Ruhn frowned. “I thought they’d disbanded—joined other factions or returned to Pangera. But here’s the part you’re not going to like. Next to the logo on the crate was a branded image. My team and your team thought it was a warped C for Crescent City, but I looked at the footage of the storage area before the bomb went off. It’s hard to make out, but it could also be depicting a curved horn.”
“What does the Horn have to do with the human rebellion?” Bryce asked. Then her mouth dried out. “Wait. Do you think that Horn image was a message to us? To warn us away from looking for the Horn? As if that acolyte wasn’t enough?”
Hunt mused, “It can’t just be coincidence that the club was bombed when we were there. Or that one of the images on the crate seems like it could be the Horn, when we’re knee-deep in a search for it. Before Danika busted him, Briggs planned to blow up the Raven. The Keres sect has been inactive since he went to prison, but …”
“They could be coming back,” Bryce insisted. “Looking to pick up where Briggs left off, or somehow getting directions from him even now.”
Hunt looked somber. “Or it was one of Briggs’s followers all along—the planned bombing, Danika’s murder, this bombing … Briggs might not be guilty, but maybe he knows who is. He could be protecting someone.” He pulled out his phone. “We need to talk to him.”
Ruhn said, “Are you fucking nuts?”
Hunt ignored him and dialed a number, rising to his feet. “He’s in Adrestia Prison, so the request might take a few days,” he said to Bryce.
“Fine.” She blocked out the thought of what, exactly, this meeting would be like. Danika had been unnerved by Briggs’s fanaticism toward the human cause, and had rarely wanted to talk about him. Busting him and his Keres group—an offshoot of the main Ophion rebellion—had been a triumph, a legitimization of the Pack of Devils. It still hadn’t been enough to win Sabine’s approval.
Hunt tucked the phone to his ear. “Hey, Isaiah. Yeah, I’m all right.” He stepped into the foyer, and Bryce watched him go.
Ruhn said quietly, “The Autumn King knows I’ve involved you in looking for the Horn.”
She lifted heavy eyes to her brother. “How pissed is he?”
Ruhn’s grim smile wasn’t comforting. “He warned me of the poison you’d spew in my ear.”
“I should take that as a compliment, I suppose.”
Ruhn didn’t smile this time. “He wants to know what you’ll do with the Horn if it’s found.”
“Use it as my new drinking mug on game day.”
Hunt gave a snort of laughter as he entered the room, call over. Ruhn just said, “He was serious.”
“I’ll give it back to the temple,” Bryce said. “Not to him.”
Ruhn looked at both of them as Hunt again sat on the couch. “My father said that since I have now involved you in something so dangerous, Bryce, you need a guard to … remain with you at all times. Live with you. I volunteered.”
Every part of her battered body ached. “Over my dead fucking corpse.”
Hunt crossed his arms. “Why does your king care if Quinlan lives or dies?”
Ruhn’s eyes grew cold. “I asked him the same. He said that she falls under his jurisdiction, as half-Fae, and he doesn’t want to have to clean up any messy situations. The girl is a liability, he said.” Bryce could hear the cruel tones in every word Ruhn mimicked. Could see her father’s face as he spoke them. She often imagined how it’d feel to beat in that perfect face with her fists. To give him a scar like the one her mother bore along her cheekbone—small and slender, no longer than a fingernail, but a reminder of the blow he’d given her when his hideous rage drove him too far.
The blow that had sent Ember Quinlan running—pregnant with Bryce.
Creep. Old, hateful creep.
“So he’s just concerned about the PR nightmare of Quinlan’s death before the Summit,” Hunt said roughly, disgust tightening his face.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn said, then added to Bryce, “I’m only the messenger. Consider whether it’s wise to pick this as your big battle with him.”
No chance in Hel was she letting Ruhn into her apartment to order her around. Especially with those friends of his. It was bad enough she had to work with him on this case.
Gods, her head was pounding. “Fine,” she said, simmering. “He said I needed a guard—not you specifically, right?” At Ruhn’s tense silence, Bryce went on, “That’s what I thought. Athalar stays with me instead. Order fulfilled. Happy?”