Nichelle expertly navigates the dense lore of Midgard, turning a complex web of conspiracies into a clear and engaging narrative. Her energetic delivery makes the intricate details of the Horn and the Crystallos Demon surprisingly easy to follow.
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your unhinged friend explains House of Earth and Blood (Part 2)Hinzugefügt:
She's like, "I'm underestimated cuz I'm a party girl." And Hunt's like, "I can't believe I underestimated her cuz she's a party girl." I'm like, "Okay, some of us have real problems." Bryce, do you know how to read? Okay, then you're better off than a lot of us in the SJM world. Hi, and welcome back. My name is Michelle and today we're talking about part two of Crescent City. If you have not seen the first video in this series, we've already covered part one.
I'll make sure it's linked below. But part one, I'll give you like the tiniest recap just so you can get your like brain back in the game. Part one, essentially we meet Bryce Quinnland, this half fay, half human girly. She's 22 years old. She's partying in, she's living it up. She's working at this place called Griffin Antiquities during the day, partying at night with her friends, Danica, Juniper, and Fury. And Danica is like her best friend. They became friends in college. They are more like sisters than just friends. And one night, Bryce goes to the club. She breaks up with her boyfriend. She goes out to the club. Danica is busy. Danica is a wolf shifter and she has pack night. She's with her werewolves. I guess they're not werewolves. She's with her wolf shifters back at the apartment.
Bryce is out on the town and having like the time of her life. As she heads home, she realizes that Danica was texting her. She missed them. She gets home and she finds not only Danica, but Danica's entire pack has been brutally murdered and she actually finds the demon that did the murdering. She follows him down into an alley where she finds this demon attacking an angel. She saves this angel. She's brought in for questioning and has like a bad time. So essentially, she she's just lost her best friend. We kind of don't know why or what has happened with that. And then we cut part one. Part one really ends pretty shortly after Danica's death. And we pick up part two is called The Trench. And it is 22 months later. So almost 2 years after Danica's murder, we pick up again with Miss Bryce. And Bryce is back in the club that she was in the night that Danica was murdered. It is called the White Raven. And she is in the bathroom of the White Raven hooking up with a lion shifter. Unfortunately, she has a business meeting she has to go to. Um, and he's like a little confused by the fact that she has a business meeting at night in a nightclub. What kind of business are you in? Also, she's not wearing like a blazer. She's in a little scanty outfit. Bryce loves a scanty little outfit. Um, but Bryce really like only came to the White Raven for this meeting. She like this is not a place that she frequents anymore. And then the like lion shifter hookup in the bathroom opportunity like landed in her lap. And what was she to do? She like took a took a bite. up. She heads to a business meeting and her business meeting is with this vampire named Maximus Tartarion, a 200-year-old vampire and the son of one of the richest vampires in Pangangera.
She meets him over by the bar and immediately he is like a creepy flirty.
He's hitting on her vibe. Bryce passes him ownership papers kind of in this like file folder, this like leather booklet for a 500, no 5,000, excuse me, 5,000year-old onyx bust of a long deadad vampire lord. Bryce has been working on getting this deal arranged for Jezebel for weeks now. Finally, it's coming to fruition. And she is kind of like trying to like figure out the last little details with Maximus. But she's getting a little bit distracted by a group of girls in the club who are partying together. And it like reminds her of course of her own friends and her plans for the drop. These girls are having like a drop party. Danica and Bryce had planned to make the drop together and celebrate at the White Raven afterwards.
like this just like reminds her of something that she should have had that she never had the opportunity to because of Danica's death. Maximus passes her a check for a mind-boggling amount of money and Bryce will not get any commission on the piece or anything from Jezeba. That money went elsewhere. We'll find out where like pretty pretty shortly here. Bryce gets up and tries to leave, but then Maximus is like going so soon. It would be a shame for a pretty little thing like you to leave when I was about to order a bottle of Serat.
And Bryce is like, I think you'll be the one feeling sorry if a pretty little thing like me left, Mr. Tertarian.
Maximus says, "For what I paid your boss, I think some perks came with this deal." And Bryce again tries to leave the situation. There are no perks. You do not get uh the your saleserson with your sale. And Maximus grabs her and Bryce is like, "Take your hand off of me." Like, she's trying to be professional again. She's at her place of work essentially, but he is obviously crossing a line. Maximus does it kind of insisting that he that she come with him, but then the mezzanine that they're sitting on goes quiet. A sign that something bigger, scarier, and worse than Maximus has walked into the White Raven. And Bryce is hopeful that it will offer enough of a distraction so so she can get away. Unfortunately, um it's maybe not the distraction she would have hoped for. Her brother, Rune, a fa prince, walks up onto the landing and Maximus does not like the way he is looking at Bryce. Maximus says, "You're mine." And Bryce says, "That's my cousin. Relax. Like, I'm not going to go hook up with him, but also he is my cousin. Like, I do know him."
And Maximus is kind of like surprised by learning that she has this like relationship that she's related in some capacity to the Autumn King. And he kind of like lets her go. She's able to slip away. Bryce then goes over to chat with Rune, and she teases him about him being here, and he explains that he's not here to party. And Bryce asks how he got inside, and Rune explains that he is friends with the butterfly shifter. the club's owner, Rizzo, and Rizzo had actually called Run to let Run know that Bryce was here with some creeper. Run says, "Rizzo can't start tossing Tartarion to the curb, but he implied that the prick was being handy with you and he needed backup. Do you know what Tartarian's father does?" And Bryce goes, "I do." And Run says, "Why are you even here? You've got work in 6 hours."
And Bryce says, "Thanks, mom." And she is thinking about how like difficult it is for her to sleep these days that she often awakens like quite early in the morning by nightmare. She has nightmares of the night when Danica died. Run essentially came to tell her per Autumn King's request that she is supposed to lay low for the next month because of the coming summit. So the summit is this big event that is kind of looming on the horizon for most of this book. And it is this big meeting where all of the Vbaran ruling powers come together. It happens every 10 years. And the autumn king wants everyone who is connected to the faye in any capacity to be on their best behavior. So it like bodess well for them. The Asteri are sending over some favored commanders and the Autumn King wants to like make a good impression and Bryce tries to like brush him off, but Run is like, "Bryce, I just like need you to stay out of trouble on all fronts. For whatever reason, the summit is important to him. He's been on edge about it beyond the whole everyone needing to pay themselves bull crap. I haven't seen him this riled up since 2 years ago." He cuts himself off, but Bryce knows that what he means, obviously. And she gets so mad that she like shatters the glass in her hand.
Okay, kind of cuckoo behavior. Bryce Bryce is very unwell. I like really feel like we should talk about the fact that Bryce is like incredibly unwell for like most of this book. Run tells her like, "Okay, you need to breathe and calm down." And he promis she promises Rune that she'll be on her best behavior until the summit and stay out of trouble. And Run offers to walk her home, but her she's like, "No, her apartment really is like her safe space and she does not want any fay men coming in and stinking up the place. Fair enough. No boys allowed." Bryce heads out and she makes a comment about her like alcohol sweater and how she'll be like toasty warm, but actually she hasn't drank at all in almost 2 years.
She has not drank since that night with Danica. And Run tails her home anyway following her until she's safely tucked inside her apartment building. Bryce heads upstairs and she knows that Rune has been following her obviously and he's actually like on the roof I think of the No, I think maybe he's just on the street. He's just standing on the street and she knows he won't leave until he sees like her apartment light come on. And so part of her wants to just like make him stand out there all night. But she knows if like she doesn't turn on her apartment light within the next few minutes, he'll probably just like storm in past the door man. And she doesn't want to, you know, create a hubbub situation out of it. So she turns the light on. Her apartment is gorgeous.
Her apartment is paid for by Danica's will and that is why she's living in this really beautiful place. Last we saw Bryce, she was living in kind of like a dingy apartment that was paid for half by her, half by Danica. And so it wasn't the nicest. It was like, you know, a 22-year-old's apartment. Um, also Serings is here and Serings used to belong to Jezebel, but now Sarx is living with Bryce. Meanwhile, we cut to our buddy Hunt. Hunt is in a bloody room surrounded by bodies, and there is one man still alive in the room, and the man says to to Hunt, "I will tell you everything. They didn't tell you all of it, but I can." But does Hunt doesn't ask any more questions. He doesn't have more questions for them. He does um slice the guy's stomach open, so all of his guts spill out. Yucky. Hunt makes it back to the barracks without anyone seeing him. He is covered in blood and gore and guts obviously and he runs into Victoria and Naomi. Um Victoria we met during the interrogation and then Naomi is another angel that is part of um like the the 33rd and Justinian is another angel part of the 33rd. They comment on the state of Hunt which is yucky and Justinian said a gun would have been a hell of a lot cleaner and Hunt says Micah didn't want a gun for this one.
They didn't deserve a gun. Naomi like really isn't interested. She just like turns the TV up. She's the only member of the triari who isn't fallen. She did not participate in the angel rebellion.
Can I say that one of my biggest pet peeves in the world is when you are like sharing space with someone and um they like turn the TV up because like you're being too noisy. I don't know. There like it's a very specific thing, but this would fall into it. It's not cuz like they were listening super quiet and now you're like up in like in another room like making too much noise. Like you're kind of like talking. Maybe they're like tangentially involved in the conversation and they decide to turn the TV up. Like, sorry, your TV show is almost never more important than like human connection.
I'm just trying to chitchat. Oh, it like literally makes me my blood boil.
Especially in the age of streaming.
You're You can pause that. We're not watching it live.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Um, Naomi says after she turns the TV up. See, this is the kind of nonsense I don't want from Naomi or from anyone.
Isaiah told me that Micah wants you to play an investigators tomorrow for something in the old square. Isaiah will call you after breakfast with the details. And then Hunt like goes to his room, but we meanwhile are introduced to the idea of Sandreel. We got to talk about Hunt's past. So, we've got two women and they are identical twins. They are, I believe, identical twins. And we have Sandreel and Shahar. Sandreel is Hunt's prior owner. He she owned him prior to Micah owning him and she is the governor of the northwestern quadrant of Pinera and her twin sister Shahar was the leader of the angel rebellion and Hunt's girlfriend. Sandreel was Hunt's third owner owner and like really tried to break him.
We we can continue to get like stories of like the sort of things that happened to Hunt while he was under like Sandreel's ownership. And like she's a nasty nasty piece of work. Hunt had killed a lot of Sandreel's men during the rebellion with his lightning powers because Shahar had sent Hunt to kill Sandreel. Okay. Shahar thought that Sandreel killed their parents to kind of rule without their interference. So Shahar, Hunt's girlfriend, really had it out for Sandreel. And then afterwards, Sandreel blamed Hunt for luring Shahar into the rebellion, even though Shahar was the one who wanted to rebel more than Hunt was, and blames Hunt for Shahar's death. And he really prefers Micah, particularly because Micah has offered him this bargain to get out of his like slavery status after probably like a century or two. Um like it seems like it'll it'll take a while. It's not going to be a fast bargain, but if um Hunt will kill for Micah one person for every angel that was killed during the rebellion, Hunt is a free a free man, a death for a death. Micah had said, "When you fulfilled the debt, Athlar will discuss removing that tattoo on your brow." And I like think one, did you get this in writing, Hunty?
Did Hunt did you get this in writing? I don't think you did. And two, we'll discuss it. That's not those aren't great terms and conditions, but I guess he like is in a spot in which like you can't be picky, you know. Um, he really doesn't have a lot of freedom and agency as a a person in this world. Micah tells him he will need to pay 2,217 deaths because as a commander he was responsible for every death that happened during the battle. Um, and right now Hunt is at 82 deaths. That was his 82nd, I think, that we just saw. So like um he's not very far. This might take a take a minute. Um but at least like it's a chance. He's like even if it going to take me like the rest of my my long long long immortal life like the possibility of freedom is really important to hunt.
He's like just like staring at himself in the bathroom mirror looking into his own eyes and he is like they look empty.
It looked like I was staring into hell.
Okay.
I think sometimes when you stare at your own eyes in the mirror too long, it is get it gives you the creeps.
I don't know. Maybe just don't do that.
Maybe just stop. Hunt, I have a solution for you. We learn Hunt's real name is Orion. Um, and he was like nicknamed Hunt because like Orion is the hunter.
Gorgeous. And he's like, I don't think my mother would have named me that if she would have known what I become, what I would become. Because like of course now he's like a he kills people a lot.
So, Hunter seems like a little too on the nose for, you know, if you know what I mean. Hunt is just like seeping in a pool of angst. He's in a bubbly hot tub full of angst. Of course, that's his his general disposition. The next day, Bryce is at work um while a fay couple browses and she's like annoyed that they're there. She worked this the Griffin Antiquities, this gallery that she works in, is like very upscale, so like often it's empty and so when people come in, especially people that like don't have an appointment, it's like annoying.
like, "Girl, this is her space. Could you leave?" Anyway, clearly the guy is here to like impress the girl, to like buy her something to impress her. And Bryce is thinking about how if she was full fay, she'd have to do more of this like formal dating. Like there in Fay, there is kind of more of a Bridgetgertonesque society in which like if you are of the upper Fay class, like you go on these like very structured dates and like find like a proper a proper match. Bryce is like hopeful that like maybe she'll make a sale. That'd be nice. Um, when the buzzer rings, it's Isaiah and Hunt. It takes up Bryce a minute to answer the door, but finally she answers with, "I didn't order a pizza." And Hunt thinks this is funny.
So, you know, they're already on the on the a good foot. And Isaiah says, "We're from the 33rd Legion. We're here to see Bryce Quinnland." And Rice says, "I'm here with clients. Come back later." And Isaiah says, "This is a matter of some urgency, Miss Quinnland." And Bryce says, "I'm sorry, you'll have to make an appointment. How about 3 weeks? I've got the 28th of April free. I'll pencil you in at noon." But the boys are like insistent. And Bryce just like hangs up on them. She's like, "Okay, well, you can't come in." They wait until the fay couple leaves the gallery, and then Bryce finally comes to the door and um just to slam it in their face. She's not letting them in. Hunt bangs on the door, but it doesn't budge. It's clearly warded like quite heavily, like they won't be able to just like force their way in. And Hunt goes back to the intercom and says, "We're here about a murder." And then finally, the doors open. Bryce says to them, "You have 15 minutes." And Isaiah says, "A murder occurred on the outskirts of the meat market last night. We believe you knew the victim. Isaiah explains that Maximus Tartarion was killed and they know earlier on the night he had met up with Bryce. They don't know who did it, but she was probably the last person to have seen him alive and so they want to get information from her, of course. And Bryce is like, "Well, I'm sure someone has already said that Maximus and I parted on unfriendly terms. We met to finish a deal for the gallery, and when it was done, he thought he was entitled to some personal time with me." I don't know where he went after that. And Isaiah continues to ask questions about like what her and Max were doing, like what was their business relationship.
And Bryce explains that they had only interacted through email up until that point, and he had wanted to meet at the right raven because it seemed like he wanted to be seen making this deal over this Onyx bust.
Isaiah won't give her any details about Maximus' death. Um, but then he starts asking questions about Rune and Run's involvement. And Bryce is like, "Okay, well, it seems like you know everything.
I don't know why you're bothering to ask me like if you already know all this information." And also, you two never even told me your names. Isaiah introduces them both. And Bryce is like, "Okay, well, I don't know anything more than that. Like, bye." And Hunt says, "Okay, well, we actually weren't sent here just to ask you about your whereabouts." Micah told us to get information about from you last night and then to make sure you were available and that your boss was on site because Micah, the governor, is on his way. And Isaiah says, "Micah will be here in 10 minutes. Call your boss, Miss Quinnland." And Bryce is like, "Why?"
And Hunt says, "Because Maximus Tartyion's injuries were identical to the ones inflicted upon Danica Fendier and the Pack of Devils." And Bryce starts kind of like freaking out low-key because Philip Briggs was put away for killing Danica, the human. So, if we recall, Philip Briggs was the human rebel leader that Danica had put away for his attempt to um do like a terrorist attack essentially on the White Raven. He has been in jail for two years ever since. Danica's murder because he was let out the day she was killed. And so it was assumed that he had summoned the demon and he was put behind bars for it. So if he's behind bars, then who killed Maximus? Isaiah explains that the details of the murder were like never publicly released. So it seems unlikely that it was some sort of like copycat killer. So it's possible that Philip actually wasn't the one responsible for Danica's murder. Oh, okay. The boys head outside to wait for Micah, leaving Bryce inside to call Sabine. Bryce calls Sabine, lets her know what's happening, lets her know that Micah's on the way. She's also, meanwhile, having some like PTSD flashbacks to the night that the pack was killed. Bryce has like really clung to this idea that although Philillips denied it, he was the one put away for killing the pack because he had just purchased black summoning salts to summon a pit level demon. So, like why would he have bought that if he wasn't actually summoning a demon? And Jezebel on the phone says, "Did the angels accuse you of anything?" And Bryce says, "No, the governor is coming here." And Jezebel says to interrogate you. And Bryce says, "I hope not." He wants to talk to you, too. Jezebel asks about Maximus and then tells Bryce she needs to like make some calls. Like she needs to do some things on her end to like smooth things over because it's not going to look good that Maximus was killed like immediately after working with Jezebel. Leah Haba pick peaks her head in from the archive doors and she goes bi are you all right? And Bryce says go back to your post Lily and Lehaba goes were those two angels and Bryce goes yes go downstairs and keep Sirinks quiet. Jezeb tells her to make sure everything in the gallery is locked down and that she will video call in once Micah arrives. Micah arrives 7 minutes later. Bryce can feel the power coming off of him. It is like a much different feeling than being around just like the boys. Um, and we learn kind of more specifically what an archangel is because Isaiah is or Isaiah is not an archangel. Micah is an archangel where um, Hunt and Isaiah are just angels.
Um, there were currently 10 archangels who ruled the various territories of the Republic, all bearing the title of governor. All answering only to the Asteri. An ordinary angel's magic might level a building if they were considered powerful. An archangel's power could level an entire metropolis. There was no predicting where that extra strength that separated the archangel and the angel came from. Sometimes it was passed on usually after the careful breeding orders of the asteri. Other times it popped up in unremarkable bloodlines government. So there's a sense that often it is like passed down from father to son but it can spring up randomly somewhere else. Jezebel is going to join them on a video call and we learn what this like SPQM stands for. We saw it referenced in the first section. It is a mark that is on every slave and there are a lot of slaves because during the angel rebellion that was about 500 years ago anyone who participated in the rebellion became enslaved. The SPQM stands for sen senateus populgard the midgard senate and people which is Latin. I like particularly in this reading have been like crescent city seems like very well aware of ancient Rome.
Okay, again I am not someone who is a like fantasy purist. I think you can have champagne without having France in a fantasy book. Okay, I know that is not always the popular consensus, but the level of which that like the we're getting things translated from Latin.
We're like referencing like Greek and Roman myths. We like are talking about things architecturally looking like Greek and Roman. I'm like was Sarah J.
ass is her Roman Empire the Roman Empire when it comes to Crescent City like the old language is Latin I think and is it supposed to and I and it's unclear to me if that's supposed to mean like cuz I think there are some theories and like I kind of am like okay with it that like Crescent City is on Earth like in the future like this is a near future earth in which some stuff has happened.
Okay, now we got stuff. We got creatures and crawlers here. Um, but like geographically doesn't seem like Earth.
They like describe the geography of this planet and it doesn't seem like Earth.
Like Midgard geography doesn't seem like Earth, but they like clearly are so well aware of ancient Rome.
I am perplexed.
Anyway, Bryce is limping around um Hunt Notes because she dragged a chair up from the basement library and her scar from her demon attack is bothering her.
So, she was like scratched I think by the demon that night when um of Danica's murder and she still has like a pretty severe like scratch on her leg that we'll come to find out like bothers her quite frequently and um if she's like on her feet for too long she does start to have some some pain and it restricts her movement sometimes. She's trying to play it cool, but she's like really spiraling about the news that Philip Briggs didn't kill Danica and that her real killer might still be out there running around.
Jezebel pulls up or Bryce pulls up Jezeba on the video screen so they can all see her and they're chatting. And Jezeba says, "Pleased as I am to see your handsome face, I'd like to know why you called this meeting. Unlike unless the Danica thing was an excuse to talk to Sweet Bryce." And Micah goes on to explain that he's there because of Maximus' murders and the similarity to the Pax murders. He's sharing information so they can combine resources. And Jezeba says, "To do what?" And Micah says, "For Bryce Quinnland to find the true murderer behind all of this, of course." And Jezeba says, "Is your 33rd so incompetent these days that you truly need my assistant's help? Though I suppose I already have my answer if you falsely convicted Philip Briggs." And Bryce is like, "I don't know why I would be helpful. Like, I don't know anything." And Jezebel says, "Regardless, you are my assistant. You don't work for the 33rd." And Micah tells them that there is evidence of um his earlier crimes, Philip Briggs's um earlier crimes that he had been put behind bars for the first time, so he will not be free. But the real murderer does seem to still be on the loose and he wants to make sure that that murderer is captured before the summit.
Otherwise, people might say that Micah has lost control of his city. It really like again it is important that all of these leaders within Pangangera are like putting forward their best foot. So, the Asteria think that they're cool at the summit. You don't want to be uncool to the Asteria. That would be horrific. And then Micah says, "The new witch queen will be formally recognized and the Asteria are sending Sandreel to deliver a report report from the Senate regarding the rebel conflict. And both Hunt and Isaiah are like really rattled by the name Sandreel, as we talked about, Hunt and Sandreel really are not buds." Sandre will be in town for over a month for the event. Jezeba's back to asking why Bryce would be helpful in the investigation. And Micah says, "Miss Quinnland is thus so far the only person alive to have witnessed the demon and the murderer summoned." And Bryce says, "What about that angel in the alley?"
And Micah says, "Um, he has no memory of the attack. It was an ambush.
Considering the delicate nature of this investigation, I am now willing to look outside the box, as they say, for assistance in solving these murderers before they become a true problem." Hunt knows that if Sandreel will try to take advantage of this and try to use Micah's position, which means that like um if these murders don't get solved, there's a good chance that his ownership will kind of revert back to Sandreo. So, um Hunt really has some skin in this game as well because he needs Micah to look good so Micah can still be his boss man.
Micah then mentions that Pix will also be coming with Sandrel. And then we This is just so you know who Pock is because we're gonna talk about Pock a lot before he actually shows up on page. But this is Pix aka the Hammer. This is how I've chosen to depict him. I like his plaid pants.
Um he is Sandrel's like second and he is just like a a not nice man.
Gorge. Um they still don't know what kind of demon it was that attacked either Maximus or Danica. And Bryce says, "You said that there was another connection between Maximus and Danica."
And Micah says, "Yes, Maximus and Danica were friends." And Bryce says, "No, Danica didn't know Tarion." And Micah says, "I suppose I suspect there might be a good deal in which she didn't inform you.
Ain't that the truth?" And Bryce doesn't believe it. But then Micah starts kind of accusing Bryce of murdering these people. And Bryce is like, "You honestly think I can find anything when the ox and the 33rd couldn't? Why not get the ascent stere over someone like the hind?
And then we get another reference to someone we won't see on page for a little while, but we talk about her occasionally. So, here's Lydia Servos, the Hind, and she's the Republic's most notorious spy hunter and breaker. Um, Hunt heard what Micah had left unspoken.
Despite being part of Sandreel's triari, the dear shifter known as the Hind reported directly to the Asteri and was known to be Pix's lover. Two evil blondes. We love to see that. So Pix and the Hind are dating their lovers and they both sort of work for Sandrea, although um Lydia the Hind reports directly to the Asteri.
Micah says, "It's likely that Danica knew her killer and despite her secrets, you knew Danica better than anyone else and can provide insights." And Jezebel says, "All right, Governor. Let's say you commandeer Bryce and look into this.
I'd like compensation. You're taking my employee." And Micah doesn't want to, but Jezeba brings up some bylaw. And he agrees to pay Jezeba for Bryce's time.
He goes on to say, "I am out of options, and I shall soon be out of time. If there is someone who might retrace Danica's steps in her final days and discovered who murdered her, it would be you. You are the only tie between the victims. Isaiah Tiberian will report to you on any progress you make and keep a keen eye on this investigation. Hunt Athlar is experienced in hunting demons.
He shall be on protection duty guarding you during this search for this person behind this. Bryce says, "I'll find them." And then I want you to wipe them off the effing planet. And Micah says, "You're literally not in charge of the justice system here, bestie. So you find him and I get to decide what to do." And then Jezeba says, "Try not to die, Bryce. I'd hate to endure the inconvenience of training someone new.
Bryce shows them out and Hunt tells her to make a list of suspects and also to make a list of Danica's locations and activities during the last few days of her life. She says, "I'll call you.
Don't bother me until then." The boys go on the roof like next door and they're like recapping the meeting. We get a couple paragraphs on the architecture of the city. Like I'm truly not kidding. We get like paragraphs on this. Um Luna has been built as a model of ancient coastal cities around the Regan Sea but modernized.
And it really sounds like Rome. Like I really do think these people are obsessed with the Roman Empire. I don't know. I'm a little sus. Um Hunt's just thinking about how it like he would really like to murder Micah actually, like if given given the choice. Mah explains that Sabine has been working on this case, but it's important to him that they figure things out before the wolves do. Sabine being Danica's mother and essentially like the the leader.
She's second in command, but like the leader of the wolves. Ideally, he'd like to get the person alive, but like caught is best. You know how they're like fed is best for babies. It like doesn't doesn't matter how you feed them. Just like make sure they're fed. That's how he's feeling. You said alive or dead caught is best. Micah says, "How about this incentive, Athlar? You solve this case quickly. You solve it before the summit and I'll lower your debts to 10."
This is insane. I like do not know why he's offered up this deal. Also, the fact that he goes, "Let's go from 2,200 to 10." Seems like a big cut. Like, why not either cut it in half or just be like, "I'll take away some." I don't I know. It's just like this is weird to me. Um 10 more assignments. Hunt is like freaking out that at this prospect. 10 more assignments and he'd be free. Also, like I just like don't understand why he's giving this big of an incentive.
Like even if he was going to say, "I'm going to take a 100 lives off." That would be a big deal. And like again, Hunt was going to do it regardless. Like Hunt was like, "Yeah, I like would rather to stay with Micah then go back to Sandre. So I like want to make sure Micah does what he needs to do." Like whatever. I don't understand, Micah.
And then Micah also warns Hunt to keep his hands to himself, aka no flirting with Bryce. Not allowed. Or he'll chop off his hands. Um, we do learn then a weird thing about angels. Okay, angels are like lizards in that you can chop off any of their bits and they'll grow back. Chop off a hand, it'll grow back.
Chop off the wing, really painful, they'll grow back. Chop off any other bit, it'll grow back. Crazy. Micah leaves, leaving just Isaiah and Hunt there. And Hunt says to Isaiah, "Do you think there's a catch?" And Isaiah says, "Micah doesn't scheme like that. He's desperate." And they talk about their plans to figure out who's killing people with this demon. They also chat about how not excited they are to see a Sandreel. And Isaiah offers to make sure that Hunt has orders to babysit Bryce like really frequently to be with her most of the time, so he's not subjected to interacting with Sandreel and Pock often. And he won't mention it to Micah unless Micah starts to notice Hunt's absence. Hunt and Isaiah are headed out.
Hunt needs to talk to Rune in order to confirm Bryce's alibi for Maximus' murder. Meanwhile, Bryce, after walking everybody out, limps inside. The pain on her leg is really flirting up pretty badly. And Jezeba says to her, "When you nail hunt Aphalar's balls to the wall, will you do me a favor and take a picture?" And Bryce says, "You really want me to get mixed up in this, boss?"
And Jezeba says, "Good oldfashioned revenge doesn't hold any appeal for you." And Bryce says, "I have no idea who wanted Danica and the pack dead.
None." And Jezebel says to her, "I don't care about the governor's agenda. Play vengeful detective all you want, Bryce, but do remember that you have a job.
Client meetings will not take a backseat. If I start losing money because you're off playing detective with the umber mortise, I will turn you into a turtle. And then Jezeba pieces out. She leaves video the video screen and Bryce alone now and thinking about how she literally didn't have a single idea that uh Danica knew Maximus Tertarian. Like it she didn't can't even fathom how that would be without her having any idea about it. But Bryce doesn't really have time to process that because there is another client coming in soon. And and Bryce considers the thought of like maybe getting another job. She kind of didn't think she would still be here, but like she is. She opens her phone and starts scrolling through the messages that Connor left the night that they were killed. Um like she's done a million times. Bryce goes to text Juniper and Fury. Even though it's like a group chat with the three of them, Fury has not texted in it for like ages. She doesn't really participate. Um but she wants to update them about the bridge situation. um and how Briggs is not the murderer and how the killings have started again. But then she thinks that Mike is warning to keep things quiet and she decides to not send anything just in case. And she's also convinced herself that Fury probably already knows. Fury does seem very connected to the government. We don't exactly know what Fury, we know nothing about Fury. Fury is like the most infuriating character in this book. I feel because we're told that she's like the coolest and the most powerful girl in all the land. We don't know anything about her powers. We don't know who she works for. We just like know nothing.
And she seems so interesting and they're like most interesting girl in this book.
You'll never learn anything about her.
We learn more but not enough. I have so many questions about Gary. Cut to Mr. Run. Run is over at the Autumn King's house. He's in the the Autumn King's study. The ory in the far back of the space drew Run's eye. A working model of their seven planets, moons, and sun made from solid gold. You know who has one of these in his study as well? Reand.
Interesting. The Autumn King. He does have a name. I will say I do remember we get his name later this chapter, but at this point in my notes I said, "Wait a second. Do you have a name?" He does. Um is doing weird little experiments. Okay, we love a redhead and stem. Go on.
I know that Autumn King is supposed to be like bad news bears, but for some reason I do have like a little bit of a fondness for him. Not like a super I don't love him. He's not my favorite character. Like I really enjoy Jezeba in this book. Jezebel is like mean and nasty, but like I think that you're supposed to kind of like her. Kind of root for her. I don't think you're supposed to root for the autumn king.
And I don't really root for him, but I kind of enjoy him. I kind of enjoy him.
I think he's kind of fun. Okay, sorry.
Back to the evil man. Run. We learn that Rune leads the fate division of the auxiliary for his father. Run updates his dad on the Maximus situation, but his dad has already known. And Rune tells him that he's going to up patrols in the five roses district, the Fay district of the city. And his dad is like, "Okay, sounds like you've got it taken care of. Why are you here? And the Autumn King is like 500 and he's been in charge for most of that time and he is super powerful. We learn that even though Rune is starboard and has the star sword, um he is substantially less powerful than his father. We learn that the Autumn King is actually a little resentful of the fact that Rune had been worthy to get this like the Starborn title by like taking this star sword from the dead Starbborne princes um in this cave in Avalon. Um, the mist isle town in the north, the sacred heart of Fedum. And we king does not like Avalan.
We'll we'll talk more about Avalan, but just know Avalan is like this like fa island. It's got a lot of mist.
Okay. Okay. Rune made the drop 50 years ago, which I do think puts him at about 75 right now. Okay. Which is a weird age to be in a romanty novel. I think I've talked about it before. I don't remember which video I talked about it in, but like I think in a romanty novel the heroes need to be either in their like late 20s or they need to be over the age of 100. Like if you are an age that like someone could feasibly be and it would be creepy. It feels creepy in a romantic novel.
Like if Rune were to start dating a 19-year-old as a 75year-old, I would be like sir sir. Also, the fact that he acts like a fat bro as a 75-year-old feels weirder than if he was acting like a fat bro as a 255year-old, you know, because like I know what 75-year-olds are and they're not acting like this. Anyway, um Rune mentions that Bryce is kind of in the middle of this whole situation with Maximus and the Autumn King is like, "I told you to warn that girl to stay quiet." And Run notes that the Autumn King always calls Bryce that girl. He has not said her name like ever. Bryce had visited the villa for the first time when she was 13, first and last time, and ever since then, he is always referred to as that girl. Um, the visit had been a disaster, but in the following years, um, Run had actually visited his halfsister like quite frequently at her human parents house until she was 16 when they had this like big blowout fight. And they haven't really talked to each other much since. Bryce has hated him ever since that day. Anyway, they talk about Bryce and how Rune is her alibi for Maximus, but the Autumn King seems like a little suspicious of her. The Autumn King says, "That girl has always possessed a spectacular talent for being where she shouldn't." And Rune says, "Tyerian said the governor wants those murders kept quiet, but I'd like your permission to warn my mother." And the Autumn King is like, "Sure, that's fine. She'll heed the warning." Um, we learn that Run's mother has no relationship to the Autumn King. She was like essentially selected by the autumn king to produce an heir like based on like her bloodline and what seemed like it would produce the most powerful child. And after she was pregnant and had Rune, um they really like don't speak anymore. And Rune's like, "Maybe you should call her." And Bottom King's like, "I'm literally busy.
Do you not see my experiments that I'm doing?" Bottom King then says to Rune, "I have need of your gift." And Run's like low-key confused because his gift is really not that strong. like mostly it's like a couple sparkles of starlight in that he can hold in his palm and autumn king asks Rune to direct some of his starlight through this like metal crystal contraption and he does it autumn king like making notes as it refracts through this prism but run actually can't hold the starlight for that long and run's like what are you even doing with that thing and the autumn king says studying how light moves through the world how it can be shaped anyway changes subject king is like by the way you're getting kind of old you need to start thinking about marriage time to produce an air time to get a you know get a girl pregnant bestie. Also we need an alliance in case the war overseas reaches them. So um an arranged marriage probably will be what's happening. And it's important that although they are allied with the eststeria that they prove their worth to the eststeria continually to show how like influential they are. So creating a like really strong um alliance with another magical community would be a really good idea. And so Autumn King is like, "You are going to marry Hypoxia, the new queen, witch queen of Valbara, which if you recall during the summit, the new witch queen of Albara is going to be crowned." So this is like a big moment for her coming up. The Autumn King goes on to say, "My spies tell me that she will heed her mother's old friendship with us and will be skittish enough as a new ruler twist accept the friendly hand we offer." And run's like, "I'm not marrying her." And the autumn king is like, "You are the crown prince of the Valbar and Fay. you do not have a choice. And the Autumn King's like, "Also, while I'm giving you a to-do list, keep Rice in line.
Marry this girl. I need you to also find Luna's horn." And everyone's like, "What? That went missing like 2 years ago." And the Bottom King's like, "Okay, and now I want it." And people aren't paying attention anymore. They're not looking for it, so you're going to go find it for me. Apparently, at the meeting with Micah, there had been talk about how the fay powers are waning. The first starboard prince could blind an enemy with one flash of his starlight.
And Rune can just like barely summon a sparkle. And Micah blamed the Fay for putting the horn in danger in the first place. He's Micah is saying the reason Luna's horn went missing was because of the Fay. And so now the Autumn King is like, "Well, now I got to find out."
So Micah is not mad at us.
And everyone's like, "Why do we care?
The horn has no power." And the Autumn King says, "It is a symbol, and symbols always wield power of their own." True enough, king. You're right about that.
Symbols are very powerful. He goes on to say, "The horn was originally the possession of Pelus, the first starborn king prince. You may find that like calls to like. Merely researching it could reveal things to you that are hidden from others." As Run's leaving, he's thinking about how much he hates his dad. Run um is like, "Well, at least he doesn't know the truth about what the oracle told me." And the oracle had said to run every we'll come to find out that every fa child goes to the oracle I think at the age of 13 to kind of like find out what their future will be at least everyone of like the royal bloodline these higher uh bloodlines.
And when Rune had gone to see the oracle the oracle had said to run the royal bloodline should end with you prince.
And he said that's crazy. And he made sure not to tell that to the autumn king because he said I don't think the autumn king's going to like that very much.
Meanwhile back with miss barricland.
She's back in her apartment. Serings is scratching at the windows and Bryce is like, "Stop. What are you doing?"
Serings continues and Bryce heads over to the windows to see what's happening.
And she sees a winged male sitting on a rooftop across the street. It's Hunt.
He's keeping an eye on her. Bryce closes the window and Sirink starts to howl, clearly annoyed with his view being obstructed, like he was keeping an eye on that guy in the roof. As soon as she settles into the couch to watch the show, Bryce's phone buzzes and Hunt says, "Open the curtains. I want to watch, too." Bryce says, "I didn't know Angel's dane to watch trash TV." They're texting back and forth and Hunt says, "I'd rather watch the Sunball game that's on right now, but I'll take what I can get." Hunt explains that he's on protection duty and Bryce is like, "And that involves learing through my apartment windows." And Hunt says, "I'm here just here following orders." Bryce asks if he talked to Rune and Hunt didn't, but Isaiah did. Kind of confirming her alibi. And Hunt is like, "Open the curtains or invite me in." And Bryce is like, "No." And Hunt asks about Searings. And Bryce explains that Searings is a chimera. And um Sir in my depictions is not a chimera. Sir in my depictions is like a a chow chow I think. Um but unfortunately that's how I picture him and it's how we'll be watching him. A chimeria is like a little lion thing. This is what um looks like in my heart. Then Hunt tells her to call him if she needs anything. Um and they text a little bit back and forth.
It's a little banter, a little fun. Um but she does not open the window. And then there's a sound from the window and Hunt has flown directly outside the window and is like tapping on it. and he tells her that they're going to have to work together on this investigation so she can go along with things easily or be difficult. But he really does need her to make that list of suspects he'd asked her for earlier that day yesterday. The next morning, Hunt calls Isaiah and Isaiah says, "Why are you calling me already?" Hunt says, "Are you aware that Chimeas are able to pick locks, open doors, and jump between two places as if they were walking from one room to another?" And Isaiah goes, "Uh, no. What?" And we learn that clearly. B.
Bryce does not either because she crates and serrings is a chimera and so can do whatever the heck he wants. Hunt goes, "This is already a nightmare." And Isaiah says, "You watch Quinnland for one night." And Hunt says 10 hours to be exact. Right until her pet chimera just appeared right next to me at dawn bit me in the ass for looking like I was dozing dozing off, dozing off and then vanished again. Just as Quinnland came out of her bedroom and opened the curtains to see me grabbing my own butt like an idiot.
Do you know how sharp a chimera's teeth are? I have a question actually I just thought of. Um, if Hunt is supposed to be like watching Bryce, I guess, 24/7.
Is he not going to sleep? Like, when is he supposed to sleep? He just like sat on He just like sat on the roof across the way and was like waiting for murderers. Seems kind of crazy. Whatever. Um, I love Sar. She's a star. He's a star. Sorry. Serings is a boy. Hunt had checked her windows, but they were like heavily enchanted. And Isaiah goes, "Where's Quinnland now?"
And Hunt says getting her nails done, which he had gotten up this morning, gotten ready for a run, and then run over to get her nails done. And Hunt is just like staring in the windows watching her. And Isaiah's like, "I'm hanging up now. You face down enemy armies, survived Sandrel's arena, gone toe-to-toe with Archangels. Surely a party girl isn't as difficult as all that." Um, and then Hunt is just there being like annoyed that it's taking so long. Bryce comes out of the nail salon and Hunt is so annoyed with her. And Hunt is like, "I told you to make those lists. What are we doing? Why are we doing this?" And Bryce says, "If you were so good at investigating, then why don't you look into it and spare me the effort?" And Hunt says, "You were given an order by the governor, and I'd think you'd be personally motivated." And Bryce is just like very like being like stubbornly unhelpful. Then they head to work. Bryce has to go to work, and um Hunt is he's left out. He does not get to come into work with her. Um and Lehaba says, "I don't see why you can't just let the angel in. He's so handsome and he's just sitting on the roof in the dreary weather. Let him rest on the couch down here." Sir says the angel can brush his coat if he needs something to do. And Bryce says, "The angel is not allowed in here." And Laaba says, "One day the boss will trade my services to some leerous old creep, and you'll regret ever denying me anything."
And Bryce says, "One day that leerous old creep will actually make you do your job and guard his books, and you'll regret spending all these hours of relative freedom moping." And Lelay says, "Buy my freedom from Jezebel, and then I can go live at your apartment and keep your baths and all your food warm."
Bryce knows that Lehaba actually has more power than her. But that's mostly because Bryce's power is like pretty small, pretty insubstantial.
But Bryce is like, "My apartment doesn't allow fire or water sprites, and Jezeba Jezeba um might just like get rid of Lehaba if Bryce asks to buy her." Bryce had bought Searings from Jezeba in the wake of Danica's death because because Jezeba was going to sell serranks to one of her clients and um Bryce like lost it. She like was not doing well. This is I think like pretty immediately after Danica's death and she made up she made a trade with Jezeba to purchase Sirings.
Lehaba really wants to talk to Hunt and and brings up that there are members of the same house pre-rebellion. Um and we then get a little bit more of a conversation and an explanation on why Laaba is guardian of these books because it kind of seems like a bad idea for a fire sprite to guard books. Obviously they're made of paper but mostly La Haba's job is to make sure the books don't escape. These books are like incredibly magical and a lot of them would love to be out in the world. Um, and there's like a thump below and Lehava goes downstairs to go check on the books cuz clearly one of them is trying to escape just as Jezeba calls.
Jezeba calls to kind of like check in to see how the investigation is going, but mostly to let Bryce know that there is a client coming at 2 p.m. and stop talking with Lehava too much. So Bryce heads down to the library basement, which is mostly bookshelves, only interrupted by like a lot of large tanks and terrariums. There are lots of snakes and lizards and rodents, people who Jezebel has turned into creatures because they made her mad in some way. Leia has named them all, but she never names the creatures that occupy the big tank, which is currently empty. Last year, it had been occupied by a kelpie who loved humping the wall of the tank, and Bryce made sure that guy was given away quickly. The big tank is always occupied by like some large spooky monster is essentially the impression we're given.
And we know the kelpies are like bad news because um oh I guess normally I try not to spoil other series. I mean we see a kelpie in silver flips. That's all I'll say. Cut to Mr. Rune. He's having broody teenage moment even though he's 75 years old. Like get over yourself. Run is chilling in bed. He's taking a couple hits of mirthroot after the meeting with his father. There's a party going on downstairs and he's drifting off to sleep when he wakes to the smell of Bryce in his room. He's confused how she even got in here, but Declan and Flynn must have let her inside. And this is the first time she's ever been at his place since she was 16, which is a decade ago at this point when they had that really big fight. And Bryce is like, I need to talk to you.
Hold on. I like made a very interesting point and I'm going to read it to you. I know I already talked about this, but I said, I'm really interested in the depiction of aging for immortals in SJM.
Like, he's 75 and still acting 22. While no spoilers for other series, let's think about where we leave some of our favorite 20-year-old girlies. like they're also immortal, but the way in which these girls have to grow up so fast despite the fact that they are immortal is cuckoo bananas will make your head spin if you think about it for too long. Our immortal boys do not have to grow up this quickly. Bryce says, "I need to talk to you." And Bryce realizes that Run is high as a kite and leaves to get him a water. And Run real realizes this must be like really important. One, because Bryce never comes to see him, but two because she's like needs him to be like with it. Head downstairs where Tristan and Declan are. We learn that Tristan is the son of a fa lord. He currently has a girly draped over his lap. Bryce is annoyed with him because he's clearly taken some of the stuff that Run has. Like everybody is not fully present mentally. Declan calls out to her. She passes with a guy sprawled in his lap. And he says, "Hey Bryce, to what do we owe the pleasure?" And Bryce says, "I'm checking in on the chosen one. How's your fancy tech crap going, Declan?" And Declan says, "Still raking in the marks." And we learn that Declan is the son of I don't know if we know his name. I don't have his name written down, but he owns this like magitech corporation that will become important.
We've like talked about it a few times.
It'll come up a lot. It is like this big kind of corporation that kind of underpins a lot of things that are happening in the world of Luna right now. Run tells off some of the other guys, Ogaline Bryce, she's off limits.
People really love to ugle ogle rice. I don't know which one's correct. They go to the kitchen. They get him a water bottle and the boys come into the kitchen with them and there's like some friendlyish insults tossed around. The boys are really close because Sarah J.
Mask will always prioritize a few male friendships in her book, but also they um this trio went through the ordeal together, which is this like great challenge that you have to complete before you go through the drop. It's the other part of the drop. You have to go through a great challenge and this trio did it together. But then Bryce and Rune head back upstairs to talk because because Bryce does not want the boys eavesdropping. She wants to know if he's heard anything about the Viper Queen because she needs to talk to her because Maximus was killed in the Viper Queen's territory. And Bryce explains that she's looking into this murder on the order of the governor because he thinks that she's the link between the two murders.
And Rune, of course, is worried about his sister, worried that she's going to be too reckless. But Bryce is like, "I don't have a choice. It is part of my job. Like Micah has made it so." And then Run asks if Bryson knows anything about Luna's horn. And Bryce says, "Um, Jezebel had me look into it two years ago, but it was a dead end." And then Run points to her necklace, the Archesian amulet that Jezeba has given her, and says, "Don't take that off."
And Bryce goes, "Does everyone in this city think I'm done? Why would I take off my protective amulet when there's a demon running around trying to gobble people up?
And Run says, "I mean it. Beyond this all the stuff you do for work, beyond all the stuff you do for work, if you're looking into someone strong enough to summon a demon like that, don't take that necklace off." And Bryce is like, "Okay." Anyway, if you hear anything about the Viper Queen, some call me. And Run says, "Do not provoke her." And Bryce says, "Bye." And Rune says, "I'll go with you." Bryce is like already headed out the door. And she walks straight to hunt Athlart right across the street. And Run is like, "What the heck is going on?" He like runs over there. He punches a car as he like runs to get towards them. He starts yelling at Hunt, who is very like chill. And he explains that he's on protection duty for Bryce in order of the governor. And Run says, "Tell the governor to put someone else in the case." And Hunt says, "Not an option. Not one place to my expertise." Apparently Run and Hunt had gotten into a little bit of a tussle about a year ago at a spring equinox party, and Rune wants to punch Hunt again. So, there was a fist fight, but Declan comes out of the house and reminds Rune that it isn't a good idea.
And then Run says to Hunt, "Don't let her go to the Viper Queen." Clearly, Hunt has not known about Bryce's plan to go to the Viper Queen cuz he looks a little surprised at this. And Rune watches as they walk away, Hunt matching Bryce's pace. Could it really be a coincidence that the murders were starting again at the same time his father had given the order to find an object that had gone missing a week before Danica's death? It felt odd like Erd was whispering, nud nudging them all. Run to planned. Run planned to find out why. Starting with finding that horn. Bryce and Hunt continued to walk home. And Bryce hands over her list of suspects. She had made it the night before. And Hunt is like, why didn't you tell me this earlier? Like, why did you pretend that you didn't have this? And Bryce was like, after you spent a whole day assuming I was a dumb, vapid female more interested in getting my nails done than solving this case. And Hunt said, okay, like you did get your nails done this morning. And Bryce is like, "I also did some research on Maximus and found his dating profile and his girlfriend."
And guess what? His girlfriend does nails. Bryce went to Maximus's girlfriend and chatted her up. And the girlfriend told her she would have known if Maximus was friends with Danica because Maximus would have bragged about it and he had never said anything about knowing Danica. The closest thing would have to be through two degrees of separation. The Viper Queen got her nails done on Sunday. So, Maximus's girlfriend gets his nail gets does the Viper Queen's nails and the Viper Queen worked fairly closely with Danica a few times. And Hunt asks, Danica knew the Viper Queen and Bryce explains that Danica's job on the ox made her a friend and enemy of a lot of people. The Viper Queen was one of them. And Hunt says, "Do you think the Viper Queen killed Danica?" And Bryce says, "No one knows what kind of power she has. She could have summoned that demon." Hunt explains that they'll have to jump through a lot of hoops to talk to her because she is the leader of the meat market. um because she has this political power, they can't just like do whatever the heck they want. They like need to go through the proper tunnels, tunnels, channels.
So, it might take a while. Um but he's like, "But the laws are there to like keep us safe." And she explains that she went to talk to Rune about this because she wanted to get the FA reaction to the investigation and she knows that Rune will tell the Autumn King and she wants to know like the Autumn King's reaction to this and asks Hunt to put some people on watching the Autumn King. But Hunt does not want to do that because the Autumn King will not take kindly to that and the Autumn King would have free reign to kill anyone following him because again he is a political leader in the city. And Bryce says, "Okay, well then you better tell your spies to keep themselves hidden." Hunt yells at Bryce for not telling him sooner. And Bryce is like, "I was going to tell you after I got my nails done, but you were too cranky." And then we get a little more about fa royalty. Essentially, it's like the king of England. Like it's mostly like an honorary ruling thing. um because they must bow to the republic like overall like the government is actually run by Micah and the the republic but the autumn king does have this like leadership role and is like on the city council like mostly in terms of like he's like king of all the fay on pageera I think maybe or for a portion of it but um that is like mostly honorary because like the stereo in church Bryce goes back home and pretty quickly sneaks out the back door hops on her scooter there's a lot of traffic and she just like disappears right into it and she heads off into the darker part of town and doesn't get off until she's reached the shadowy warehouse district where the the meat market is the marketplace where they do crime. Um, as soon as she's there, Hunt slams into the ground next to her and says, "I'm going to kill you." And Bryce says, "You're 2 minutes late." And Hunt says, "There's no way that Scooter is going to be there when we get back." And Bryce says, "Good thing you've made such a big entrance.
No one would dare touch it. Not when the Umbra mortise is my wrathful companion."
Everyone in the market has their eyes on Hunt. They know who he is. He's like notorious obviously as this like government mercenary and also as a government official in the crime district. You don't want government officials around.
N says, "I told you there were processes for talking to the Viper Queen." And Bryce says, "That's not what we're doing here." Bryce makes a note of this giant grim reaper kind of like mural on the side of one of the buildings with a um like a writing above it that says momentto mori which means like remember you shall die and again more Latin.
These guys they're obsessed with the Roman Empire. Bryce is wearing a leather jacket with the phrase through all love through love all is possible in an ancient language on the back and I have to wonder is it in Latin or is it a different ancient language? Bryce is familiar with some of the vendors at the market and she explains that several of them um she knows several of them with her work through her work with Jezeba.
Also the few the fruit vendor gets durian for her and durian is Sarinx's favorite. She also seems to know the book lady but won't explain that connection to hunt. Bryce starts knocking at one of the doors and calls out, "I'm here to buy, not to collect."
A sader opens the door and is clearly like a little bit scared of Bryce. She doesn't ask him. She asks him to purchase obsidian um salt, summoning salt, and he tells her he doesn't deal in that, but Bryce continues to demand that. Um Nant is shocked because blacks salt is used for summoning demons, and he is like, "What the heck is she doing?" Showing him that she's capable of summoning the salt that was used to like get the demon that murdered these people. Like, doesn't she know she's kind of a suspect? Like, this is really suspicious behavior. Um but the sader continues to claim he doesn't sell it because it's too dangerous. And Bryce says, "Did you say that to Philip Briggs when he bought it for his mom?" And the sader says, "I don't know what you're talking about. I was cleared by the investigators." And Bryce says, "Look, I'm tired and hungry and I don't feel like playing this game. Name your price so I can be on my way." And the sader says, "Fine. 50,000 gold marks." Bryce is able to get it down to 10,000 gold marks by invoking Jezeba and essentially like scaring the pants off of him. And then she gets 7 lb and 7 ounces cut into sevens, which is like the holy number.
And as they leave the sader's place, there's a woman waiting for them. The Viper Queen Bryce says to her, "Nice outfit." And Viper, the Viper Queen says, "Nice bodyguard." Bryce says, "Nothing going on upstairs, but everything happening where it counts."
The Viper Queen says, "I've never heard Hunt Athlar described that way, but I'm sure the general appreciates it. Looks like you were doing some shopping." And Bryce is like, "I do love a bargain."
And the Viper Queen heard rumors that um Bryce and Hunt had been coorting around town together. Bryce tries to leave, but the Viper Queen's guards stop them and they are directed to the Viper Queen's office and goes, "This is a terrible idea." And Bryce says, "You were complaining this morning that I wasn't doing anything of value, and now that I'm doing something, you're complaining about that, too." She's decided to skip the paperwork and get a a meeting with the Viper Queen. They end up in her office, which looks a little more like a stock room than Bryce anticipated. Like, it's pretty small. It's like pretty messy. And the Viper Queen says to them, "You guys are obviously here to ask about Danica." Um, to be honest, she was a threat, but they had a working relationship together um because they sometimes needed to work together. And again, Maximus was annoying to her, but she wouldn't be stupid enough to pick a fight with him, not when he and his father was so powerful. But serpents, apparently, what type of creature she is, can sense coming danger, and she did warn her people that she thought something was about to go down. And she has an alibi with video footage of her participating in some adult activities.
And then she offers Bryce a job if she ever wants to leave Jezeba's employment.
And the Viper Queen says, "Here's a pro tip for your little investigation. Look towards where it hurts the most. That's always where the answers are."
And the Viper Queen also warns Bryce to be careful with that obsidian salts. And then they are sent away. They head out of the meat market. They both believe that the Viper Queen didn't have anything to do with the murders. It's like, "We're back to square one." And Bryce says, "Not totally." She said to look where it hurts the most for answers. And she Bryce has kind of like recognized that that does resonate with her a little bit. She's not ready to explain exactly what it means to her to hunt yet, but she like has some some clues on where she wants to go next. She also won't tell Hunt what this her plans for the salts are because she definitely has some. The next day at the gallery, Bryce goes down to make a list of everything that Danica was working on before she died. Um, but instead, she starts going through her emails with Maximus, trying to find some connection there between Danica and him. Lelay is meanwhile chilling downstairs on her tiny fainting couch and she's watching a show on her tablet and once again she's trying to convince Bryce to let Hunt come downstairs and work with her, mostly because Lelay is obsessed with Hunt because he's really handsome. About a half an hour later, she's upstairs and she calls Hunt and she says, "Hey, I need your help with something." And then Hunt heads over and Laaba knocks on the door as soon as she hears Hunt upstairs and she goes, "Babi, are you all right?"
And Bryce says, "I'm fine. Go back downstairs and do your job." And Lelay says,"I want to see you with my own eyes. I can't focus on my work until then." And Bryce tells Hunt if she takes him downstairs, she can't he cannot tell Micah what he sees down there. He has to swear himself the secrecy. Hunt says, "I promise." Although Micah can like make him talk if he insists upon it. And Bryce says, "Well, don't give him a reason to be curious." Obviously, pretty much everything in the library basement is contraband, and people have died and killed to protect the books that are stored down there. And Bryce says, "Consider this your birthday present, Lely." Hunt comes downstairs. Lel is like floating around and Hunt says to Lely, "Aren't you beautiful?" Obviously obsessed with this. Obvious obviously obsessed with this. Um, Lehaba is such a queeny queen. She's the rock star of this book. We love her. We love Saranks.
And so obviously we love that Hunt like is admiring Lehaba. Laaba flared as she wrapped her plump arms around herself and ducked her head. And Bryce says, "Stop pretending to be shy." and La Haba cuts her a simmering glare. Punt lifted a finger for her to perch on. "Shall we?" La Haba shone ruby red, but floated over to his scarred finger and sat, smiling at him beneath her lashes. "He is a very nice BB." Laaba observed as Bryce walked down the stairs, the sun chandelier blinking to life again. "I do not see why you complain so much about him." And then La Haba says, "Siri says you can brush him now." And Bryce says, "Hunt is busy." And Hunt says, "Siri talks, does he?" And Bryce says, "According to her, he does." Lehaba tries to tell Hunt about the books, but Bryce shushes her and Leellay huffs off.
And then Leah Haba says, "Be try pretends to be mean, but she's a softy.
She bought Siri because Jezeba was going to gift him to some warlord in the Faren Mountains. Bryce once again tries to shush her, but Laaba winds up explaining that Serings was stolen from his mother as a cub." And then Jezeba brought him as a pet. And then Bryce bought his freedom. No one can buy him again. He's got the free band on his paw. So Bryce didn't buy Searings. She brought she bought his freedom. And La Haba says, "How much to buy how much does it cost to buy you Ay?" And Bryce says, "Lely, that's rude. And don't call him Ay."
And La Haba says, "He and I are of the same house and are both slaves. My great-g grandandmother fought in his 18th legion during the rebellion. I am allowed to ask."
And says, "I was sold to Micah for 85 million gold marks." And Lehaba says, "I cost 90,000 gold marks. Siri was 233,000 gold marks. Hunt is shocked that Bryce was able to pay that much and Bryce is like, "Well, I did give him the employee discount 15% off and we also came to an agreement." Laaba explains that Jezeba just pulls the funds out of Bryce's paycheck and Bryce will be paying Searings off until she is like 300 years old. Hunt goes, "Why?" And Bryce says, "Because that warlord wanted to hurt and break him until he was a fighting beast.
Sir is my friend and I was sick and tired of losing friends." And Hunt says, "I thought you were loaded." And Bryce says, "Nope. Danica bought the apartment and put it in both of their names and Bryce continues to live there because of the security it offers. Laaba like chats with everyone for another minute, announcing that she's going to go take a nap. And then one of the books starts thumping around and she has to go put it in his place. And then Lahaba says, "Do not let any of the books sweet talk you into taking them home. They'll do anything to get out of here. They are desperate to be in the world again."
Hunt then asks about like the creatures in there. And Bryce explains they your people that Jezeba has turned. and they start talking about like Bryce's schooling and how she ended up working here um and how she had gotten this job through Fury who had worked with Jezeba in the past and Hunt asks about her knowledge and relationship with Fury because um in general kind of like maybe suggesting that Fury might be connected to Danica's death and Bryce is like no um there's no way that Fury killed Danica they were like they were friends and Hunt explains that he's 233 so he was like pretty young during the rebellion again this is an appropriate romanty age over the age of 00 and Hunt says, "Have you ever killed before?" And Bryce goes, "Yes." Surprise lit his eyes, but she didn't want to go into it.
What had happened with Danica's senior year that had left them both in the hospital? Her arm shattered. A stolen motorcycle little more than a scrap.
Laaba in cut in front of them in the library. BB, stop being cryptic. I've wanted to know for years, Ay, but she never tells me anything good. Leave it, Laaba. The memories of that trip pelted into her. Danica's smiling face in the hospital bed beside her. How Thorne carried Danica up the stairs of their dorm room when they got home despite her protest. How the pack had fussed over them for a week. Natalie and Zelda kicking the males out one night so they could have a girl's only movie fest. But none of it had compared to what had changed but her between her and Danica on that trip. The final barrier that had fallen. The truth that had laid bare. I love you, Bryce. I'm so sorry. Close your eyes, Danica. This book I feel like is actually like there's a few emotional moments. I'm sure we will. Don't worry.
We'll cry together. But sometimes I'm like struck not by like a particularly emotional moment, just by like the reminder. I'm like reminded of like what Bryce lost. And it like really does like punch me in the guts. Like the thought of losing Danica in the way that Bryce did, I like cannot think about too hard cuz it will make me tear up. Anyway, Hunt's watching Bryce's face and clearly she can see that he can see that she's gone somewhere dark and he asked her, "What is one happy memory you have with Danica from the last week of her life?"
And Hunt is like, "This is how we're gonna make the list. We are gonna make a list of an everything Danica did, going through Bryce's good memories with Danica to like as our like starting point." And Bryce starts with the matching tattoos they had gotten when Bryce was drunk on her back. They write that one down and then work from there until things start getting dark for her again. And she calls it a day and Rune texts her, "Meet me at Luna's temple in 30 minutes." Hunt sees it over her shoulder. Bryce goes, "You think that has to do with last night?" And um Bryce texts Rune back, "Why?" Okay. And Rune texts back because it's one of the few places in the city without cameras. And Bryce goes, "Interesting. You think I should give him a heads up that you're coming?" Goes, "Hell no." They meet up with Rune at the Temple of Luna. Both the wolves and the fay claim Luna as their patron. There's a tour guide kind of explaining things to a group of tourists as they enter the temple, explaining that the statue of Luna was crafted from a single block of marble.
It's adorned with silver, gold, diamonds, and donated by Micah. Of course, they mention Luna's horn, which was stolen from the temple a little over or a little under, I guess, at this point, two years ago. Run is using his shadow magic to keep them kind of like hidden from the tourist group. Just something that like their eyes like glance over. And Run says, "I asked you to come, not him." And Bryce says, "We're joined at the hip now."
Unfortunately, best best friends. And Hunt goes, "The best." Run wanted to talk because the autumn king has sent him on the hunt for Luna's horn. Run explains to Hunt what the horn is. So we get a little bit more about the context around the Lunas horn.
Lunas horn was a weapon wielded by Pelus, the first starborn prince during the first wars. The fay forged it in their home world, named it for the goddess in their new one, and used it to battle the demon hordes they once that once they made the crossing. Pelus wielded the horde until he died. My ancestor, whose power flows in my veins.
I don't know how it worked, how Pelus used it with his magic, but the horn became enough of a nuisance for the demon prince that they did everything they could to retrieve it from him. The star eater himself bred a bred a new horror just to hunt the horn using some blood he managed to spill from Prince Pelus on the battlefield in his own terrible essence. A beast twisted out of a collision of light and darkness. Um and then he's got a manuscript that he's like found this information about like Pelus and the horn and this demon and he shows it to Bryce and the picture is of the demon that Bryce recognizes from the night of Danica's death and run explains that it's called a crystallos demon because of its clear blood and teeth.
It's taken this long for people to put it together because all of the manuscripts that reference this demon were in the old fa language. The horn had cracked in half when Pelus had sealed the northern rift. So it doesn't it didn't work anymore. So why are Jezeba and the autumn king both on the hunt for this horn that does not work anymore? And run says because princes Pelus a starborn power has wor is woven into the horn itself and it's in my blood. My father thinks I might have some sort of prednatural gift to find it. And the book where he found the information on the crystal demon the night before did kind of come to him in a similar way where like he was like walking through the library and he found the book because it was like doing this weird little shimmery thing. He's like so maybe there is something to to it.
And Bryce says the crystallis demon can track the horn but so can you. And also vice versa if they have the horn the demon will come to them. So the horn and the demon are pretty closely linked.
Hunt heads outside to make a phone call leaving Bryce alone with her brother.
He's watching the priestesses and accolades kind of come and go from the temple. They're celibate like Luna is a celibate. And then Hunt calls Justinian and Justinian goes, "How's babysitting?"
Hunt makes like some comments. And then Justin asks if Hunt thinks that Micah assigned him to Bryce's punishment, but Hunt's like, "No, Micah knows to keep Hunt away from Sandreel." And that's kind of like one of the reasons he is on this Bryce duty. And Justin explains that things are getting kind of intense around there as they prepare for Sandre's arriv.
And Hunt asked Justin to look up the crystallo stemon for him. And Justinian says, "No one gets a medal for suffering the most. You know, it's been two centuries since Shahar died, Hunt."
Justin's like making comments about like how Hunt should get with Bryce. And Hunt is like, "No." And Justinian's like, "Um, I don't know why you're being like such a martyr." Like it's been two centuries since Shahar died, but like maybe Hunt doesn't want to be a creeper, you know? Like he is like on official protection duty of Bryce. So like maybe he doesn't want to be a creeper and be like now I'm also dating you. It could be a weird vibe. Um, he also needs to call Isaiah and Micah about this new information about the horn. He couldn't tell what was worse. The horn possibly being a vital piece of the case or the fact that he'd now have to work alongside Rune Dannon to find it. Back inside the temple, Bryce waits until Hunt leaves to ask Rune, "Did the Autumn King do it?" And Run says, "No, he's a monster, but he would not kill Danica."
And Bryce says, "How can you be sure?"
And Rune said, "Why would he ask for me to hunt the horn if he's summoning the Crystalallos? He's just trying to take advantage of the situation." And Bryce is like, "Does the Autumn King know you are here talking to me?" And Run is like, "No, but I want to help you." And Bryce is like, "How very chosen one of you. Just because we're working together doesn't mean anything changes between us. You find the horn and I'll find who's behind this." End of story. And Rune says, "Fine. I wouldn't expect you to consider listening to me anyway." And Bryce says, "Why would I listen to you?
I'm just a half breed." Not nice word.
And And was like, "It was a dumb fight.
I didn't mean it.
I do want to remind you, okay, I love Rune.
He's great. But I do want to remind you this fight was when Bryce was 16.
16year-old girl. He at the time was probably 70, maybe a little younger, maybe 65. Okay. Um, and he called her a half breed.
Not nice again. Not nice.
And he's like, "It was just a dumb fight." And Bryce is like, "You did mean it. You might dress like you're a punk rebelling against daddy's rules, but deep down you know better than the rest of the fay. Poo poo kiss your chosen one booty."
This book has a lot of cussing in it.
And I really do try to keep it keep it clean for YouTube that doesn't like the cuss words, but that does mean sometimes these sound a little sillier than they do in the book. And then she storms out. She grabs Hunt. They head out.
Bryce heads back to the gallery because Jezebel is texting her that she needs to get back to meet a client or Jezebel will turn her into a pigeon. A leopard shifter obviously per my illustration comes in and um he's like all over. He keeps trying to grab her butt. People the sexual harassment that Bryce has to endure on a day-to-day basis is insane.
Please help her. Oh my gosh. Serings needs to be like a taco dog. Anyway, um 30 minutes later he he like buys a statue. 30 minutes later she's all by herself. Run is headed to the FA archives. Um, she'll have to wait to hear any updates from him. Hunt is on the roof making calls to whoever. And so Bryce thinks about the Viper Queen's advice and again turns the list of Danica's activities she'd been working on this morning. And she forces herself to finish it. She's like exhausted by the time she finishes and it's time for her to head home. The next morning, Jezeba calls her first thing and asks her to send her a file in from the computer in Jezeba's office. Bryce is limping pretty badly today and also like backtalking Jezeba as she like walks up the stairs to Jezeba's office. Jezeba meanwhile is telling threatening to turn her into a bug. Jezeba is currently on a business trip to the western shores of Pangangera. And so we get up to Jezeba's office and we make note of the weapon on the wall which is this big rifle that is in a couple pieces called God Slayer.
And Jezeba hangs it there almost like it's a piece of art and it kind of serves two purposes. One to kind of remind clients who's in charge here, Jezeba. and also to kind of give them a sense of like security and knowing that she's got things got things handled.
And um there's a golden bullet engraved with momento mory that Jezeba keeps in a vault next to the rifle. Before she hangs up, she's asked Jezeba if she's heard anything about about the horn and Jeza's like no. As soon as she gets back downstairs, La Haba is like, "Can I see Ay now?" And Bryce is like, "No, Lely."
And then her phone rings and she thinks it's gonna be Jezeba again, but it's actually Hunt. And Hunt says there's been another murdered. It was 10 blocks from here near the gate in the old square. And Bryce goes, "Any witnesses?"
And Hunt says, "No, but let's go over there." And Bryce is like, "I'm busy.
There's a client coming." She's lying, but she's just like really doesn't think she can endure seeing another crime scene that looks like the one that she found Danica in the pack in. And Hunt goes, "We're leaving." He like doesn't care. Okay. The worst. Like, why? Why?
Zero out of 10. The duo arrives in the old square and Bryce is trying to like deep breathe, but like truly having such a hard time. She's like really starting to panic a little and she can't even see very much. She can see like a bit of like blood splatter, but there's like some like screens they have up to like block off like the the worst of the crime scene. They don't know exactly who the victim is, but it appears to be an acolyte from Luna's temple. Hunt is going to get a closer look, but Bryce is like, I need to get out of here. She's like really having a lot of flashbacks to when she found the pack. Run comes up behind her and is like, you don't need to see this. And Bryce is like, don't touch me. And then Run says to Hunt, "You are an a-hole. Like how? Why did you bring her here? H was like, I warned her what we might see. She's a grown woman. She doesn't need you deciding on what she can handle. We'll call you if you're needed, princling. And Run is like, you don't think it's more than a coincidence that an acolyte was killed right after we went to the temple. And Brace is again not doing well. And she walks away trying to get the scent of blood out of her nose, thinking about how she before she like would have gone to a dance studio and like danced for a little bit to like kind of work this out of her system, but she hasn't danced in two years. She has not gone to her dance studio. She has not like danced at a club. She like does not dance anymore and it was like such a huge part of her life before Danica's death. Devastating.
Hunt follows her. He's like trying to talk to her and Bryce is like, "Leave me alone, Athalar." She's thinking about the possibility that she might be the cause of the demon coming to the temple.
And the thought is like making her sick because obviously she was with Maximus right before he died. And then she was in the temple yesterday and now someone else has died. And it's beginning to make her worried that she's somehow connected to all of these deaths. And she's mostly trying not to vomit. And Hunt says, "I was there that night. How did you survive the crystalallos demon?"
And Bryce says, "I didn't survive. It got away." And Hunt says, "But the crystallos pinned Micah, ripped open his chest." And Bryce goes, "Rewind.
The demon in that alleyway was Micah."
Hunt goes on to explain that they were supposed to keep that kind of a secret because it would look bad for the governor to know how like badly he had been injured by this demon. But Bryce is annoyed that no one told her. She had been so worried about that person in the like months afterwards searching hospitals for them to know if they like survived. N says, "Sorry, do you want a medal or something? A parade?" And Bryce is like, "What I wanted was to know that something I did that night made a difference." She'd assumed he died and that they just like dumped his body cuz he was like not an important person. Hun apologizes and also apologizes for her like being a suspect in this case. And she was like, "Wait, I was a suspect?"
And Hun is like, "I did have to consider every possibility." And Bryce says, "Get out of my sight." And then she takes off running. I don't know why that upset her so much. Like obviously you were a suspect girl. Anyway, Bryce winds up outside the White Raven and she scrolls through her phone and she's looking at all of her messages with Danica. Um, scrolling past the ones from that night to earlier messages. And then we're tossed back to a memory of Bryce and Danica from their senior year of college. Bryce and Danica are like bleeding and there are men making them kneel down on this road arguing about bullets. these men are. We can see a stolen motorcycle that's near them that is like completely in pieces after it had crashed into a semi-truck. Danica had wrapped her body around Bryce during the crash to protect her. And Danica had looked over at Bryce and said, "I love you, Bryce, and I'm sorry." It's the first time that she's used those words that like, "I love you." And Bryce says, "Close your eyes, Danica."
And then we're out of the memory. And Bryce heads into the club as Hunt flies close overhead. Hunt knows he'll be in trouble for telling Bryce about Micah, but he doubts that she'll say anything to anyone. He's he'd followed her as she'd like run around town. Isaiah had called to update him that the body was an accolate from the temple and it was a very very young woman. He feels bad about bringing Bryce to the murder scene, and he didn't really think about the fact that it would be traumatic for her until he saw her low-key freaking out. Okay, dumb dumb. Clearly not a thought in that beautiful hat of yours.
Um it started raining by the time she'd gone on her phone, looked at it for 10 minutes and then headed inside the White Raven. He tried to follow, but the bouncer stops him and tries to make him wait in the line, but um he's like, "It's legion business." And he can't find his badge though to like prove that. And luckily, if he a fa waitress peaks her head out of the door and said, and Rizzo says, "Yeah, he's okay. He's in." Rizzo being the um butterfly shifter that is the owner of the white raven. He immediately spots Bryce in a booth drinking something when he gets inside and heads over to her. And Bryce says, "How'd you get in here?" And Hunt says, "It's a public place, isn't it?"
But before Bryce can tease him further, Juniper comes over. And Bryce says, "I was just leaving." But Hunt kind of like slides in the blue booth, blocking Bryce in and says, "I was just arriving. It's nice to meet you. I'm Hunt." Juniper says, "I know who you are. Did you order food? Rehearsal just let out and I'm starving." And Bryce says, "I'm not interested in food. Liquid dinner tonight." But Hunt wants to get something and Juniper explains that they can get whatever food they want. If they just like order it, it'll appear. Hunt realized that he hasn't seen Bryce eat anything today. So, he orders food for her, too, basing it on what he usually smells her eat for lunch. Uh, so cute.
And Bryce says, "Are you going to cut my food, too? Just because you're a big tough guy doesn't mean you get the right to decide when I should eat or when I'm not taking care of my body. I'm the one who lives in it. I know what I want to eat. So, keep your possessive and aggressive [ __ ] to yourself."
Girl, he was just buying you a snack.
You don't have to eat it. He's not doing airplane noises at your mouth. Calm down. Hunt tries to stop her from filling her glass again. And Hunt says, "Don't be such a cliche. You have a rough day and you come to drown yourself in vodka." And he goes to drink some and he realizes it's just water. And Bryce goes, "I don't drink." And Juniper explains that she'd actually invited Bryce tonight because it's been like a while since she's seen her. And Hunt asks Bryce why she doesn't drink. And she's like, "You can probably figure it out." And then Bryce and Juniper head to the bathroom together.
As soon as Bryce is gone, Rune shows up.
Unfortunately, he didn't find anything else out when he went to the archives.
Run explains that Bryce used to dance, and if she had been able to, she probably would have gone into the ballet, like Juniper, but she hasn't danced at all since Danica's death. Um, then the boys spot Bryce as she's walking back to the table. She's clearly cranky about the fact that Run is there, but before they can really deal with that, the club explodes. Bryce is on the ground and she has jumped over Juniper using her body to shield her. There are people screaming, debris and blood and bodies are everywhere around her. And the and then Hunt is over her and he says, "Get up. We need to get out of here now. There could be more." Run has Juniper and Juniper starts yelling at Bryce. Um and I think she slaps her in the face and Juniper says, "I made the drop, Bryce, two years ago. You haven't?
Have you completely lost it?" Matt says, "Juniper." She's shell shocked. Give it a rest. And Juniper says, "Stay out of this." But Bryce is just like can't move. She's like just like staring as Juniper like screams at her. Bryce is like a little banged up and Hunt wants to like have her taken care of. Run like directs him to an apartment that's like close by. It's closer than Bryce's apartment and Hunt is also worried that if they were go back to Bryce's apartment, she would be like too out of it to get them inside because there's enchantments and things that Hunt would or that Bryce would need to make sure that Hunt could get through. He gets her inside. He gets her some water and he starts thinking about what might have happened. Um, it has been years since they would have had an terrorist attack like that since Philip Briggs was like at large. So maybe this attack was also related to him. It seems like the kind of thing that he'd want to do. Like of course the thing that Danica actually put him away on initially was planning an attack at the White Raven like that.
He starts to like clean her up.
Literally like cleaning the blood from inside of her ears and like her knees.
Her knees are like wrecked from throwing herself over Juniper. And Bryce explains that Juniper is supposed to be promoted to principal dancer and she'd be the first Fawn to do so. Um, so if she got injured, it would really interfere with that and that's why Bryce had done it.
And Hunt said she'd made the drop, she would have bounced back quickly. And Bryce goes still. He's working on her knees and he notices that she still has that mask of massive scar from the the massive scar from the Cristalos's demon.
And she'd never had it like properly healed by like some fay healers that would have been able to like blend it in nicer. Bryce says, "Who do you think did it? do you think could be related to us looking into the case? And Hunt says probably not. A bullet to the head would have been a lot more efficient if they were just after these two. It seems like a ripple of a war coming down from northern Pangangera headed here. She wants to go home and shower, but before she can, Rune arrives and Run says, "You're not going to like this at all."
All signs point to the human rebels. The bomb was smuggled into the club through some no new exploding liquid hidden in the of delivery of wine. They left the calling card in the crate, their own logo. Philip Briggs is still locked up, but the rest of his group isn't. He could have just like passed instructions to him. Run goes on to say, "I thought they disbanded. Join other factions or return 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 sea for Crescent City, but I looked at footage of the storage area before the bomb went off. It's hard to make out, but it also could be depicting a curved horn. And Bryce is like, "Was this message for us?" Bryce now is like, "Okay, well, we need to go talk to Philip Briggs." And Ruin doesn't love this idea, but Hun is like, "Okay, we'll line up the paperwork. We'll get it in place. It'll probably take a couple days, but like we can do that. And then Hunt goes to go talk to Isaiah on the phone, kind of leaving Rune and Bryce alone for a second. Run explains that the Autumn King knows that Bryce is involved in the hunt for the horn and has warned Rune. Rune against Bryce and the poison she'll spread. And Rune says he wants to know what you'll do with the horn if found. And Bryce says, "I'm going to use it as my new drinking mug on game day." Hunt hears that and laughs as he comes back into the room after getting off the phone. And Bryce says, "I'm going to give it back to the temple, not to him." And says, "My father says 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." Hunt says, "Why does your king care if Quinnland lives or dies?"
And essentially, it would look bad for him if Bryce died right before the summit. But Bryce does not want Rune in her apartment. Again, no boys allowed.
So Bryce comes up with her own little compromise. She says, "Fine. He said he needed a guard, not you specifically, right?" Athlar stays with me instead.
Order fulfilled. Happy. And Rune says he won't like that. And Bryce says he didn't say who the guard had to be. The bastard should have been more precise with his wording. Run's phone is buzzing with texts from Declan and Flynn.
They're at the club dealing with the aftermath and someone saw Rune there and left and they just like want to check in and make sure he's okay. He texts them that he'll be back and we'll see them at the club soon to help. Bryce says to Rune, "Why were you at the right white raven earlier?" And Run does not want to mention the fact that Rizzo once again called him. He knows that if Bryce finds out that he's been keeping tabs on her, he will get his head bitten off. So, he just says, "I wanted to check out your boss's library." And Bryce says, "What library?" And Run says, "The one everyone says is beneath the gallery."
And Hunt goes, "First I've heard of it."
Run wants to get into the archives to see if there's anything about the horn again to see if like his magical sparkly power will make a book magically sparkle. Okay. Bryce agrees, but in exchange, he needs to allow her to use Declan. Declan has like a lot of tech ability. He's like he's a hacker. Okay.
So, she wants to have him hack some stuff.
Says, "That's fine, but if I tell him about this case, Flynn's going to know about it, too." And Bryce says, "That's fine. I need Declan to find intel on Danica's last movements." And Run says, "I don't know if he can get that." And Lunt says, "The den would have it. Tell EMTT to hack the den archives." EMTT being also Declan. Declan EMTT. It's confusing because he has two first names. And then Bryce is like, "Okay, come to the gallery tomorrow." Bryce and Hunt leave and Run's phone rings immediately. It's the Autumn King. And Autumn King says, "Since you couldn't stop yourself from revealing my business, I wish to make one thing clear regarding the horn. I do not want the angels getting it." also keep an eye on that girl. And the Autumn King just like continues to yell at Rune about the revealing his secrets, but Rune doesn't really care. He's being um like a cranky man internally, not allowed. He doesn't say much of this to Autumn King, but he thinks to himself, "Do me a favor and take my title while you're at it. The royal bloodline ends with me anyway." Um and he thinks about the fact that he had never told his father the truth about this and that instead when his father had asked him like what the what the oracle said to him, he said the oracle told him that he would be a fair and just king. He like really worried when he first got the message from the oracle about his bloodline ending with him that that would mean something would happen to Bryce. And he was like actually like grateful when it turned out that like Bryce's connection to the bloodline was never going to be formally recognized.
And why he's never petitioned for her to be formally recognized is because he feels like that is keeping her safe because like it then the bloodline has nothing to do with her. The autumn king makes some more threats and then hangs up. Bryce and Hunt are walking home.
Things are pretty hectic outside still because of the explosion. They're still like fairly close to White Raven. And Hunt realizes that Bryce is barefoot.
Like her shoes must have fallen off in the explosion. He wants to offer to carry her, but he knows that she'd like freak out on him if he suggests it. So, they just like walk together. They reach the apartment building and the door man is like trying to ask if Bryce is okay and if she was at the club explosion and Bryce just introduces Hunt and explains like kind of dodging his questions entirely and explains that he'll be staying with her for now. They get up to Bryce's apartment, but her key was in her purse, which is still at the White Raven. And so, um, Hunt goes downstairs for her because she's clearly exhausted.
The door man is very suspicious of him, but calls up to Bryce and she confirms that it's okay, that like Hunt can have a key. Bryce unlocks the door and then starts typing on the and then starts typing on the keypad. And Bryce says, "I was waiting. We were supposed to make the drop together. We picked 2 years from now." And Hunt knows she's essentially explaining why she doesn't drink or dance and still has the scar on her leg that it is like this form of punishment that she's given herself for surviving when Danica did not. Bryce slumps into her apartment and Hunt realizes that like wow her apartment is like beautiful and like very well decorated. And Hunt goes, "Why bother waiting?" Bryce says, "Without Danica, we were supposed to make the drop together." Connor and Thorne were going to anchor us. And Hunt goes, "Were you and Danica lovers?" And Bryce goes, "No." Danica and I weren't like that.
Connor and I, Connor Holstrom, I mean, um, he and I, it was complicated. When Danica died, when they all died, a light went out on me.
Oh my gosh. I like truly cannot think about this too hard or I will stop. Hunt wants to tell her that he understands like a loss like that when all your friends and people that you like love are gone in a single day. He understands the impulse to cut out all the things that they that you loved beforehand, but he's like not good about talking about it. He's like, I've never been good about talking about it and I certainly am not going to start now. The phone rings. It's clearly Bryce's mom who's freaking out because she heard about the club explosion and she tried to call Bryce but Bryce didn't pick up her phone and Bryce is like, "I'm so sorry. I actually just dropped my phone into the toilet at work. I like wasn't there. And she like assures her mom that she will call her tomorrow. Bryce then shows Hunt to the guest room. She's like, "I'm going to go take a shower. Feel free to do whatever you need to do in this room." And then Bryce says to him, "Hunt, I need to find who did this. I don't care what Micah's motives are. I don't care if I don't find this person.
It is going to eat me alive." Hunt says, "We will." And then Hunt explains the deal that Micah made him and why he has like this additional skin in the game.
And then he says, "Oh," he's like, "Also, that's a secret. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, so you're not allowed to breathe the word." And she's like, "N says, I'm sorry. I thought you were a suspect. And more than that, I'm sorry I judged you. I thought you were just a party girl, and I acted like an a-hole." And Bryce says, "There's nothing wrong with being a party girl. I don't get why this world thinks there is. It's easier for me when people assume the worst about who I am. It lets me see who they really are. You're saying that you think I'm really an a-hole." And Bryce says, "I've met and dealt with a lot of a-holes, Hunt, you are not one of them." Which is high praise for Miss Bryce. N says, "Do you want me to get food?" And Bryce asks for a cheeseburger and cheese fries and a chocolate shake and then she goes and takes a shower. I do think I think one of the reasons that Crescent City does not resonate with me on the same level that Throne of Glass or even Acatar does is because of this like central theme of like Bryce being kind of like looked down upon because she's a party girl.
That just like doesn't really is that like a philosophy like we still have? I mean, maybe to some extent, but I like feel like less so, especially like as a 22-year-old cuz that's how old she was when she was like really being a party girl. Like, she doesn't drink anymore. I feel like that's a very reasonable thing for a 22-year-old to do. And like, no, I wouldn't maybe like make them the president of the United States, but like I don't think that's I don't know. It's just like a weird dynamic. And she's like, "Everyone thinks I'm a party girl, but I'm really a lot more than that."
And I'm just like, "Okay." I don't know.
Maybe it's just cuz I like don't run in circles where like that's an issue. Not that I'm hanging out with a lot of people who are like truly party girls.
Like that's just not my vibe, but like some people that is their vibe and I think that actually like says very little about them. I know like really really dumb people who love to party and I know really really smart people who love to party and I like to be at my house. I don't know. It's just like a weird cross for Bryce to bear. And whenever it's brought up that she's like I'm underestimated cuz I'm a party girl. And Hunt's like I can't believe I underestimated her cuz she's a party girl. I'm like, "Okay, some of us have real problems. Bryce, do you know how to read?" Okay, then you're better off than a lot of us in the SJM world.
I do know how to read. That wasn't me. I was not talking about myself personally.
I do know how to read. Not to brag.
There are a lot of girlies in the SJM worlds that do not.
Hunt goes into the guest room after dinner and it smells a little like humans. She he can tell that her parents have been here and stayed here. And there's some pictures of Ember, Quinlin, and she's just like gorgeous. She looks a lot like Bryce except she has black hair. And then there's a picture of Emmer Ember and Randall and then baby Bryce. Randall being her stepfather. And Hunt recognizes Randall. Randall is Randall Salago, the legendary war hero and sharpshooter. So he's like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that's Bryce's stepdad." And then there's also a picture of Bryce and Danica. Um, Danica is wearing the leather jacket that now Bryce has that says, "Through love, all is possible in the old language." And it's the only picture, and they're also really banged up. They're like both like pretty bruised up. And uh, Bryce's arm is like bandaged. It's the only picture of Danica seen in the entire apartment.
Um, Danica's sword is in the picture.
And we are reminded once again, we kind of knew this. We saw this like very in in part one, but um Sabine was like pissed that um Danica's sword wasn't anywhere to be found and that Bryce has this sword that is like connected to Danica and to the wolves. The next morning, Hunt wakes up. Sir is on his pillow. He'd closed the door before he went to bed, but now it's open. Sir, good morning. Hello, bestie. It's about 7:00 a.m. He hasn't heard Bryce get up yet, but like honestly, he slept like the dead. He didn't hear the door open either, so like he's like, "I don't know. Maybe she she's up." He goes out in the hallway, peaks down, and her the door to her room is open, and he can see that she's like still fast asleep in bed, and he catches himself staring at her, and like the tattoo on her back, and then he like turns around very quickly as the door opens. Juniper walks into the door with some pastries. She spots Hunt and is like clearly like surprised to see him, but before he can explain, Juniper goes past him into Bryce's bedroom and like wakes up Bryce and is like, "I brought chocolate croissants, so get that bear ass out of bed and into some pants." because Bryce is in her aunties, which is one of the reasons Hun was staring at her. And Bryce goes, "What?" Like, she's just waking up. And at the same time, Hun is like, "Well, it's not what it seems."
And not it's not what it seems. And Juniper says, "Okay, well then some privacy would be nice. If you guys didn't hook up, then you should not really be staring at her butt right now.
Okay, get on out of here." Matt makes himself busy in the kitchen making a coffee, but he can still hear the girls talking. Um, essentially, Juniper is just like checking in, making sure Bryce is okay. Juniper is updating her with everything she learned about the the white raven explosion in the news. Um, the raven is like wrecked and human rebels are suspected.
Fury told Juniper that Rizzo, the owner, has put a bounty on the head of whoever is responsible. And Juniper says, Fury's probably coming home because of it. You know, she can't resist a challenge. And Bryce says, "So she'll come home for a bounty, but not to see us." Juniper says, "You weren't the only one who lost Danica that night. Be we all dealt with it in different ways." Fury's answer to her pain was to bail. Bryce is like kind of cranky about it, but Juniper refuses to fight. Hunt turns on the coffee grinder, and when he's done, the girls are talking about Hunt and how gorgey he is, and Bryce is explaining how like Hunt has been assigned to like protect her. Juniper says, "Is being shirtless in your house part of that assignment?"
Juniper heads out like pretty soon after that. She like has rehearsal and just wanted to come by and check on Bryce and drop off some pastries. Bryce and Hunt are then chatting over the pastries. He asks who has keys to her apartments.
It's her parents, Juniper, and the Dorman. Okay, Hunt also asked for a key and Bryce is like, "No way." And then Bryce calls him an alpha hole. We've heard this term a few times and we get the full explanation here. Um, possessive and aggressive. You know, you males who rip your shirt off at the slightest provocation. You know how to kill people in 20 different ways, who have females falling over themselves to be with you. And when you finally bang one, you go a full-on mating frenzy with her, refusing to let another male look at or talk to her, deciding what and when she needs to eat, what she should wear, when she should see her friends.
And goes, "What are you talking about?
Your favorite hobbies are brooding, fighting, and roaring. You've perfected about 30 different types of snarls and growls. You've got a cabal of hot friends. And the moment one of you mates, the others fall like dominoes, too. And gods help you when they start when you all start having babies.
Oh my gosh, Sarah. Sarah reading herself to filth. Hunt like snatches the croissant from in front of her. And Hunt says, "One, I don't want to sleep with you, so no need to worry about the mating and baby situation. And two, I have no friends. Three, if I was to complain, if we were complaining about people who were clothing optional.
And then Hunt says, "You were going to give me a new set of keys and add me to the enchantments because it is part of my job. And being assertive isn't the first sign of being an alpha hole. It is a sign of me wanting to make sure that you don't wind up dead." And then Hunt is like, "Okay, I need to go to the committium, the barracks essentially, for clothes, and they need to stick together. So Bryce is going to need to come with him." Even though it's the weekend, Bryce has to go to work. So, they decide that they'll stop by the barracks at lunchtime. Um, and then they're going to walk to work together.
They're walking together. Hunt is holding Sir's leash. Bryce has a full face of makeup on and he realizes that it's like part of her armor. It's the way that she is protecting herself. And Hunt goes, "Does your boss ever give you a day off?" And Bryce says, "I get Sundays off and the store is closed on major holidays." And Hunt goes, "What is the deal with you and your cousin?"
Meaning Rune. And Bryce says, "Run and I were close for a few years when I was a teenager and then we had a big fight. I stopped speaking to him after that. and things have been well, you see how things are now. It started as a fight over his father and how he was such a bad guy and then turned into this like screaming match while Rune called her a hussy and told her to stop flirting with his friends. Let's remember again that Bryce was 16 at the time and Run was like 65 or maybe older at this point.
Pat is like, "Okay, that's really rough." And Bryce is like, "I know now that he was just like being like overprotective kind of like his father."
Kind of like her father. I think she says her father. It's like very confusing because it is still secret from like Hunt that Bryce is the Autumn King's daughter, but like we know. And then Hunt asks if Bryce ever has contact with her father. And Bryce says, "Only when I can't avoid it. I think I hate him more than anyone else in Midgard except for Sabine, who's number one on your hate list." And Hunt goes, "Sandreel, she's a sadistic monster."
And he explains that he was forced to work with her for over 50 years before Micah bought him. And Bryce says, "If you ever want to talk about it, Athlar, I'm here." And Hunt goes likewise. And then they walk through the old square and Bryce asks if he's ever made a wish on the heartgate. And he's like, "No, I thought it was only really for kids or tourists." And Bryce says, "It is, but it's fun. I made a wish here when I was 13 when I visited the city for the first time. Run took me." Hunt says, "What did you wish for?" Bryce says, "For my boobs to get bigger." Hunt says, "It seems like your wish paid off." Quinnland.
Bryce says, "Crescent city, where dreams come true." And Bryce says, "What would you wish for if you knew it would come true?" And Hunt thinks to himself, but doesn't say aloud, "For his mother to be alive and safe and happy. for Sandreel and Micah and all the archangels and estari to be dead. For his bargain with Micah to be over and for the halo and sleeve tattoos removed, for the rigid hierarchies of the malachum to come crashing down, but he couldn't say any of that. Wasn't ready to say those things aloud to her. And so instead, he says, "Since I'm perfectly happy with the size of my assets, I'd wish for you to stop being such a pain in my booty."
Later that day, we catch up with the crew. Run is down in the basement with Hunt and Bryce. Forgot her name. Like I haven't said it a h 100 times over the past three hours. Um Laaba is floating around flooding her in her lashes at room new new man in town before retiring to her fainting couch to watch her shows. Bryce is working on her laptop. Hunt is doing like some book research. He's researching the crystallis demon. He's killed a lot of type six demons over the years which is like the highest level except the princes of hell but he hasn't found any similarities yet. And Bryce says, "If we're looking for something that hasn't entered the world in 15,000 years, it might not be in the books, but it might be referenced in some ancient art." Laba, meanwhile, is trying to flirt with Rune. I've never met a prince before. And Rune goes, "They're overrated." And La Haba says, "What is it like to be the chosen one?" Run goes, "Boring. Beyond the sword and some party tricks, there's not much to it." La Haba says, "Can I see the star sword?" Run says, "I left it at home." And then run starts with his like book Spidey senses stuff. Bryce puts on some music. if they chat about it. As Run like kind of scans the shelves, Bryce and La Haba like warn him to not touch any books without like permission because some of the books do bite. He winds up grabbing a book titled The Great Romances of the Fay. And Bryce teases him because this seems more like a spicy little romance read than anything else. And Run tells her that Declan has some information for her and wants to confirm her email address. And then he sends over the file from Declan with all of Danica's locations from her daily routines for the two weeks prior to her death. And she was busy. She was getting around. Bryce says Danica wasn't merely on duty near Luna's temple around that time. This says Danica was stationed at the temple for the two days before the horn was stolen and the night of the blackout. And Hunt says you think she saw whoever took it and they killed her to cover it up. And Bryce says no.
If Danica saw the horn being stolen, she would have reported it. Danica wasn't usually stationed at the temple, but Sabine often switched her schedule around for spite. Maybe Danica had some of the horn sent on her from being on duty and the demon tracked her down.
Hours later, Bryce has gone through Danica's location three times. The first few like entries are from Danica busting um Philip Briggs's bomb lab. And she remembers that night when Danica and Connor came home and they were like really banged up. And she remembers like um kind of like tending to Connor and knowing that she was going to start dating him soon that like there was no more putting it off like the little romance brewing between them that she was going to break up with her alpha whole boyfriend and start dating Connor.
She could like feel it in that moment that like just before something beginning.
And then Bryce turns to Rune, "Found anything yet?" And Rune goes, "Yes and no." This is just a three-page account of Prince Pelus and his bride, Lady Helena. But I didn't realize that Pelus was actually the high general for the fa queen named Thea when they entered this word world during the crossing. And Helena was her daughter. From what it sounds like, Queen Thea was also starborne, and her daughter possessed the same power. Thea had a younger daughter with the same gift, but only Lady Helena gets mentioned.
Nightigh-haired Helena from whose golden skin poured starlight and shadows. It seemed like Pelus was one of several fay back then with the starborn powers.
Bryce blinked. So, what does it have to do with the horn? It mentions here that the sacred objects were made only for fay like them, that the horn worked only when starlight throw flowed through it, when it was filled with power. This claims that the starboard magic can be channeled through the sacred objects, bringing them to life. I sure as heck have never been able to do anything like that, even with the star sword. But it says that's why Prince of the Pit had to steal Pelus' blood to make the crystals to hunt the horn. It contained that essence. I think the horn could have been wielded by any of them, though.
When the horn Well, the horn is broken anyway, Bryce said. Rune tapped the book. Permanently broken apparently. It says here that once it was cracked, the fay claimed it could only be repaired by light that is not light and magic that is not magic. Basically, a convoluted way of saying there is no chance in hell of it ever working again. Sure.
And then Hunt asks why the Autumn King would want it. And Run explains it's essentially for PR that they have the like fay have been declining partic according to the Autumn King that their powers used to be like a lot stronger.
He cites Rune Starbboram uh powers as an example. And Bryce says my own father never had any interest in me for the same reason. And Run says especially after your visit to the oracle.
Obviously Hunt is curious but Bryce is like that's a long story not for now.
Bryce goes on to say, "This whole section is about your fancy avalon avalan cousins, shadow walking, mind readading. I'm surprised they don't claim they're starbor." And Run says, "They're pricks. They do mind speaking."
And then Hunt says, "What if we asked the oracle about the horn? Maybe she could see why someone would want a broken relic." And Bryce says, "We'd be better off going to the mystics." Says, "The mystics are some dark, effed up [ __ ] We'll try the oracle first." But Bryce won't go to the oracle because of what happened to her during that first visit. And so Hunt is going to have to go alone. Then he gets a phone call and he has to go upstairs to answer it. La Haba is distracted by her show and so Run and Bryce are kind of like talking by themselves. Run says, "Your power levels never matter to me, Bryce. You know that, right?" And Bryce says, "Yeah, I know that. What's your deal with the Oracle?" And Run says, "Nothing. She told me everything the Autumn King wanted to hear." And Bryce says, "What? You're upset that it wasn't something as disastrous as mine?" And Rune says, "Look, I've got an ox meeting this afternoon, but I need to prep for, but I'll see you later." Then Rune leaves and La Haba says, "Your cousin is so dreamy." Bryce says, "I thought Athalar was your one true love." La Haba, "Can't they both be?" Bryce, "Considering how terrible they are at sharing, I don't think it'll end well for any of you." And then Hunt emails Bryce to let her know that they're going to head to the Catidium, the like barracks. Um, since left, they bicker a bit through email. Hunt calls her a sweetheart. Bryce does not love that.
She needs to change outfits though, so she can wear different shoes because her leg is killing her today. And La Haba says it's nice to have company down here. And um Bryce says, "I'll be back soon." Not like feeling bad that she's leaving La Haba. They arrive at the Comedium. I think it's the Comedium lobby after shopping on the way to buy Bryce a new phone. While they were at the phone store, Bryce was like playing on Hunt's phone and was scrolling through it and realized that he only had 36 photos from the last four years and they are all crime scene photos. So they're all like blood and guts and gore. And Bryce is like, "You need to take some photos of some nice parts of your life." And Hunt says, "What's the point?" And Bryce goes, "Weirdo." Then she takes a selfie on his phone and um she's like, "Okay, now you have at least one thing." The Continuum is like a pretty massive place since it houses a ton of offices and meeting rooms as well as residences for thousands of people.
They head up to Hunts floor and there is a Legionnaire that kind of like checks out Bryce's butt on the way and they exchange like a flirty little glance. N is thinking about how usually everyone like avoids him because he's so cranky and like broody, but like Bryce is obviously like interacting with people like smiling and I mean not like chatting, but like people aren't avoiding her.
Um, in the elevator, Bryce asks if Hunt knows the name of the Legionnaire who was checking her out, but Hunt is like, "No, there are 3,000 of them in the 33rd alone. I don't know everyone's name."
Hunt is like, "Maybe some guy that checks out your ass before he says hello isn't someone worth knowing." And Bryce says, "That is precisely the kind of person I'm looking for. Hunt goes on to explain that there are both men and women in the 33rd, although more are men and he doesn't have a girlfriend because he is bastard born. So, he didn't have money or a bloodline. So, like what would be the advantage in marrying him?
So, not a lot of people are interested.
And Hunt says, "I had someone once, someone who didn't care about status, but it didn't end well." And then Bryce asks about when he made the drop, and he explains that he made the drop when he was 20, immediately after his mother died. And Bryce says, "Do you ever regret the Angel Rebellion?" And Hunt is like, "I don't know." Then they arrive in Hunt's room. Um, it is like incredibly sparsely decorated. It's just like a bed. And he's like packing a duffel and he explains cuz Bryce comments on it. And he explains that Micah could trade him at any time. So, he just like doesn't want to jinx it by like putting down roots, decorating this place, like making it feel like a home.
And Bryce says, "What would happen if Micah were to die?" And Hunt says, "Our deed of ownership passes to whoever replaces him. If he doesn't have anyone listed, the assets get divided among the other archangels." And then um the bargain that Micah and Hunt obviously would be like completely null. And Bryce asks why Hunt isn't the commander because his lightning powers are like pretty special, pretty pretty like outstanding. And Hunt's like um he's like he like is not kind to people essentially like he stirs up too much drama so he can't be in charge. And Bryce says we have something in common after all Athlar. On their way out, Isaiah calls to let Hunt know that their request to speak to Briggs has gone through. A brakes is being transferred to a prison closer to them and they should be able to speak with him within a couple of days. They get back down to the lobby and Isaiah rushes over to Hunt starts to tell him something, but is interrupted as like a wave of power like sweeps through the room. Everyone kind of like falling to their knees. Bryce is like like physically like literally feels like her knees are trying to like fall out from under her and they're like pretty far away from the front doors.
And then across the room full of of like across these people that are all like kneeling and bowing, they see Sandreel walking in next to Micah. Immediately, Sandreel sees Hunt. And Bryce can recognize Sandreel as well because um Sandreel obviously has been on TV a lot because these are the leaders of these regions. Isaiah tells all of them to bow and makes a note that Pix, the hammer, isn't with them. Bryce snaps a picture like they're bowing and she can tell that like Hunt is not doing well and so she decides to help him out. She like takes a picture with her phone, making sure the volume is on a full blast. And then she stands up and turns to like take a selfie with Sandrel and Micah like in the background behind her. And Bryce says kind of loudly to Hunt, "Thank you for bringing me to see them, shall we?" And then she turns to get them both in a selfie and then tries to pull Hunt back towards the elevator bank. Micah does stop them though, and Bryce tries to play it off like Hunt brought them down here to see these like special guests. And Micah obviously knows this is a lie. And Hunt explains that he actually had just come by with Bryce to grab a few things um because she he's like guarding her obviously um and he like needed to pick up a few things. Isaiah had cleared it and Isaiah confirms this and then Micah gives Bryce like an up and down like a he's checking her out and Bryce is like Micah too bad like he is cold as a fish at the bottom of a lake and um also like mean to my buddy Hunt like I would never give him the time of die. And Bryce says it was nice to see you again. your grace. Just then the elevator doors open and Bryce shoves Hunt inside. They both climb inside, but before the doors close, Micah goes, "I would love to take you to dinner sometime, Bryce Quinnland." And Bryce says, "Cold as ice." Cold as Elsa herself says, "Not interested."
Um, Hunt kind of been in elevator together, just the two of them, and Hunt is just like thinking through everything that just happened and how Bryce had gotten him out of this like tricky situation using her like vapid party girl stickick. And he tells her that um cuz she's like, "Is there another way out of here?" And he's like, "We can leave from the landing like upstairs. We can fly out, but I'll have to carry you." And Bryce is like, "There's not like a back door." And Hunt says, "Yeah, but it's on the main floor. Like we would have to go back down to where we just were." And then he also kind of gives her a warning. He says, "So Pollock isn't here right now, but Sandre's second, Pock is in worse than she is. Like if you if he's around, like stay away from him. Avoid him at all costs." And then Bryce says, "Like my path will ever cross with theirs if I can help it." But Bryce, but Hunt isn't so sure. Like, Bryce kind of made herself a target with a little dramatic.
She pulled downstairs. Sandreel will kind of notice that Hunt was with her.
Um, she won't love that. Also, the fact that she just rejected Micah is not going to bode well. He's like pretty sure that she's kind of like cooked herself some trouble. They head up to the landing and Hunt is like, "Okay, I promise I've never dropped anyone." And he picks her up like bridal bridal style. He has got her scooped. And then he thanks her again for bailing him out downstairs. And they take off and they fly over the city. And Hunt says, "Did you mean what you said to Micah?" And Bryce says, "Of course. Why the hell would I want to go out with him?" Hunt goes, "He, well, he's the governor of Valbara." And Bryce says, "So, just because I saved his life, that doesn't mean I'm destined to be his girlfriend.
It'd be like banging a statue anyway."
Hunt says, "The females who have been with him disagree." Bryce continues to be like, "I'm not interested." And Bryce and Hunt keeps poking, wondering if she's not interested in Micah or if this is just like another one of her like self- punishments, like the the not drinking and the not dancing. And Bryce goes off about how she can just like not be interested. There doesn't need to be a reason. Like maybe she just like wants to be single. Like maybe she just doesn't want a guy right now.
Um and Hunt is like, "You're too easy."
And then he says, "Are you going to come with me to the oracle tomorrow?" And Bryce is like, "No, Athlar, you are on your own for that one." The rest of the afternoon, Hunt winds up staying on the roof across the way while Bryce is working in the building. He just like doesn't want to spend the day underground. And Bryce is working on cross referencing Danica's locations and cross- referencing it with like the murder scene so far and just kind of doing a little a little bit of, you know, work there. Um, but nothing nothing has turned up by the end of the day. He like meets her outside. They head back home together. And Hunt says, "There's a big sunball game on tonight.
Do you mind if I watch it?" And Bryce goes, "You're such a guy with like sports and stuff." And Hunt tries to be like, "Some girls like sports, too." And Bryce doesn't buy it. They like banter.
It's like very cute. They are like very much at this point this like this moment that they shared where Bryce like rescued Hunt essentially has like really solidified them into like a real a real friendship at this point. They're almost to Bryce's apartment when Hunt's phone rings. It's Micah and Micah says, "I hope I'm not interrupting your fun with Miss Quinnland. Whatever occurred in the lobby this morning is never happened again. Understood?" And Hunt goes, "Yes." And he much prefers this where he like gets a like a stern warning on the phone from Micah rather than what would have happened if he was with Sandreel.
Sandreel would have dragged out his punishment for like weeks and months if this had happened and she was still on if he was still under her ownership.
Micah has a job for him to do and he's like, "I've left the files for you in your rooms in the barrack. So, get two up." Hunt then is like, "Okay, I actually have to go get some work done.
I will see you later." He drops Bryce off at her apartment. He like flies up to leave. He calls Justinian.
Justinian's going to babysit Bryce from outside while he goes and takes care of whatever he's supposed to get taken care of. We essentially see like a very short little execution. This guy like pleading for his life. Um and Hunt shooting him in the head. Um it's a cougar shifter.
And then afterwards he heads back to the barracks to like get cleaned off. He's not going to come back to Bryce's place looking like this. He showers off.
Typically he would take longer, but he knew Justinian was waiting for him. He gets himself together, gets himself cleaned up, and heads back to Bryce's place around 11 p.m. Bryce is already in her bedroom with the door shut when she gets when he gets back, but Sirink starts yelling, and Bryce is like shushing him. But Hunt hopes she'll like stay in her bedroom because he's like not really in the mood to talk with anyone. And he almost makes it to his room before Bryce's door opens. And he she goes, "Yeah, you're back." And he goes, "Yeah." He choked out. Even across the room, he could feel her questions, but she just said softly, "I recorded the game for you if you still wanted to watch it." Something tightened unbearably in his chest, but Hunt didn't look back. He slept into his room with a mumbled knight and shut the door behind him. Sorry, that's so sweet.
So sweet. I love it. The next day, it's oracle day. Hunt goes to the oracle. Um the the um the oracle situation is confusing to me. Anyway, he walks into this room. There's like giant doors. I think they're in like a cave. And the oracle is like across the way in this like hole in the wall that is like shrouded in mist and steam. He can like see her silhouette on the other side of the door. The vibes are weird. And the oracle says to him, "I wondered when the shadow of death would dare enter my chamber." And then she kind of like emerges and she's a sphinx. She's like a gorgeous gold lioness with the head of a woman. Okay, so I guess Oracle isn't a species. She's a spinx. Oracle is a title, though. Um Hunt thinks to himself, no one knew her name. She was simply her title, Oracle. He wondered if she was so old that she'd forgotten her true name. And then Hunt says to her, "What I say here is confidential, right?" And the oracle says, "Once the gods speak, I become the conduit through which their words pass. But yes, this shall be confidential." And Hunt says, "Why does someone want Luna's horn?" And the oracle says to open the doorway between worlds. They wish to use the horn to reopen the northern rift. The horn's purpose wasn't merely to close the doors. It opens them too. It depends on what the bearer wishes. And Hunt says, "But the horn is broken." And the oracle says, "It can be healed." And Hunt says, "How?" "It is veiled. I cannot see. None can see." Hunt says, "Who wants to do this?" this and the oracle says this too is veiled and Hunt is like okay thank you so much for your help and then the oracle says to her do you wish to know what I see in your future Orion A Orion Athlar and Hunt says no one has spoken that name in 200 years and the oracle says the name your mother gave you shall I tell you what I see Orion says I'm not sure I want to know and the oracle says people come from across Midgard to plead for my visions and yet you do not wish to know that says I thank you but no and the oracle says says, "Did Bryce Quinnland tell you what occurred when she stood in this chamber 12 years ago?"
And Hunt says, "No, that's Quinnland's business." "You do not wish to know what I saw for her, either." "No, it is her business." "You remind me of that which was lost long ago. I did not realize it might ever appear again." Before Hunt can ask a clarifying question about what the heck that means, the oracles, the doors open and it's clearly like a dismissal. There's like a gust of wind kind of like shoe and hunt, time out.
Your time's up. And as he's walking out the door, the oracle says to him, "Do yourself a favor, Orion Athlar. Keep well away from Bryce Quintland."
We're back. My hair looks different.
Probably everything looks a little different, but I did put on the same outfit to trick you into thinking maybe this is the same day. It isn't cuz it got dark out, so I couldn't record the next part once my battery was charged.
Anyway, we just have a few bits and bobs left. So, Hunt emerges from the Oracle.
He heads out to the edge of Oracle Park where Rune and Bryce are waiting for the hymn and he kind of fills them in on what the oracle said about the horn being able to open up the northern rift.
Isaiah has questioned the other acolytes at the temple and the girl that was killed was um the only acolyte that was actually like on duty in the temple the night the horn was stolen. Um they had already interviewed her obviously when the horn was stolen.
Isaiah and Micah had interviewed her. I think Isaiah hadn't interviewed her. I don't think Micah busies himself with that kind of activity. And she didn't know anything, or at least that's what she had said. Hunt goes on to say, "Whoever is looking for the horn doesn't want us anywhere near it. They could have learned she'd been on duty that night and gone to extract information from her. They'd have wanted to make sure she didn't reveal what she knew to anyone else to make sure she stayed silent permanently." Very drama. And then Bryce says, "If that mark on the crate was really the horn, then maybe the ofian or even just the curious sect, which are two of the terrorist sects that are in like the human freedom, liberation situation, is seeking the horn to aid in their rebellion, to open a portal to hell and bring back the demon princes here in some sort of alliance to overthrow the Asteri. Millions would die. Maybe Danica caught on to their plans about the horn and was killed for it. The acolyte, too." Hunt goes on to say that they would need to get a veneer involved. Like the humans wouldn't be able to summon a demon, but like there are some veneer that are sympathetic to the caused. He also brings up the idea of the witches perhaps being connected and run immediately like shoots that idea down because the witches have been loyal to the Aster for like thousands of years and he doesn't see how they like it. It seems unlikely that they would have broken away. And Bryce says, "The horn can only be used by a starbborne fay by you, Rune." And Hunt says, "Maybe they're trying to find another way around it." And Run says, "Honestly, I'm not even sure if I could use the horn if even if we found it." Prince Pelus had an ocean of starlight. Like, and then he explains that like he's got a sparkle.
He can pull like one sparkle in his little hand.
And Bryce says, "Well, you're not going to use the horn even if we do find it, so it doesn't really matter." And Run says, "If someone can repair the horn, I don't even know how that would be possible." I read I read some mention of the horn having a sort of sentience to it almost like it was alive. Maybe a healing power of some sort would be applicable. A med witch might have some insight. And Bryce is like no I don't think so. The horn is not like a person.
Med witches don't like heal broken items. She like goes on to say that like they need magic that is not magic and light that is not light. And H is like yeah that's just kind of like what they say in the legend. I don't really think that's going to be the secret to fixing this horn. and Run says, "Okay, we'll look into it, though."
Bryce and Hunt head back to the library.
Bryce is working with Danica's map of locations again. Laaba is watching her TV show. And Hunt is working at the other end of the table. And she keeps looking up. And every time she looks up, Hunt is staring at her. And finally, Bryce goes, "Why are you staring at me?"
And Hunt says, "You want to tell me why the Oracle warned me to stay the hell away from you?" Oh, and Bryce explains that um it's like a fay tradition that kids go to the oracle when they are 13 or for girls when they have their first period, whichever like comes first um to figure out whether like um in the olden days it used to be to like find out who their like ideal match would be, but now it's more used to like kind of project like what kind of career you might want to go into and stuff like that. When Bryce started her period, her mother had kind of like freaked out and been like like am I separating you from half your heritage because she is raised like completely in the human world and she does have this bay heritage and so she contacted Bryce's father. Two weeks later the documents showed up declaring me a full civotas. It came with a catch though. I had to claim Sky and Breath as my house. I refused but my mom actually insisted I do it. She saw it as some sort of protection. Bryce goes on to explain that then she came to Luna. She came to Crescent City. It was the first time she had met Rune. She stayed in Five Roses. Um, met the autumn king. She met her father. She says both those things and she's like lying about that was easy. Okay, gorge. Um, and things were like really fine for the first few days. She like enjoyed her time here until she went to the oracle. Bryce goes on to say, "It was catastrophic. When the oracle looked into her smoke, she screamed, clawed at her eyes. I heard later that she went blind for a week.
Apparently, my future is that bad." Hunt says, "What happened with your father?"
Bryce says, "He called me a worthless disgrace. stormed out of the temple's VIP exit so no one would know he was with me. And by the time I caught up, he'd taken his car and left. When I got back to his house, I found my bags on the curb. And she talks about how like Run had tried to help her, but the king had forbade him from interfering. And Bryce goes on to say, "Apparently or still pissed about it." And then Bryce is like, "Anyway, have you found anything in your research?" And Hun is like, "Not really. The only thing I've turned up is this like 15,000year-old ace. It's a little younger than Pelus, so it would have been like a hundred years after his death, but the chrysalos is depicted. It shows the chrysalis being run through the head with a sword, which is like a good sign, it says, because it seems like if a stabbing in the head would kill it, that means they can just stab in the head. Like, it doesn't seem like that sword is like a special item or something. But Bryce is like, "No, I don't think so." Given that it like really destroyed like the entire pack of devils, I don't really think that like just if it could have been killed with just a sword, they like they would have been able to do it. And how's like, well, maybe they had the demon had like the element of surprise on its side. And Bryce is like really kind of getting like a little on edge. She's getting a little testy now because she is really taken back to that place where she is like walking through that apartment the night she got home and found everyone just like the in pieces and just like the complete gore she walked into. And Bryce goes, "Or maybe this is just a BS rendering by an artist who heard an embellished song about it around the fire and did their own take on it." And Hunt is like, "Okay, like cool." He goes on to read more about the uh vase from the computer and explains it's like supposedly from Parthos. And um he's like, which is like crazy because Parthos isn't real. It is a human fairy tale. And we learn that Parthos is this like mythical library that was part of the human civilization that was destroyed when the like rift opened for the first time and like all the vaner came into Midgard. There's like no evidence of it existing. And Bryce says, "Because humans were no better than rock banging animals until the Asteria arrived." And Hun's like, "Tell me you don't believe that conspiracy crap about an ancient library in the heart of a pre-existing human civilization. If something like that did exist, where's the evidence?"
I don't know.
Maybe the fact that we have this face with the library. What do you mean? You can't like find evidence and then be like, "It must be mislabeled." the library of parthos is giving the library of Alexandria which again giving ancient realm it's giving the Roman Empire in like a a strongly a strong strong way.
Then Hunt asks her how her like search into Danica's locations is going and Bryce is like the only thing weird that I found is that Danica was stationed at the temple the night the horn was stolen in like I think a couple nights prior as well and she's like that she was never stationed there. She was stationed around there but like never there. So that's like kind of unusual. And Hunt says maybe Philip Briggs will enlighten us tonight. He explains he just got notice from Victoria that Philip Briggs has been transferred to their prison and he is ready to speak to them. He also warns Bryce that like hey just like a warning this is probably not going to be like a fun conversation. Like I'm sure Philip Briggs will not have nice things to say about data car. Are you sure you can handle it? And Bryce is like I'm fine. And then Hunt like continues to poke at it because he's like you didn't seem fine when I like even brought up the vase. So like I don't know how you're going to do with this. And Bryce goes get out. Just because we're working together doesn't mean you're entitled to push into my personal matters. And Hunt says, I went ahead to the continuum in 20 minutes. I'll wait for you outside.
Bryce walks Hunt up back upstairs and then closes the door and like collapses to the ground. And she thinks to herself, they were gone. All of them.
Thanks to that demon depicted on an ancient vase. They were gone and there would be no more wolves in her life. No more hanging out in her apartment. No more drunken stupid dancing on the street corners or blasting music at 3:00 in the morning until their neighbors threatened to call the 33rd. No friends who would say I love you and mean it.
Sir and Leelle came creeping in. The chimera curling up beneath her bent legs, the sprite lying belly down on Bryce's forearm. Don't blame Ay. I think he just wants to be our friend. I don't care what Hunt Athlart wants. June is busy with ballet and Fury is as good as gone. Maybe it's time for more friends.
BB, you seem sad again, like you were two winters ago. Fine one minute, then not fine the next. You don't dance. You don't hang out with anyone. You don't leave it. Laaba Hunt is nice and Prince Rune is nice, but Danica is never nice to me. She was always biting or snarling or she ignored me. Bryce goes, "Watch it." The sprite crawled off of her arm and floated in front of her, arms wrapping around her round belly. You could be as cold as the Reaper, Bryce. And then she was gone whizzing off to stop a thick leather bound tome from crawling its way up the stairs again. Sometimes I am just like reminded on how like truly devastating um the situation with like Danica brace is and it hurts my feelings. Brace and Hunt head to the I am really not sure how to pronounce this place. I know I don't know how to pronounce anything but this one is really really tricking me up and I do think I pronounce it a little differently every time. But the continuum, they head to the interrogation tunnels under that building where Bryce had been interrogated after Danica's death. And they head into the room with Philip Briggs. And Hunt goes, "We won't take up much of your time." And Briggs goes, "Time is all I have now, Angel. Being here is better than being there." And then he asks for the date. And Hunt says, "It's the 12th of April in the year of 15,035." And Briggs says, "It's only been 2 years." And they tell him they have questions about two years ago, but also more recent questions because there was a nightclub bombing. Um, and they like mentioned that it had always been one of his biggest targets. And Brig says, "I don't even know the year and you think I made outside contact and like ordered that explosion."
And then Hunt says, "What about your followers? Would they have done it in your name?" And Brig says, "Why bother?
I failed them. I failed our people and I failed people like you." He says, turning to Bryce, "The undesirabs." And Bryce says, "You never represented me. I abore what you tried to do." And then Hunt says to Briggs, "So you're saying you're not behind this bombing?" And Brig says again, "The only people I see on a daily basis are the ones who take me apart like a cadaavver and then stitch me up again before nightfall. The med witches smoothing everything away."
Okay, sounds like a bad time. And Hunt says, "Your followers wouldn't have considered bombing the nightclub in revenge." And Brig says, "Against who?"
And Hunt says, "Us for investigating Danica Fenders Fender's murder and looking into Luna's horn." And Brig says, "So the a-holes in the 33rd finally realized I didn't kill Danica."
M says, "Well, you haven't been officially cleared of anything." And Brick says, "I don't know anything about Luna's horn, and I'm sure as hell don't no Curus Soldier did either. But I liked Danica Fender. Even when she busted me, I liked her." And Bryce is like, "What do you mean you liked her?" And Briggs says, "She circled me in my agents for weeks. She even met with me twice. Told me to stop my plans or else she'd have to bring me in." Well, that was the first time. The second time, she warned me that she had enough evidence against me, that she had to bring me in. But I could get off easy if I admitted to my plotting and ended it there and then. I didn't listen then, either. That third time she brought her back and that was that. Bryce is like, "Wait, Danica went easy on you guys." And Brig says, "She tried to for a veneer. She was fair. She didn't like my methods, but I thought she might be a sympathizer. I think she might have even helped my followers get away that night." And Hunt says, "That's like a huge claim to make against an auxiliary leader." And Brig says, "She's dead, isn't she? Who cares?" And Bryce says, "Danica wasn't a rebel sympathizer." And Brig says, "Not yet, but maybe Danica could have started down that path. Maybe she saw how her pretty half breed friend was treated by others and didn't like it too much either. My followers knew Danica was a potential asset. We discussed it right up until the raid. And that night, Danica and her pack were fair with us. We fought and even managed to get a few good blows on that second of hers. Connor Holstrom guy was a bruiser. And he kind of like notes that Bryce kind of like flinches as he talks about Connor. And he says to her, "Was Holstrom your boyfriend? Pity." And Bryce says, "That's none of your business." And Hunt is like, "Why haven't you said anything about this before?" And Brig says, "Why would I rat out a powerful and potentially sympathetic veneer like Danica? I knew I was headed to prison, but the cause would live on, and Danica might have been a mighty ally." Bryce says, "Okay, well, you're ratting her out now." And Brig says, "I said it two years ago, and I'll say it again." Curious didn't kill Danica or the pack of devils. The White Raven bombing, though, they might have managed that. Good for them if they did.
Did a lot of veneer die in the bombing?
And Bryce goes, "No, not a single one."
Briggs goes, "Too bad." And Bryce is like, "Okay, thanks for answering our questions." And she leaves the room. And then Briggs turns to Hunt and he says to him, "You're one of the fallen, huh?
Tons of respect for you, man. What part of the 18th did you serve in? We'll bring those bastards down someday, brother." And Hunt knows like normally he would have said like a comment to Briggs about this, but he just stays silent this time because in those last kind of minutes of Briggs talking, he thinks about himself and like what his role in the rebellion had been and if he had been any better than Briggs and the way that he had fought for his cause.
They're back at Bryce's place later that night. The Sunball games just starting on TV. Hunt's chilling and he's got a baseball cap.
He's got a uh a baseball cap on. Okay, cool. and they're like kind of chatting and recapping what happened with the Briggs interview. So Briggs and his followers are off the list. Bryce says, "Unless you think he was lying." And Hunt says he was telling the truth. I've dealt with enough prisoners to some sense when someone is lying. And so now kind of like back to the beginning and Hunt is like, "Okay, remind me who else is on your suspect list." Hunt's clearly like not doing well. He's like not in his normal disposition. He is still really like thinking about Sandreel and Shahar and Briggs. And Bryce like asks him about it a few times, but he like doesn't seem to want to talk about it.
And Bryce is like, "Come on, you've been broody since we left Briggs." And Hunt is like, "Sorry." And Bryce is like, "Why are you apologizing?" And Hunt says, "It brought up some bad stuff about the way I helped lead Shahara's rebellion." And Bryce says, "You are nothing like Briggs, Hunt."
Hunt says, "You don't know me well enough to say that." And Bryce says, "Did you willingly and gleefully risk innocent lives to further your rebellion?" And Hunt goes, "No." And Bryce says, "Well, there you have it."
And H's like, "Well, I was blind about a lot of things and seeing Briggs today made me remember." And then he talks a bit about the torture he endured immediately after the rebellion. Um he was in like a similar prison for like 9 years. Um he did not see the sun, like did not go outside. He was like tortured for seven and then kind of just like kept in confinement for another two. And then he went to his first handler, Archangel Romel, and he talks about how he had no hope and he like was fueled only by hatred. And Hunt says, "So yeah, I might not have ever been willing to kill innocents to help Har's rebellion, but that's the only difference between me and Briggs. Still is." And then Bryce reaches over and grabs his hand and like squeezes it. And she like notes how like big and calloused and strong he is, obviously.
And Bryce says, "Do you still feel that hatred? Do you still feel like hatred is all that gets you through the day?" And Hunt goes, "No, sometimes for things, yes, but no, Quinnland." And Bryce says, "You are not like Briggs. You might see yourself that way, but I see you too, Athlar. I see your kindness and your whatever. I see all the stuff you conveniently forget. Briggs is a bad person. He might have once gotten into the human rebellion for the right reasons, but he is a bad person. You aren't. You never will be. End of story.
That says, "This bargain I've got with Micah suggests otherwise." And Bryce says, "You are not like him." And then she starts teasing him about his hat.
And they like banter about his hat for a second. And then they decide that they need to look into the night two years ago when the horn was stolen. There are some cameras outside the temple, but they were knocked out during the blackout. And so like there really hasn't been a lot of information. N says, "Maybe we didn't run the right test in the footage, look at the right fields, ask the right people to examine it. If Danica was there on that night, why didn't anyone know about that? Why didn't she come forward about being at the temple when the horn was stolen? Why didn't the acolyte say anything about her presence?" And Bryce says, "You think Danica might have known who took the horn?" and she tried to hide it.
Danica wouldn't have done that. She barely seemed to care at all that the horn had been stolen. Hunt says, "I don't know, but let's start by looking at the footage." And even if it's a whole lot of bluff, nothing, and send it to someone who can give it a more comprehensive analysis. And Bryce goes, "Who do you have in mind?" And Hunt just smiles. Cut two. They're at a shooting range in Moonwood, which is the wolf shifter territory. Um, it's a shooting range that Hunt comes to occasionally, and um, it's Declan and Flynn and Road there.
And then before they walk in, he like makes sure Bryce has her little ear muffs on because he doesn't want her to hurt her little ears. It's very cute.
It's very kind. And Bryce calls him a mother hen. Bryce says, "Sorry to interrupt you boys playing in Commando, but we have some adult things to discuss." And Run says, "You could have called." And they're like, "We wouldn't hit this with a deal." And then Bryce says to Declan, "You opt to do some more hacking. We need some analysis of some footage from Luna's temple the night the horn was stolen." And Run's like, "Wait, do you guys have a lead on the horn?"
And um Bryce kind of ignores the question and turns back to Declan. And doc Declan answers her. I might have some software that can help, but no promises. If the investigators didn't find anything two years ago, the odds are slim. I'll find any anomalies now.
And Bryce says, "We know that. How would long would it take you to look?" And Declan says, "Give me a few days and I'll see what I can find." And then Bryce is like, "Okay, let's keep this quiet if we can for a few days." And Run is like, "You're asking me to lie to the king." And Bryce says, "I'm asking you not to tell him about this for the moment." And then Tristan's says, "Are you saying the Autumn King is one of your suspects?" And Bryce says, "I am saying I want this kept quiet. I'm saying that if you three morons leak any of this to your ox buddies or drunken hookups, I'm going to be very unhappy."
And they're like, "Okay, okay." And then the boys wind up challenging Bryce to like a shoot off and they bet her 20 gold marks that they will beat her, that she they will shoot better than her. Um, and Bryce grabs the gun and points it at the target and she says, "Allow me to demonstrate while you can all kiss my effing booty and she shoots three shots." And then um the little paper target is has a a hole in it and Flynn says, "You only landed one," Flynn snorted, eyeing the hole through straight through the heart of the target. "No, she didn't," Emtt murmured just as Hunt saw it too. "The circle wasn't perfect. No.
Two of its edges bulged outward, barely noticeable. Three shots so precise that they'd pass through the same small space. Right. Right. You know what I thought in this moment? I said, "You know who would really appreciate this? I don't think any of the boys appreciate this enough. I think Selena starts would appreciate this.
I wish she was here.
I miss her every day." Just kidding. I'm currently I'm rereading Throne of Glass on um my members tab and I'm in Queen of Shadows right now, so I'm getting fed.
I'm getting fed my Throne of Glass content. Anyway, a chill skitter down Hunt's body that nothing that had nothing to do with fear as Bryce merely reset the safety and placed the rifle on the table and removed the ear muffs and glasses. She turned and her eyes met Hunts again, a new sort of vulnerability shining beneath the self-satisfied narrowing. A challenge thrown down, waiting to see how he'd react. How many males had run from this part of her?
Their alpha whole egos threatened by it.
Hunt hated them all merely for putting the question in her eyes. And then Hunt shoots and his bullet goes right through the hole she put in the target. When he lowered the gun, he found Bryce's cheeks flushed, her eyes like warm whiskey, a quiet sort of light shone in them. He still didn't hear any of what the males were saying, only had the vague notion of even Rune cursing with appreciation.
Aunt just held Bryce's stare. I see you, Quinnland. He silently conveyed to her.
And I like all of it. Right back at you, her half smile seemed to say. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that an eyeball conversation that we just had? I think it was. I think it was, guys. I think we just had an eyeball conversation.
Oh, that's a pretty big deal. That's a pretty big deal. But then Hunt's phone rings. It's Isaiah. There has been another murder, this time in Asphodel Meadows. Hunt tells them tells Isaiah that they will be there in a few minutes. Bryce is like like twitching.
He can Hunt can like see that Bryce is not doing well, but she's clearly trying to like hide it particularly from the boys. Um the boys obviously heard the phone call through the phone using their like fay hearing. And so Hunt is like, "Did you get the address? We'll we'll meet you guys there." The boys leave and then Hunt is like, "Hey, do you want me to handle it? Like you don't need to go." And then Bryce says, "Someone died while we were playing around tonight."
And Hunt grabs her hand and says, "This isn't on you. It's on whoever is doing this." And Bryce just like yanks her hand away. I want to go to the scene of the crime. I need to go, but I don't want Ron or his friends seeing me like this. And Hut says, "Like what? Like a mess?" Because she's like clearly like very visibly panicking, having like a hard time catching her breath in this moment. Not goes, "Why?" And Bryce says, "Because it's none of their business and they'll make it their business if they see it. They're females. Sticking their nose into places they don't belong is an art form for them." And then Hunt like helps her take some deep breaths and like breathe through it and like calm herself down. And then when they've like breathed, he goes, "You good?" And Bryce goes, "As good as I'll ever be." And Hunt goes, "You and me both, Quinnland."
Bryce lets Hunt fly them over to the crime scene. It's in an alley just off of Main Street. And Hunt says, "You don't need to look, Bryce." What he'd done for her just now in the shooting range. She'd never let anyone, even her parents, see her like that before. Those moments when she couldn't breathe, she usually went into a bathroom or she bailed for a few hours and went for a run. The instinct to flee had been nearly as overwhelming as the panic and the dread searing her chest. But she'd seen Hunt come in from his mission the other night. Knew he of all people might get it. He had. And he hadn't bocked for one second, just as he hadn't bocked from seeing her shoot that target and instead answered it with a shot of his own. Like they were two of a kind. Like she could throw anything at him and he'd catch it. Would meet every challenge with that wicked feral grin. She could have sworn the warmth from his hands still lingered on her own. Okay.
Okay, guys. It's starting to get kind of romantic in here. I really like Hunt. I don't think I've said that yet. Um, but I'm actually like a huge fan of Hunt. He I like him a lot. I think he's great.
He's one of I mean, Reese is my favorite Sarah J. Mass. Say what you will. Say what you will. But I think Hunt might be my second. I don't know. I love Rowan, too.
If we think about like those being like the big three, there's a lot of boys besides that, but like I really do adore Hun. I think he's great. Flynn and Declan arrive and head for the screen that is blocking the body. And Bryce kind of like leans against Hunt. His fingers dug into her back as in silent reassurance before he murmured. "I can look for us." Like they were a unit against this mess of a world. "I'm fine," she said, her voice mercifully calm, but she didn't move towards the screen. Isaiah tells him that the murder is like suspected to happen like less than an hour prior. Um, and the man that was murdered was the guard that was on duty the night that the horn was stolen from the temple. There are no cameras around that caught anything. It's almost like whoever did this knew where the cameras were and was able to avoid them.
Stay out of sight. Hunt says to know every camera in the city, especially the hidden ones, would require some clearance. Did anyone report a sighting of a demon? And Isaiah says, "No reports yet." And then Bryce kind of thinks of something. She brings up this map and she points out that each of the murders have happened right off of a major road.
They are on top of these natural light lines. The way that the first light, the like people's power, moves through the city. Bryce says to the Fay Boys, "Maybe whoever is summoning this demon is drawing upon the power of these lay lines under the city to have the strength to summon it. If all the murders take place near them, maybe that's how the demon appeared."
Hunt kind of heads over to Isaiah to have him do some research along that line. He says, "Have Victoria run a search on the cameras along Maine, Central, and Ward. See if they catch any blip of power, any small surges or drop in temperature that might have happened if a demon were summoned. And have her look at the first light grid around those times, too. See if anything registered." And while Hunt is like talking to Isaiah, Declan pulls Bryce aside and says, "Hey, you know what he does, right?" Meaning Hunt. And Bryce says, "Uh, look really good in black."
And Declan says, "That demon hunting is a front. He does the governor's dirty work. Hunt Athlar is bad news." And Bryce says, "Good thing I like bad boys." Declan says, "The angels don't give a crap about anyone be. His goals are not your goals. Athal's goals might not even be the same as Micah's. Be careful." And Ray says, "I already got the talk from Rune. Don't worry." The fave boys leave like fairly quickly after this. They like talk a little bit more. There's some conversation around the fact that it's like kind of messed up that Hunt's a slave. And it's like, "Yeah, guys, slavery is messed up. I'm glad I'm glad we're all on the same page about that." And then Hunt asks Bryce, he says, "You and Tristan Flynn ever hook up?" And Bryce goes, "Why would you ask me that?" Hunt says, "Because he flirts with you nonstop." And Bryce says, "You want to tell me about everyone you've ever hooked up with, Athalar?" And Hunt is like, "No one I've ever hooked up with is worth mentioning.
Shahar ruined me for everyone else." He explains how he fell in love with her like as he worked his way up through her legions. And he says, "She promoted me through her ranks until I served as her right hand until I was her lover. She led the rebellion against the Asteria and I led her forces, the 18th Legion."
And you know how it ended. And Bryce tells him that uh Flynn and her never hooked up, but she'd had a huge crush on him when she was a teenager and she'd come out here to see Rune. She had like written on all of her journals like Lady Bryce Flynn. Um, and one time she and Danica had like met up with him when they were in college and Danica had actually hooked up with him and she hadn't said anything because she didn't want to make things weird between her and Rune by hooking up with Tristan. And then um, we get like a bad hookup story about a vampire that I'm not going to recount for you here. And then Bryce says, "Do you still have a thing for Shahar?" And Hunt goes, "Until the day I die, I don't see how I can move on from loving her when she gave everything for me for the cause. Every time I hook up with someone, I remember it." But then Bryce spots someone with silver hair walking down the street and she says, "We got to go." Unfortunately, they're not fast enough and Sabine does spot them. Hunt warns Sabine, "Keep moving, Fender." And Sabine says, "I've heard you've been showing your face again.
Where the hell is my sword, Quinnland?"
Bryce doesn't have anything to say. So, she just like lets Hunt lead her past Sabine. Sabine just continues to call her name. Oh, Sabine starts calling her names and spitting on her. Um, and Hunt starts growling. Um, but Bryce grabs him and is like, "Please, please leave the salon. Like, do not do not." Hunt obviously doesn't want to, but he listens to Bryce and they like, you know, continue off to a open spot where Hunt can open his wings and fly them back to the apartment. They land on her apartment roof five minutes later and Hunt turns to Bryce and says, "I promise you, Bryce, we are going to find whoever is behind this." And Bryce is like, "For some reason, I really believe him." She goes to the bathroom. She's getting ready for bed. She's brushing her teeth when all of a sudden her phone rings.
It's Declan and Deck says, "I found something interesting in the footage.
The taxpaying residents of the city should revolt at how their money is being blown on second rate analysts instead of people like me." She walks out into the hallway and Hunt comes out of his room and he's shirtless. But Bryce reminds herself that he's pining over a lost love. Okay, this is not going to be a romance between them. You can't hook up with this boy. He loves his dead lover. Declan goes on to say, "Okay, so I'll admit someone could have easily made a mistake thanks to the blackout. footage is just darkness with some sounds, ordinary city sounds of people reacting to the blackout. So, I pulled apart each audio thread from the street outside the temple, amped up the ones in the background that the government computers might not have the tech to hear. You know what I heard?
People giggling, goating each other to touch it. Declan explains it's the people at the rose gate asking to see if the disc on the dialad would work during the blackout, and it did. But I could also hear them ooing and aing about the night blooming flowers in the gate itself. So, like he knows that it was the rose gate and not the heart gate.
And the rose gate is halfway across the city from Luna's temple. Someone swapped the footage of the temple during the time of the horn's theft. It was clever work. They patched it right in so there isn't as much as a flicker in the time stamp. They picked up audio footage that was a near match for what it would have sounded like at the temple with the angle of the buildings and everything.
Really smart stuff, but not smart enough. The 33rd should have come to me.
I would have found an error like that.
And Bryce says, "Can you find who did it?" And Declan says, "I already did." I looked at who was responsible for heading up the investigation of that video footage that night. They'd be the only ones with the clearance to make a swap like that. And Bryce goes, "Who is it, Declan?" And Declan says, "Look, I'm not saying this person, it's this one person 100%, but the official who headed up that part of the investigation was Sabine Fender."
Uhoh. And that is the end of part two. I think we really start to like get into it. I feel like part two was a lot of just kind of like walking around.
Walking around. We didn't do very much.
We did have to walk around for a long time though, the largest part. Um, I do think we get into some good stuff in part three and then part four is some of the best chapters in a Sarah J. Mask novel is part four. So, um, we have that to look forward to. That'll be coming in the coming weeks in a few weeks from now. Um, excited to continue on Crescent City. Um, I hope you're enjoying this. I will see you so soon with the next video. Have a gorgeous rest of your day.
Bye.
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