her voice sharpened. “Why was it a secret?”

  Hunt waited until a flock of tourists had passed before saying, “For his sake. If word got out that the Governor had his ass handed to him, it wouldn’t have looked good.”

  “Especially when he was saved by a half-breed?”

  “No one in our group ever used that term—you know that, right? But yes. We did consider how it’d look if a twenty-three-year-old human-Fae female who hadn’t made the Drop had saved the Archangel when he couldn’t save himself.”

  Her blood roared in her ears. “Why not tell me, though? I looked in all the hospitals, just to see if he’d made it.” More than that, actually. She’d demanded answers about how the warrior was recovering, but she’d been put on hold or ignored or asked to leave.

  “I know,” Hunt said, scanning her face. “It was deemed wiser to keep it a secret. Especially when your phone got hacked right after—”

  “So I was just going to live in ignorance forever—”

  “Did you want a medal or something? A parade?”

  She halted so quickly that Hunt had to splay his wings to pause, too. “Go fuck yourself. What I wanted …” She tried to stop the sharp, jagged breaths that blinded her, built and built under her skin— “What I wanted,” she hissed, resuming her walk as he just stared at her, “was to know that something I did made a difference that night. I assumed you’d dumped him in the Istros—some legionary grunt not worth the honor of a Sailing.”

  Hunt shook his head. “Look, I know it was shitty. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for all of it, Quinlan. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry you’re on my suspect list, and I’m sorry—”

  “I’m on your what?” she spat. Red washed over her vision as she bared her teeth. “After all of this,” she seethed, “you think I am a fucking suspect?” She screamed the last words, only pure will keeping her from leaping on him and shredding his face off.

  Hunt held up his hands. “That—fuck, Bryce. That didn’t come out right. Look—I had to consider every angle, every possibility, but I know now … Solas, when I saw your face in that alley, I realized it couldn’t ever have been you, and—”

  “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

  He watched her, assessing, then spread his wings. She refused to back up a step, teeth still bared. The wind off his wings stirred her hair, throwing his cedar-and-rain scent into her face as he leapt into the skies.

  Look toward where it hurts the most.

  Fuck the Viper Queen. Fuck everything.

  Bryce launched into a run—a steady, swift run, despite the flimsy flats she’d switched into at the gallery. A run not toward anything or from anything, but just … movement. The pounding of her feet on pavement, the heaving of her breath.

  Bryce ran and ran, until sounds returned and the haze receded and she could escape the screaming labyrinth of her mind. It wasn’t dancing, but it would do.

  Bryce ran until her body screamed to stop. Ran until her phone buzzed and she wondered if Urd herself had extended a golden hand. The phone call was swift, breathless.

  Minutes later, Bryce slowed to a walk as she approached the White Raven. And then stopped entirely before the alcove tucked into the wall just beside its service doors. Sweat ran down her neck, into her dress, soaking the green fabric as she again pulled out her phone.

  But she didn’t call Hunt. He hadn’t interrupted her, but she knew he was overhead.

  A few drops of rain splattered the pavement. She hoped it poured on Athalar all night.

  Her fingers hesitated on the screen, and she sighed,
knowing she shouldn’t.

  But she did. Standing there in that same alcove where she’d exchanged some of her final messages with Danika, she pulled up the thread. It burned her eyes.

  She scrolled upward, past all those final, happy words and teasing. To the photo Danika had sent that afternoon of herself and the pack at the sunball game, decked out in CCU gear. In the background, Bryce could make out the players on the field—Ithan’s powerful form among them.

  But her gaze drifted to Danika’s face. That broad smile she’d known as well as her own.

  I love you, Bryce. The worn memory of that mid-May day during their senior year tugged at her, sucked her in.

  The hot road bit into Bryce’s knees through her torn jeans, her scraped hands trembling as she kept them interlocked behind her head, where she’d been ordered to hold them. The pain in her arm sliced like a knife. Broken. The males had made her put her hands up anyway.

  The stolen motorcycle was no more than scrap metal on the dusty highway, the unmarked semitruck pulled over twenty feet away left idle. The rifle had been thrown into the olive grove beyond the mountain road, wrenched from Bryce’s hands in the accident that had led them here. The accident Danika had shielded her from, wrapping her body around Bryce’s. Danika had taken the shredding of the asphalt for them both.

  Ten feet away, hands also behind her head, Danika bled from so many places her clothes were soaked with it. How had it come to this? How had things gone so terribly wrong?

  “Where are those fucking bullets?” the male from the truck shrieked to his cronies, his empty gun—that blessedly, unexpectedly empty gun—clenched in his hand.

  Danika’s caramel eyes were wide, searching, as they remained on Bryce’s face. Sorrow and pain and fear and regret—all of it was written there.

  “I love you, Bryce.” Tears rolled down Danika’s face. “And I’m sorry.”

  She had never said those words before. Ever. Bryce had teased her for the past three years about it, but Danika had refused to say them.

  Motion caught Bryce’s attention to their left. Bullets had been found in the truck’s cab. But her gaze remained on Danika. On that beautiful, fierce face.

  She let go, like a key turning in a lock. The first rays of the sun over the horizon.

  And Bryce whispered, as those bullets came closer to that awaiting gun and the monstrous male who wielded it, “Close your eyes, Danika.”

  Bryce blinked, the shimmering memory replaced by the photo still glaring from her screen. Of Danika and the Pack of Devils years later—so happy and young and alive.

  Mere hours from their true end.

  The skies opened, and wings rustled above, reminding her of Athalar’s hovering presence. But she didn’t bother to look as she strode into the club.

  25

  Hunt knew he’d fucked up. And he was in deep shit with Micah—if Micah found out that he’d revealed the truth about that night.

  He doubted Quinlan had made that call—either to the sorceress or to Micah’s office—and he’d make sure she didn’t. Maybe he’d bribe her with a new pair of shoes or some purse or whatever the fuck might be enticing enough to keep her mouth shut. One fuckup, one misstep, and he had few illusions about how Micah would react.

  He let Quinlan run through the city, trailing her from the Old Square into the dark wasteland of Asphodel Meadows, then into the CBD, and back to the Old Square again.

  Hunt flew above her, listening to the symphony of honking cars, thumping bass, and the brisk April wind whispering through the palms and cypresses. Witches on brooms soared down the streets, some close enough to touch the roofs of the cars they passed. So different from the angels, Hunt included, who always kept above the buildings when flying. As if the witches wanted to be a part of the bustle the angels defined themselves by avoiding.

  While he’d trailed Quinlan, Justinian had called with the information on the kristallos, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. A few myths that matched with what they already knew. Vik had called five minutes after that: the Viper Queen’s alibis checked out.

  Then Isaiah had called, confirming that the victim in the alley was indeed a missing acolyte. He knew Danaan’s suspicions were right: it couldn’t be coincidence that they’d been at the temple yesterday, talking about the Horn and the demon that had slaughtered Danika and the Pack of Devils, and now one of its acolytes had died at the kristallos’s claws.

  A Fae girl. Barely more than a child. Acid burned through his stomach at the thought.

  He shouldn’t have brought Quinlan to the murder scene. Shouldn’t have pushed her into going, so blinded by his damn need to get this investigation solved quickly that he hadn’t thought twice about her hesitation.

  He hadn’t realized until he’d seen her look at the pulped body, until her face had gone white as death, that her quiet wasn’t calm at all. It was shock. Trauma. Horror. And he’d shoved her into it.

  He’d fucked up, and Ruhn had been right to call him on that, but—shit.

  He’d taken one look at Quinlan’s ashen face and known she hadn’t been behind these murders, or even remotely involved. And he was a giant fucking asshole for even entertaining the idea. For even telling her she’d been on his list.

  He rubbed his face. He wished Shahar were here, soaring beside him. She’d always let him talk out various strategies or issues during the five years he’d been with her 18th, always listened, and asked questions. Challenged him in a way no one else had.

  By the time an hour had passed and the rain had begun, Hunt had planned a whole speech. He doubted Quinlan wanted to hear it, or would admit what she’d felt today, but he owed her an apology. He’d lost so many essential parts of himself over these centuries of enslavement and war, but he liked to think he hadn’t lost his basic decency. At least not yet.

  After completing those two thousand–plus kills he still had to make if he failed to solve this case, however, he couldn’t imagine he’d have even that left. Whether the person he’d be at that point would deserve freedom, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to think about it.

  But then Bryce got a phone call—got one, didn’t make one, thank fuck—and didn’t break her stride to answer it. Too high up to hear, he could only watch as she’d shifted directions again and aimed—he realized ten minutes later—for Archer Street.

  Just as the rain increased, she’d paused outside the White Raven and spent a few minutes on her phone. But despite his eagle-sharp eyesight, he couldn’t make out what she was doing on it. So he’d watched from the adjacent roof, and must have checked his own phone a dozen times in those five minutes like a pathetic fucking loser, hoping she’d message him.

  And right when the rain turned to a downpour, she put her phone away, walked past the bouncers with a little wave, and vanished into the White Raven without so much as a look upward.

  Hunt landed, sending Vanir and humans skittering down the sidewalk. And the half-wolf, half-daemonaki bouncer had the nerve to actually hold out a hand. “Line’s to the right,” the male to his left rumbled.

  “I’m with Bryce,” he said.

  The other bouncer said, “Tough shit. Line’s on the right.”

  The line, despite the early hour, was already down the block. “I’m here on legion business,” Hunt said, fishing for his badge, wherever the fuck he’d put it—

  The door cracked open, and a stunning Fae waitress peeked out. “Riso says he’s in, Crucius.”

  The bouncer who’d first spoken just held Hunt’s stare.

  Hunt smirked. “Some other time.” Then he followed the female inside.

  The scent of sex and booze and sweat that hit him had every instinct rising with dizzying speed as they crossed the glass-framed courtyard and ascended the steps. The half-crumbled pillars were uplit by purple lights.

  He’d never set foot in the club—always made Isaiah or one of the others do it. Mostly because he knew it was no better than the palaces and country villas of the Pangeran Archangels, w
here feasts turned to orgies that lasted for days. All while people starved mere steps from those villas—humans and Vanir alike rooting through garbage piles for anything to fill their children’s bellies. He knew his temper and triggers well enough to stay the fuck away.

  Some people whispered as he walked by. He just kept his eyes on Bryce, who was already in a booth between two carved pillars, sipping at a glass of something clear—either vodka or gin. With all the scents in here, he couldn’t make it out.

  Her eyes lifted to him from the rim of her glass as she sipped. “How’d you get in?”

  “It’s a public place, isn’t it?”

  She said nothing. Hunt sighed, and was about to sit down to make that apology when he scented jasmine and vanilla, and—

  “Excuse me, sir—oh. Um. Erm.” He found himself looking at a lovely faun, dressed in a white tank top and skirt short enough to show off her long, striped legs and delicate hooves. Her gently arcing horns were nearly hidden in curly hair that was pulled back into a coiled bun, her brown skin dusted with gold that flickered in the club lights. Gods, she was beautiful.

  Juniper Andromeda: Bryce’s friend in the ballet. He’d read her file, too. The dancer glanced between Hunt and Quinlan. “I—I hope I’m not interrupting anything—”

  “He was just leaving,” Bryce said, draining her glass.

  He finally slid into the booth. “I was just arriving.” He extended a hand to the faun. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Hunt.”

  “I know who you are,” the faun said, her voice husky.

  Juniper’s grip was light but solid. Bryce refilled her glass from a decanter of clear liquid and drank deep. Juniper asked her, “Did you order food? Rehearsal just let out and I’m starving.” Though the faun was thin, she was leanly muscled, strong as Hel beneath that graceful exterior.

  Bryce held up her drink. “I’m having a liquid dinner.”

  Juniper frowned. But she asked Hunt, “You want food?”

  “Hel yes.”

  “You can order whatever you want—they’ll get it for you.” She raised a hand, signaling a waitress. “I’ll have a veggie burger, no cheese, with a side of fries, vegetable oil only to cook them, and two pieces of pizza—plant-based cheese on it, please.” She bit her lip, then explained to Hunt, “I don’t eat animal products.”