House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City)

by Sarah J. Maas

  “What is it you want, exactly?” Hunt asked, surveying a stall full of ancient knives. “A boyfriend or mate or husband who will just sit there, with no opinions, and agree to everything you say, and never dare to ask you for anything?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Just because I’m male and have an opinion doesn’t make me into some psychotic, domineering prick.”

  She shoved her hands into the pockets of Danika’s leather jacket. “Look, my mom went through a lot thanks to some psychotic, domineering pricks.”

  “I know.” His eyes softened. “But even so, look at her and your dad. He voices his opinions. And he seems pretty damn psychotic when it comes to protecting both of you.”

  “You have no idea,” Bryce grumbled. “I didn’t go on a single date until I got to CCU.”

  Hunt’s brows rose. “Really? I would have thought …” He shook his head.

  “Thought what?”

  He shrugged. “That the human boys would have been crawling around after you.”

  It was an effort not to glance at him, with the way he said human boys, as if they were some other breed than him—a full-grown malakh male.

  She supposed they were, technically, but that hint of masculine arrogance … “Well, if they wanted to, they didn’t dare show it. Randall was practically a god to them, and though he never said anything, they all got it into their heads that I was firmly off-limits.”

  “That wouldn’t have been a good enough reason for me to stay away.”

  Her cheeks heated at the way his voice lowered. “Well, idolizing Randall aside, I was also different.” She gestured to her pointed ears. Her tall body. “Too Fae for humans. Woe is me, right?”

  “It builds character,” he said, examining a stall full of opals of every color: white, black, red, blue, green. Iridescent veins ran through them, like preserved arteries from the earth itself.

  “What are these for?” he asked the black-feathered, humanoid female at the stall. A magpie.

  “They’re luck charms,” the magpie said, waving a feathery hand over the trays of gems. “White is for joy; green for wealth; red for love and fertility; blue for wisdom … Take your pick.”

  Hunt asked, “What’s the black for?”

  The magpie’s onyx-colored mouth curved upward. “For the opposite of luck.” She tapped one of the black opals, kept contained within a glass dome. “Slip it under the pillow of your enemy and see what happens to them.”

  Bryce cleared her throat. “Interesting as that may be—”

  Hunt held out a silver mark. “For the white.”

  Bryce’s brows rose, but the magpie swept up the mark, and plunked the white opal into Hunt’s awaiting palm. They left, ignoring her gratitude for their business.

  “I didn’t peg you for superstitious,” Bryce said.

  But Hunt paused at the end of the row of stalls and took her hand. He pressed the opal into it, the stone warm from his touch. The size of a crow’s egg, it shimmered in the firstlights high above.

  “You could use some joy,” Hunt said quietly.

  Something bright sparked in her chest. “So could you,” she said, attempting to press the opal back into his palm.

  But Hunt stepped away. “It’s a gift.”

  Bryce’s face warmed again, and she looked anywhere but at him as she smiled. Even though she could feel his gaze lingering on her face while she slid the opal into the pocket of her jacket.

  The opal had been stupid. Impulsive.

  Likely bullshit, but Bryce had pocketed it, at least. She hadn’t commented on how rusty his skills were, since it had been two hundred years since he’d last thought to buy something for a female.

  Shahar would have smiled at the opal—and forgotten about it soon after. She’d had troves of jewels in her alabaster palace: diamonds the size of sunballs; solid blocks of emerald stacked like bricks; veritable bathtubs filled with rubies. A small white opal, even for joy, would have been like a grain of sand on a miles-long beach. She’d have appreciated the gift but, ultimately, let it disappear into a drawer somewhere. And he, so dedicated to their cause, would probably have forgotten about it, too.

  Hunt clenched his jaw as Bryce strode for a hide stall. The teenager—a feline shifter from her scent—was in her lanky humanoid form and watched them approach from where she perched on a stool. Her brown braid draped over a shoulder, nearly grazing the phone idly held in her hands.

  “Hey,” Bryce said, pointing toward a pile of shaggy rugs. “How much for one of them?”

  “Twenty silvers,” the shifter said, sounding as bored as she looked.

  Bryce smirked, running a hand over the white pelt. Hunt’s skin tightened over his bones. He’d felt that touch the other night, stroking him to sleep. And could feel it now as she petted the sheepskin. “Twenty silvers for a snowsheep hide? Isn’t that a little low?”

  “My mom makes me work weekends. It’d piss her off to sell it for what it’s actually worth.”

  “Loyal of you,” Bryce said, chuckling. She leaned in, her voice dropping. “This is going to sound so random, but I have a question for you.”

  Hunt kept back, watching her work. The irreverent, down-to-earth party girl, merely looking to score some new drugs.

  The shifter barely looked up. “Yeah?”

  Bryce said, “You know where I can get anything … fun around here?”

  The girl rolled her chestnut-colored eyes. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

  “Hear what?” Bryce asked innocently.

  The shifter lifted her phone, typing away with rainbow-painted nails. “That fake-ass act you gave everyone else here, and in the two other warehouses.” She held up her phone. “We’re all on a group chat.” She gestured to everyone in the market around them. “I got, like, ten warnings you two would be coming through here, asking cheesy questions about drugs or whatever.”

  It was, perhaps, the first time Hunt had seen Bryce at a loss for words. So he stepped up to her side. “All right,” he said to the teenager. “But do you know anything?”

  The girl looked him over. “You think the Vipe would allow shit like that synth in here?”

  “She allows every other depravity and crime,” Hunt said through his teeth.

  “Yeah, but she’s not dumb,” the shifter said, tossing her braid over a shoulder.

  “So you’ve heard of it,” Bryce said.

  “The Vipe told me to tell you that it’s nasty, and she doesn’t deal in it, and never will.”

  “But someone does?” Bryce said tightly.

  This was bad. This would not end well at all—

  “The Vipe also told me to say you should check the river.” She went back to her phone, presumably to tell the Vipe that she’d conveyed the message. “That’s the place for that kinda shit.”

  “What do you mean?” Bryce asked.

  A shrug. “Ask the mer.”

  “We should lay out the facts,” Hunt said as Bryce stormed for the Meat Market’s docks. “Before we run to the mer, accusing them of being drug dealers.”

  “Too late,” Bryce said.

  He hadn’t been able to stop her from sending a message via otter to Tharion twenty minutes ago, and sure as Hel hadn’t been able to stop her from heading for the river’s edge to wait.

  Hunt gripped her arm, the dock mere steps away. “Bryce, the mer do not take kindly to being falsely accused—”

  “Who said it’s false?”

  “Tharion isn’t a drug dealer, and he sure as shit isn’t selling something as bad as synth seems to be.”

  “He might know someone who is.” She shrugged out of his grasp. “We’ve been dicking around for long enough. I want answers. Now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you want to get this over with? So you can have your sentence reduced?”

  He did, but he said, “The synth probably has nothing to do with this. We shouldn’t—”

  But she’d already reached the wood slats of the dock, not daring to look into
the eddying water beneath. The Meat Market’s docks were notorious dumping grounds. And feeding troughs for aquatic scavengers.

  Water splashed, and then a powerful male body was sitting on the end of the dock. “This part of the river is gross,” Tharion said by way of greeting.

  Bryce didn’t smile. Didn’t say anything other than, “Who’s selling synth in the river?”

  The grin vanished from Tharion’s face. Hunt began to object, but the mer said, “Not in, Legs.” He shook his head. “On the river.”

  “So it’s true, then. It’s—it’s what? A healing drug that leaked from a lab? Who’s behind it?”

  Hunt stepped up to her side. “Tharion—”

  “Danika Fendyr,” Tharion said, his eyes soft. Like he knew who Danika had been to her. “The intel came in a day before her death. She was spotted doing a deal on a boat just past here.”

  59

  “What do you mean, Danika was selling it?”

  Tharion shook his head. “I don’t know if she was selling it or buying it or what, but right before synth started appearing on the streets, she was spotted on an Auxiliary boat in the dead of night. There was a crate of synth on board.”

  Hunt murmured, “It always comes back to Danika.”

  Above the roaring in her head, Bryce said, “Maybe she was confiscating it.”

  “Maybe,” Tharion admitted, then ran a hand through his auburn hair. “But that synth—it’s some bad shit, Bryce. If Danika was involved in it—”

  “She wasn’t. She never would have done something like that.” Her heart was racing so fast she thought she’d puke. She turned to Hunt. “But it explains why there were traces of it on her clothes, if she had to confiscate it for the Aux.”

  Hunt’s face was grim. “Maybe.”

  She crossed her arms. “What is it, exactly?”

  “It’s synthetic magic,” Tharion said, eyes darting between them. “It started off as an aid for healing, but someone apparently realized that in super-concentrated doses, it can give humans strength greater than most Vanir. For short bursts, but it’s potent. They’ve tried to make it for centuries, but it seemed impossible. Most people thought it was akin to alchemy—just as unlikely as turning something into gold. But apparently modern science made it work this time.” He angled his head. “Does this have to do with the demon you were hunting?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Hunt said.

  “I’ll let you know if I get any other reports,” Tharion said, and didn’t wait for a farewell before diving back into the water.

  Bryce stared out at the river in the midday sun, gripping the white opal in her pocket.

  “I know it wasn’t what you wanted to hear,” Hunt said cautiously beside her.

  “Was she killed by whoever is creating the synth? If she was on that boat to seize their shipment?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Could the person selling the synth and the person searching for the Horn be the same, if the synth can possibly repair the Horn?”

  He rubbed his chin. “I guess. But this could also be a dead end.”

  She sighed. “I don’t get why she never mentioned it.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t worth mentioning,” he suggested.

  “Maybe,” she murmured. “Maybe.”

  Bryce waited until Hunt hit the gym in her apartment building before she dialed Fury.

  She didn’t know why she bothered. Fury hadn’t taken a call from her in months.

  The call nearly went to audiomail before she answered. “Hey.”

  Bryce slumped against her bed and blurted, “I’m shocked you picked up.”

  “You caught me between jobs.”

  Or maybe Juniper had bitten Fury’s head off about bailing.

  Bryce said, “I thought you were coming back to hunt down whoever was behind the Raven’s bombing.”

  “I thought so, too, but it turned out I didn’t need to cross the Haldren to do it.”

  Bryce leaned against her headboard, stretching out her legs. “So it really was the human rebellion behind it?” Maybe that C on the crates Ruhn thought was the Horn was just that: a letter.

  “Yeah. Specifics and names are classified, though.”

  Fury had said that to her so many times in the past that she’d lost count. “At least tell me if you found them?”

  There was a good chance that Fury was sharpening her arsenal of weapons on the desk of whatever fancy hotel she was holed up in right now. “I said I was between jobs, didn’t I?”

  “Congratulations?”

  A soft laugh that still freaked Bryce the fuck out. “Sure.” Fury paused. “What’s up, B.”

  As if that somehow erased two years of near-silence. “Did Danika ever mention synth to you?”

  Bryce could have sworn something heavy and metallic clunked in the background. Fury said softly, “Who told you about synth?”

  Bryce straightened. “I think it’s getting spread around here. I met a mer today who said Danika was seen on an Aux boat with a crate of it, right before she died.” She blew out a breath.

  “It’s dangerous, Bryce. Really dangerous. Don’t fuck around with it.”

  “I’m not.” Gods. “I haven’t touched any drugs in two years.” Then she added, unable to stop herself, “If you’d bothered to take my calls or visit, you would have known that.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  Liar. Fucking liar and coward. Bryce ground out, “Look, I wanted to know if Danika had ever mentioned synth to you before she died, because she didn’t mention it to me.”

  Another one of those pauses.

  “She did, didn’t she.” Even now, Bryce wasn’t sure why jealousy seared her chest.

  “She might have said that there was some nasty shit being sold,” Fury said.

  “You never thought to mention it to anyone?”

  “I did. To you. At the White Raven the night Danika died. Someone tried to sell it to you then, for fuck’s sake. I told you to stay the Hel away from it.”

  “And you still didn’t find the chance to mention then or after Danika died that she warned you about it in the first place?”

  “A demon ripped her to shreds, Bryce. Drug busts didn’t seem connected to it.”

  “And what if it was?”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, I just …” Bryce tapped her foot on the bed. “Why wouldn’t she have told me?”

  “Because …” Fury stopped herself.

  “Because what?” Bryce snapped.

  “All right,” Fury said, her voice sharpening. “Danika didn’t want to tell you because she didn’t want you getting near it. Even thinking about trying synth.”

  Bryce shot to her feet. “Why the fuck would I ever—”

  “Because we have literally seen you take everything.”

  “You’ve been right there, taking everything with me, you—”

  “Synth is synthetic magic, Bryce. To replace real magic. Of which you have none. It gives humans Vanir powers and strength for like an hour. And then it can seriously fuck you up. Make you addicted and worse. For the Vanir, it’s even riskier—a crazy high and superstrength, but it can easily turn bad. Danika didn’t want you even knowing something like that existed.”

  “As if I’m so desperate to be like you big, tough Vanir that I’d take something—”

  “Her goal was to protect you. Always. Even from yourself.”

  The words struck like a slap to the face. Bryce’s throat closed up.

  Fury blew out a breath. “Look, I know that came out harsh. But take my word for it: don’t mess with synth. If they’ve actually managed to mass-produce the stuff outside of an official lab and make it in even stronger concentrations, then it’s bad news. Stay away from it, and anyone who deals in it.”

  Bryce’s hands shook, but she managed to say “All right” without sounding like she was one breath away from crying.

  “Look, I gotta go,” Fury said. “I’ve got something to do tonight. But I’l
l be back in Lunathion in a few days. I’m wanted at the Summit in two weeks—it’s at some compound a few hours outside the city.”

  Bryce didn’t ask why Fury Axtar would attend a Summit of various Valbaran leaders. She didn’t really care that Fury would be coming back at all.

  “Maybe we can grab a meal,” Fury said.

  “Sure.”

  “Bryce.” Her name was both a reprimand and an apology. Fury sighed. “I’ll see you.”

  Her throat burned, but she hung up. Took a few long breaths. Fury could go to Hel.

  Bryce waited to call her brother until she’d plunked her ass down on the couch, opened her laptop, and pulled up the search engine. He answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”

  “I want you to spare me the lectures and the warnings and all that shit, okay?”

  Ruhn paused. “Okay.”

  She put the call on speaker and leaned her forearms on her knees, the cursor hanging over the search bar.

  Ruhn asked, “What’s going on with you and Athalar?”

  “Nothing,” Bryce said, rubbing her eyes. “He’s not my type.”

  “I was asking about why he’s not on the call, not whether you’re dating, but that’s good to know.”

  She gritted her teeth and typed synthetic magic in the search bar. As the results filtered in, she said, “Athalar is off making those muscles of his even nicer.” Ruhn huffed a laugh.

  She skimmed the results: small, short articles about the uses of a synthetic healing magic to aid in human healing. “That medwitch who sent you the information about synthetic magic—did she offer any thoughts on why or how it got onto the streets?”

  “No. I think she’s more concerned about its origins—and an antidote. She told me she actually tested some of the kristallos venom she got out of Athalar from the other night against the synth, trying to formulate one. She thinks her healing magic can act like some kind of stabilizer for the venom to make the antidote, but she needs more of the venom to keep testing it out. I don’t know. It sounded like some complex shit.” He added wryly, “If you run into a kristallos, ask it for some venom, would you?”

  “Got a crush, Ruhn?”

  He snorted. “She’s done us a huge favor. I’d like to repay her in whatever way we can.”