hunting for the Horn once more,” Bryce finished, frowning.
Hunt said, “The kristallos’s presence in Lunathion suggests the Horn is still inside the city walls.”
Bryce pinned Ruhn with a look. “Why does the Autumn King suddenly want it?”
Ruhn chose his words carefully. “Call it pride. He wants it returned to the Fae. And wants me to find it quietly.”
Athalar asked him, “But why ask you to look for the Horn?”
The shadows veiling them rippled. “Because Prince Pelias’s Starborn power was woven into the Horn itself. And it’s in my blood. My father thinks I might have some sort of preternatural gift to find it.” He admitted, “When I was browsing the Archives last night, this book … jumped out at me.”
“Literally?” Bryce asked, brows high.
Ruhn said, “It just felt like it … shimmered. I don’t fucking know. All I know is I was down there for hours, and then I sensed the book, and when I saw that illustration of the Horn … There it was. The crap I translated confirmed it.”
“So the kristallos can track the Horn,” Bryce said, eyes glittering. “But so can you.”
Athalar’s mouth curled in a crooked grin, catching Bryce’s drift. “We find the demon, we find who’s behind this. And if we have the Horn …”
Ruhn grimaced. “The kristallos will come to us.”
Bryce glanced to the empty-handed statue behind them. “Better get cracking, Ruhn.”
Hunt leaned against the entry pillars atop the steps leading into Luna’s Temple, his phone at his ear. He’d left Quinlan inside with her cousin, needing to make this phone call before they could sort out logistics. He would have made the call right there, but the moment he’d pulled up his contacts list, he’d earned a snipe from Bryce about mobile phones in sacred spaces.
Cthona spare him. Declining to tell her to fuck off, he’d decided to spare them a public scene and stalked out through the cypress-lined courtyard and to the front steps.
Five temple acolytes emerged from the sprawling villa behind the temple itself, bearing brooms and hoses to clean the temple steps and the flagstones beyond it for their midday washing.
Unnecessary, he wanted to tell the young females. With the misting rain yet again gracing the city, the hoses were superfluous.
Teeth gritted, he listened to the phone ring and ring. “Pick the fuck up,” he muttered.
A dark-skinned temple acolyte—black-haired, white-robed, and no more than twelve—gaped at him as she walked past, clutching a broom to her chest. He nearly winced, realizing the portrait of wrath he now presented, and checked his expression.
The Fae girl still kept back, the golden crescent moon dangling from a delicate chain across her brow glinting in the gray light. A waxing moon—until she became a full-fledged priestess upon reaching maturity, when she would trade the crescent for the full circle of Luna. And whenever her immortal body began to age and fade, her cycle vanishing with it, she would again trade the charm, this time for a waning crescent.
The priestesses all had their own reasons for offering themselves to Luna. For forsaking their lives beyond the temple grounds and embracing the goddess’s eternal maidenhood. Just as Luna had no mate or lover, so they would live.
Hunt had always thought celibacy seemed like a bore. Until Shahar had ruined him for anyone else.
Hunt offered the shrinking acolyte his best attempt at a smile. To his surprise, the Fae girl offered a small one back. The girl had courage.
Justinian Gelos answered on the sixth ring. “How’s babysitting?”
Hunt straightened. “Don’t sound so amused.”
Justinian huffed a laugh. “You sure Micah’s not punishing you?”
Hunt had considered the question a great deal in the past two days. Across the empty street, the palm trees dotting the rain-soft grasses of the Oracle’s Park shone in the gray light, the domed onyx building of the Oracle’s Temple veiled in the mists that had rolled in over the river.
Even at midday, the Oracle’s Park was near-empty, save for the hunched, slumbering forms of the desperate Vanir and humans who wandered the paths and gardens, waiting for their turn to enter the incense-filled hallways.
And if the answers they sought weren’t what they’d hoped … Well, the white-stoned temple on whose steps Hunt now stood could offer some solace.
Hunt glanced over his shoulder to the dim temple interior just visible through the towering bronze doors. In the firstlight from a row of shimmering braziers, he could just barely make out the gleam of red hair in the quiet gloom of the inner sanctum, shining like molten