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Look toward where it hurts the most.
Bryce had refrained from telling Athalar how accurate the Viper Queen’s tip had been. She’d already given him her list of suspects—but he hadn’t asked about the other demand he’d made.
So that’s what she’d decided to do: compile a list of every one of Danika’s movements from the week before her death. But the moment she’d finished opening up the gallery for the day, the moment she’d come down to the library to make the list … Nausea had hit her.
She turned on her laptop instead, and began combing through her emails with Maximus Tertian, dating back six weeks. Perhaps she’d find some sort of connection there—or at least a hint of his plans for that night.
Yet with each professional, bland email she reread, the memories from Danika’s last days clawed at the welded-shut door of her mind. Like looming specters, they hissed and whispered, and she tried to ignore them, tried to focus on Tertian’s emails, but—
Lehabah looked over from where she’d sprawled on the tiny fainting couch Bryce had given her years ago—courtesy of a dollhouse from her childhood—watching her favorite Vanir drama on her tablet. Her glass dome sat behind her atop a stack of books, the plumes of a purple orchid arching over it. “You could let the angel down here and work together on whatever is causing you such difficulty.”
Bryce rolled her eyes. “Your fascination with Athalar is taking on stalkerish levels.”
Lehabah sighed. “Do you know what Hunt Athalar looks like?”
“Considering that he’s living on the roof across from my apartment, I’d say yes.”
Lehabah hit pause on her show, leaning her head against the backrest of her little fainting couch. “He’s dreamy.”
“Yeah, just ask him.” Bryce clicked out of the email she’d been reading—one of about a hundred between her and Tertian, and the first where he’d been mildly flirty with her.
“Hunt’s handsome enough to be on this show.” Lehabah pointed with a dainty toe toward the tablet propped before her.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think the size differences between you and Athalar would work in the bedroom. You’re barely big enough to wrap your arms around his dick.”
Smoke swirled around Lehabah at her puff of embarrassment, and the sprite waved her little hands to clear it away. “BB!”
Bryce chuckled, then she gestured to the tablet. “I’m not the one who’s bingeing a show that’s basically porn with a plot. What’s it called again? Fangs and Bangs?”
Lehabah turned purple. “It’s not called that and you know it! And it’s artistic. They make love. They don’t …” She choked.
“Fuck?” Bryce suggested dryly.
“Exactly,” Lehabah said with a prim nod.
Bryce laughed, letting it chase away the swarming ghosts of the past, and the sprite, despite her prudishness, joined her. Bryce said, “I doubt Hunt Athalar is the making love type.”
Lehabah hid her face behind her hands, humming with mortification.
Just to torture her a bit more, Bryce added, “He’s the type to bend you over a desk and—”
The phone rang.
She glanced at the ceiling, wondering if Athalar had somehow heard, but—no. It was worse.
“Hi, Jesiba,” she said, motioning Lehabah back to her guardian’s perch in case the sorceress was monitoring through the library’s cameras.
“Bryce. Glad to see Lehabah is hard at work.”
Lehabah quickly shut down the tablet and did her best to look alert. Bryce said, “It was her midmorning break. She’s entitled to one.”
Lehabah threw her a grateful glance that cut right to the bone.
Jesiba just began rattling off commands.
Thirty minutes later, at the desk in the gallery showroom, Bryce stared toward the shut front door. The ticking of the clock filled the space, a steady reminder of each second lost. Each second that Danika and the pack’s killer roamed the streets while she sat in here, checking bullshit paperwork.
Unacceptable. Yet the thought of prying open the door to those memories …
