“Jane needs your help,” she said.
Alarm pricked at him.
“Where is she?” he asked, a tad more demanding. Reagan scanned the next chamber, his washroom, but there was no one there. “Joy, where is she?”
She fidgeted with her hands, breath quickening. Where was her relic? “After the Audience, she asked me to tell you she had to go with a man and help him. She wanted my necklace for flinging, because she cannot wield enough alone. I offered to go with her, but she said I had to stay and tell you, but you weren’t here, and I think I should have…”
“Did she tell you where she was going?” he asked, trying not to assume the worst.
Her mouth closed, and she shook her head. Tension gathered in his body. “She didn’t say where she went. Only that she had to leave. She told me you could use the flask you made together.”
A panicked spiral coiled in his chest. His hands clenched into fists, and he spun, bracing himself against the wall, chest rising with each heated breath.
He should have anticipated this after announcing her, should have prepared for someone to come right away.
“Fuck,” he cursed, dispatching his familiar to fetch his staff.
He tore through his bedroom, flinging drawers open, rifling through the scattered clothing.
“Do you know where she is?” Joy called from the doorway.
A low growl filled his head. “I’m going to find out.”
“What?” Gwin asked, sauntering inside the chamber. “Did you find her?”
“She’s gone,” he said.
“Jane?” Cerridwen entered next, followed by Finn and Barracus.
“She had to leave with a man and asked me to warn Reagan,” Joy answered. “I couldn’t find any of you. It’s been exactly thirty-six minutes since she left.”
“I was away from the Hall,” Cerridwen murmured under her breath.
Reagan’s ears rang, his pulse loud in his head. He shouldn’t have gone to the post. She should have had a new patroller guarding her already. And now…he couldn’t find the bloody flask.
“Reagan, what is the plan?” Barracus’s measured voice cut through his thoughts.
He froze a fraction, eyes scanning the disorder of his drawers. The thing had to be...
Then he commanded the summoning charm, and a slender, red flask floated into his hand, smaller than the span of his middle finger.
“I can track her,” Reagan replied. “A few nights ago, I asked to draw her blood so I could have this while we aren’t bonded. This is fresh.”
Once they were bonded, the forehead sigil would allow them to find one another at any moment, but only once the ritual was complete. She had lost her location relic to the siren, and since they would count on the sigil, he hadn’t given her another one.
“Did she say why she left?” Finn asked, leaning toward Joy.
“She said she needed to help the man,” Joy answered, fidgeting with her hands.
Reagan sucked in a sharp breath. This could not be happening again. But of course it was.
Distantly, he noticed Finnegan stepping closer to Joy, eyeing her tapping fingers and putting himself between her and Reagan.
He grounded himself, knowing his access was pressing against everyone, digging his familiar claws into the dirt in his mind, forcing a cool head to rise above the raw fear prowling him.
“What I need,” he rasped firmly, “are patrollers already searching the city. The estate. Warn every outpost, especially the ones that border Ashenagth.” His gaze swept over Gwin and Barracus before turning to his Second. “Cerridwen, get me a map, hot water, and a location draught.”
Cerridwen hurried out while Gwin and Barracus flung to the outposts to send orders. Finn cleared the antechamber table, pushing aside the remnants of an abandoned banquet.
