Loren sank to her knees as Sabrine stepped out onto the porch.
—
Darien studied Logan as the werewolf took a seat across from him at the cluttered table in the cramped kitchen. The scarred brown hands that were wrapped around a mug of coffee seemed to have trouble staying still, his fingers constantly tapping the sides of the mug and rotating it back and forth. Printed across the mug in block letters was the phrase,I don’t do Moon-days.
Logan’s eyes flicked over the rim to assess Darien as he took a sip.
Darien assessed him back. He had half a mind to tell Logan what he really thought of the pigsty his house had become. The near-bursting trash bags piled up by the fridge, the animal heart in the sink, the dried-out banana peel that was literally stuck to the tile by his boot. The only thing keeping Darien from saying something rude was the thought that perhaps Logan hadn’t bothered to clean because he was too busy tending to Sabrine.
But he found that he couldn’t hold it back any longer as he said, “Does your neighbourhood not have a garbage collection day?”
Logan looked over his shoulder at the leaning tower of trash. When he turned to face Darien again, he gave him a sheepish smile. “I’ve been busy,” he said.
Darien smirked. “Yeah, busy hoarding trash.”
Logan snorted, though neither of them were in the mood for humour. “Fuck you, Cassel.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You sure I can’t get you anything?”
Darien waved the offer away. “I take it you combed the buildings near the area where you found Sabrine?” The dark-haired half-witch was currently around the corner in the sitting room with Loren and Dallas. The three friends had embraced for a long time, crying tears of happiness, as they were reunited at last.
Logan nodded. “We checked everything. Whoever had her… They cleaned up quickly. Not a thing was left behind.”
Darien drummed his gloved fingers on the coffee-stained tabletop. “I’m assuming you checked for prints?”
“They had magic coating everything, in every building we searched. Not a single surface had one print or a trace of DNA. Whoever is doing this…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the wolf-skull ring on his middle finger glinting in the kitchen light. “They’ve got money.”
“A lot of people in Angelthene have money, so that doesn’t exactly help us.” Two flies were buzzing noisily around the heart in the kitchen sink. “Are you certain you found Sabrine close to the same place where they were keeping her?”
Logan’s thick brows knitted together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means her captors might’ve dumped her somewhere else in the city. To perhaps make sure no one could draw connections to thereallocation where they were keeping her.”
The werewolf was shaking his head, his unwashed hair swishing across his shoulders. “Sabrine is certain she hadn’t gotten far when I found her. And her captors didn’t dump her—sheescaped. She told me she jumped from halfway up a skyscraper and landed on a fire escape. I checked every building in the entire district, Darien. Every building with a fire escapeandevery building without one. Every abandoned business and every operating one.”
Darien pursed his lips. “Which district?”
“Oldtown.” Before Darien could ask for clarification on which part of Angelthene’s former downtown core, Logan said, “Near the Iron Dock and the Bonefish Market.”
“Does Sabrine remember anything from being held captive?”
“Not a thing,” Logan said. “But I had a friend of mine in the medical field come to the house and examine Sabrine after I found her. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Except…”
“What?” Darien prompted.
“Except, when he swabbed her mouth, he found a trace of a plant substance not widely known. He said it was something like…Essence of…bah, I can’t remember. But apparently, it is an ingredient commonly used for concealment spells.”
“That’s likely how they were concealing her aura then,” Darien said. No Avertera talismans for these guys. The fact that Sabrine’s aura was now visible meant the plant substance had likely worn off sometime after she’d managed to escape her captors.
Logan was pursing his lips in thought. “Come to think of it, there were two substances. But my friend—Oren is his name—couldn’t identify the second. The trace of it was far to miniscule.”
“Any chance you could get a hold of your friend and see if he can give me the sample he took? I’d like to confirm which plant it was and see if I can figure out the second one.”
Logan shifted in his seat. “I can try, but he did me a favor by coming to check on Sabrine without taking the situation to law enforcement. If he decided to dispose of any evidence to cover his ass, then you’re on your own.”
Darien would have to accept that. “Alright.” He nodded. “Do whatever you can.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, the hum of the refrigerator and the hushed voices of the girls in the sitting room the only sounds.
“I’m afraid Chrysantha’s dead, Darien. She’s been missing longer than Sabrine.” Logan swallowed, a sheen of sweat coating his face. “And when I found Sabrine, she was so close to death that I…I had to change her.”
