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“But why? Why steal children at all?” Drayce moaned. He tossed back a swallow of whiskey. He winced against the burn, and his voice was a little smoky when he spoke. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“While I never had a chance to discuss it with Queen Amara, I believe it has to do with Ilon’s ongoing population decline,” Rayne explained. He glanced over to Drayce. “Recall earlier that I said Ilon doesn’t support the idea of marriage? All around Thia, the vast majority of children are born to married couples. If you’re not focused on building a family, you don’t have children. The percentage of children born each year in Ilon is incredibly small considering the size of Ilon’s population. And you need a growing or at least steady population to support a country. It’s well known that Ilon’s population has been shrinking for a while now.”
“So, they think it’s okay to steal children from other countries rather than tell their citizens to get busy in the bedroom?” Drayce snapped.
“We speculated that a criminal organization has been bringing them in to be used as a type of underground slave labor,” Rayne said.
“They’ve also taken in a lot of New Rosanthe refugees,” Davi added.
Vitor sighed. “Except there’s a problem with the numbers.”
Rayne had been about to reach for his tea. “What do you mean?”
“Among the stolen children, half have completely disappeared,” the older man stated.
Davi slammed his empty cup on the table in front of him. “Poof! Disappeared off the fucking map. Like they never existed.”
“If six Erya children are stolen, three will appear in an orphanage in Brightspire and the other three will disappear completely. We’ve not found them in any other cities or in the more rural towns. We can’t explain it.” Vitor finished with a weary shake of his head.
“What about the refugees?” Eno demanded.
“The numbers are worse,” Vitor admitted. “Only about a quarter of those taken in during the last surge were resettled in some smaller farming towns. A handful were placed in Brightspire. The rest disappeared completely. No trace of them after they were registered by the government.”
Rayne shoved out of his chair and paced across the room. He needed to move as nervous energy zipped through his body. His brain was jumping to horrible conclusions and he needed to slow down, to check his thought processes carefully. If what he was thinking was correct, they could be in a lot of fucking danger.
But there was no way around it. When he considered the size and complexity of the operation, the length of time it had been ongoing, and then when you added in the lost refugees, there was no avoiding it.
“Rayne?” Eno prodded. The room was silent except for the creak of the couch and the shifting of fabric as Eno got to his feet.
Rayne held up a hand, silencing any more words and possibly holding him at bay. He needed another few seconds. He wanted to be wrong. He needed to be wrong.
But he wasn’t.
Dropping his hand to his side, he turned to find both Eno and Drayce had risen to their feet, watching him with expectant expressions. He shifted his eyes to Vitor, who simply seemed both sad and resigned. As if he knew exactly what Rayne had just pieced together and felt his fear.
“We need to tell the king,” Rayne declared.
Vitor nodded. “It would also be best if he’s kept far from the Ilon government. They have to suspect…”
“What? What’s going on?” Drayce shouted.
“An operation of this size, the disappearance of the refugees, it means the Ilon government is in on the kidnappings and disappearances,” Rayne explained. He paused and shook his head. “When I read the initial reports, it was clear that Queen Amara and even the Gray Fox thought that this was a criminal organization involved in black market child adoptions or possibly human trafficking. But for the government to be involved…”
“It’s hideous,” Eno breathed.
“It causes a high number of problems for Erya, starting with the fact that our closest ally has been stabbing us in the back for decades.”
Drayce dropped heavily on the sofa cushions, his gaze wide and distant, as if he wasn’t really seeing the room. “Cael is not going to take this well.”
That was a massive understatement. It didn’t help that the king’s emotional stability hadn’t been the best recently, thanks to the gods, Drayce’s physical and emotional torture, and Rayne’s own near-death experience. There had been no chance for them to find some balance again. The idea that Erya’s oldest ally had been betraying them and was now potentially aligned with New Rosanthe was going to create a very volatile reaction in their king.
“Do you know the king’s exact location?” Rayne asked the spymaster.
“Forgive me, Lord Laurent. I do not.”
Drayce pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed it on. “He texted that he’s got a safe place to crash with an old friend of Adrian’s. They’re still near the Shrine District.”
Eno moved closer and placed a hand on Rayne’s shoulder. “Do you want to get him tonight?”
