House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

“My office. Fifteen minutes.”

Bryce pressed the elevator button, but Hunt pointed to the roof door. He’d fly her to the gallery, then head to the CBD. “All right,” he said carefully. “Do you want Miss Quinlan to join us?”

“Just you.” The line went dead.





54

Hunt took a back entrance into the tower, careful to avoid any area that Sandriel might be frequenting. Isaiah hadn’t picked up, and he knew better than to keep calling until he did.

Micah was staring out the window when he arrived, his power already a brewing storm in the room. “Why,” the Archangel asked, “are you running Fae tests on old evidence down at the lab?”

“We have good reason to think the demon we identified isn’t the one behind Danika Fendyr’s death. If we can find what actually did kill her, it might lead us to whoever summoned it.”

“The Summit is in two weeks.”

“I know. We’re working as hard as we can.”

“Are you? Drinking at a whiskey bar with Bryce Quinlan counts as working?”

Asshole. “We’re on it. Don’t worry.”

“Sabine Fendyr called my office, you know. To rip my head off about being a suspect.” There was nothing humane behind those eyes. Only cold predator.

“It was a mistake, and we’ll own up to that, but we had sufficient cause to believe—”

“Get. The. Job. Done.”

Hunt gritted out, “We will.”

Micah surveyed him coolly. Then he said, “Sandriel has been asking about you—about Miss Quinlan, too. She’s made me a few generous offers to trade again.” Hunt’s stomach became leaden. “I’ve turned her down so far. I told her that you’re too valuable to me.”

Micah threw a file on the table, then turned back to the window.

“Don’t make me reconsider, Hunt.”

Hunt read through the file—the silent order it conveyed. His punishment. For Sabine, for taking too long, for just existing. A death for a death.

He stopped at the barracks to pick up his helmet.

Micah had written a note in the margin of the list of targets, their crimes. No guns.

So Hunt grabbed a few more of his black-hilted daggers, and his long-handled knife, too.

Every movement was careful. Deliberate. Every shift of his body as he donned his black battle-suit quieted his mind, pulling him farther and farther from himself.

His phone buzzed on his desk, and he glanced at it only long enough to see that Bryce Is a Queen had written to him: Everything okay?

Hunt slid on his black gloves.

His phone buzzed again.

I’m going to order in dumpling soup for lunch. Want some?

Hunt turned the phone over, blocking the screen from view. As if it’d somehow stop her from learning what he was doing. He gathered his weapons with centuries of efficiency. And then donned the helmet.

The world descended into cool calculations, its colors dimmed.

Only then did he pick up his phone and write back to Bryce, I’m good. I’ll see you later.

She’d written back by the time he reached the barracks landing pad. He’d watched the typing bubble pop up, vanish, then pop up again. Like she’d written out ten different replies before settling on Okay.

Hunt shut off his phone as he shouldered his way through the doors and into the open air.

He was a stain against the brightness. A shadow standing against the sun.

A flap of his wings had him skyborne. And he did not look back.

Something was wrong.

Bryce had known it the moment she realized she hadn’t heard from him after an hour in the Comitium.

The feeling had only worsened at his vague response to her message. No mention of why he’d been called in, what he was up to.

As if someone else had written it for him.

She’d typed out a dozen different replies to that not-Hunt message.

Please tell me everything is okay.

Type 1 if you need help.

Did I do something to upset you?

What’s wrong?

Do you need me to come to the Comitium?

Turning down an offer of dumpling soup—did someone steal this phone?

On and on, writing and deleting, until she’d written, I’m worried. Please call me. But she had no right to be worried, to demand those things of him.

So she’d settled with a pathetic Okay.

And had not heard back from him. She’d checked her phone obsessively the whole workday.

Nothing.

Worry was a writhing knot in her stomach. She didn’t even order the soup. A glance at the roof cameras showed Naomi sitting there all day, her face tight.

Bryce had gone up there around three. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” she asked, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

Naomi looked her over. “Hunt is fine,” she said. “He …” She stopped herself, reading something on Bryce’s face. Surprise flickered in her eyes. “He’s fine,” the angel said gently.

By the time Bryce got home, with Naomi stationed on the adjacent rooftop, she had stopped believing her.

So she’d decided to Hel with it. To Hel with caution or looking cool or any of it.

Standing in her kitchen as the clock crept toward eight, she wrote to Hunt, Please call me. I’m worried about you.

There. Let it shoot into the ether or wherever the messages floated.