House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

That night, still reeling from the events of the day, Ruhn flipped through the channels on the TV until he found the sunball game, then set down the remote and swigged from his beer.

On the other end of the sectional couch in Bryce’s apartment, Ithan Holstrom sat hunched over a laptop, Declan beside him with a laptop of his own. Bryce and Hunt stood behind the two, staring over their shoulders, the latter’s face stormy.

Ruhn had told none of them, especially Bryce, about the conversation with his father.

Ithan typed away, then said, “I’m super rusty at this.”

Dec said without breaking his attention from the computer, “If you took Kirfner’s Intro to Systems and Matrices, you’ll be fine.”

Ruhn often forgot that Dec was friendly with people other than him and Flynn. While none of them had attended college, Dec had struck up a years-long friendship with the ornery CCU computer science professor, often consulting the satyr on some of his hacking ventures.

“He gave me a B minus in that class,” Ithan muttered.

“From what he tells me, that’s practically an A plus,” Declan said.

“Okay, okay,” Bryce said, “any idea how long this is going to take?”

Declan threw her an exasperated look. “You’re asking us to do two things at once, and neither is easy, so … a while?”

She scowled. “How many cameras are even at the Black Dock?”

“A lot,” Declan said, going back to his computer. He glanced to Holstrom’s laptop. “Click that.” He pointed to a mark on the screen that Ruhn couldn’t see. “Now type this code in to identify the footage featuring Reapers.”

How Dec managed to direct Ithan to comb through the footage around the Black Dock from earlier today while also creating a program to search through years of video footage of Danika at the gallery was beyond Ruhn.

“It’s insane that you made this,” Ithan said with no small bit of admiration.

“All in a day’s work,” Dec replied, typing away. Pulling any footage from the gallery featuring Danika could take days, he’d said. But at least the footage from the Black Dock would only take minutes.

Ruhn carefully asked Bryce, “You sure you trust Jesiba enough to follow this lead? Or at all?”

“Jesiba literally has a collection of books that could get her killed,” Bryce said tartly. “I trust that she knows how to stay out of … dangerous entanglements. And wouldn’t shove me into one, either.”

“Why not tell you to look at the footage during the investigation this spring?” Hunt asked.

“I don’t know. But Jesiba must have had a good reason.”

“She scares me,” Ithan said, gaze fixed on the computer.

“She’ll be happy to hear that,” Bryce said, but her face was tight.

What’s up? Ruhn asked her mind-to-mind.

Bryce frowned. You want the honest answer?

Yeah.

She tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. I don’t know how much more of this “Surprise! Danika had a big secret!” stuff I can take. It feels like … I don’t even know. It feels like I never really knew her.

She loved you, Bryce. That’s not in doubt.

Yeah, I know. But did Danika know about the Parthos books—or the other contraband tomes—in the gallery? Jesiba made it sound like she did. Like she took a special interest in them.

You guys never talked about it?

Never. But Jesiba was always monitoring those cameras, so … maybe she saw something. Danika was down there without me plenty of times. Though Lehabah was usually there, too.

Ruhn noted the pain that filled his sister’s face at the fire sprite’s name.

We’ll figure it out, Ruhn offered, and Bryce gave him a thankful smile in return.

“Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Emile around the docks,” Bryce said to Ithan. Cormac had turned down the invitation to join them here—he’d said he wanted to continue hunting for Emile on the ground.

“I already added it to the program,” Declan said. “It’ll flag any Reaper or any person whose facial features and build match the kid’s.” Dec had managed to pull a still from the security footage in the town of Servast the night Emile and Sofie had separated.

Ruhn again considered his sister, who was peering over Declan’s shoulder with an intensity he recognized. She wouldn’t let go of any of this.

Would she be able to teleport? She’d told him that Cormac had agreed to try to teach her. And wouldn’t that be something for the Autumn King to chew on—Bryce plus teleporting plus Starborn power plus Starsword with crazy killing abilities plus Bryce magically outranking their father equaled …

Ruhn kept his face neutral, tucking away thoughts of what a leveled-up Bryce might mean for the Fae.

Ithan finished typing in the code, and said without looking up, “Hilene is going to win this one.”

Ruhn checked the sunball game just beginning its first period. “I thought Ionia was favored.”

Ithan stretched out his long legs, propping his bare feet on a cushioned stool Bryce had dragged over from the windows to be a temporary replacement for the coffee table. “Jason Regez has been off the last two games. I played with him at CCU—I can tell when he starts to get in a funk. He’ll fuck it up for Ionia.”