House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,97

but deep down, you’re no better than the rest of the Fae shitheads who kiss your Chosen One ass.”

Ruhn snarled, but Bryce didn’t wait before shoving through the shadows, blinking at the flood of light that greeted her, and aiming for where Hunt had paused at the doors.

“Let’s go,” she said. She didn’t care what he’d overheard.

Hunt lingered in place, his black eyes flickering as he gazed toward the shadowed back of the room, where her so-called cousin was again veiled in darkness. But the angel thankfully said nothing as he fell into step beside her, and she said nothing more to him.

Bryce practically ran back to the gallery. In part to start researching the Horn again, but also thanks to the flurry of messages from Jesiba, demanding to know where she was, whether she still wanted her job, and whether she’d prefer to be turned into a rat or a pigeon. And then an order to get back now to greet a client.

Five minutes after Bryce got there, Jesiba’s client—a raging asshole of a leopard shifter who believed he was entitled to put his paws all over her ass—prowled in and purchased a small statue of Solas and Cthona, portrayed as a sun with male features burying his face in a pair of mountain-shaped breasts. The holy image was known simply as the Embrace. Her mother even wore its simplified symbol—a circle nestled atop two triangles—as a silver pendant. But Bryce had always found the Embrace cheesy and cliché in every incarnation. Thirty minutes and two blatant rejections to his slimy come-ons later, Bryce was mercifully alone again.

But in the hours she looked, the gallery’s databases for Luna’s Horn revealed nothing beyond what she already knew, and what her brother had claimed that morning. Even Lehabah, gossip queen extraordinaire, didn’t know anything about the Horn.

With Ruhn heading back to the Fae Archives to see if any more information appealed to his Starborn sensibilities, she supposed she’d have to wait for an update.

Hunt had gone to take watch on the roof, apparently needing to make calls to his boss—or whatever Micah pretended he was—and Isaiah regarding the Horn. He hadn’t tried to come back down to the library, as if sensing she needed space.

Look toward where it hurts the most. That’s always where the answers are.

Bryce found herself staring down at the half-finished list she’d started that morning.

She might not be able to find much on the Horn itself, but maybe she could figure out how the Hel Danika factored into all of it.

Hands shaking, she made herself finish the list of Danika’s locations—as far as she knew.

By the time the sun was near setting, and Syrinx was ready to be walked home, Bryce would have traded what was left of her soul to a Reaper just for the quiet comfort of her bed. It had been a long fucking day, full of information she needed to process, and a list that she’d left in her desk drawer.

It must have been a long day for Athalar, too, because he trailed her and Syrinx from the skies without saying a word to her.

She was in bed by eight, and didn’t even remember falling asleep.

23

The next morning, Bryce was sitting at the reception desk in the gallery’s showroom, staring at her list of Danika’s last locations, when her phone rang.

“The deal with the leopard went through,” she said to Jesiba by way of greeting. The paperwork had been finalized an hour ago.

“I need you to go up into my office and send me a file from my computer.”

Bryce rolled her eyes, refraining from snipping, You’re welcome, and asked, “You don’t have access to it?”

“I made sure this one wasn’t on the network.”

Nostrils flaring, Bryce rose, her leg throbbing slightly, and walked to the small door in the wall adjacent to the desk. A hand on the metal panel beside it had the enchantments unlocking, the door swinging open to reveal the tight, carpeted staircase upward.

“When I want things done, Bryce, you’re to do them. No questions.”

“Yes, Jesiba,” Bryce muttered, climbing the stairs. Dodging the reaching hands of the leopard shifter yesterday had twinged something in her bad leg.

“Would you like to be a worm, Bryce?” Jesiba purred, voice sliding into something eerily close to a Reaper’s rasp. At least Jesiba wasn’t one of them—even if Bryce knew the sorceress often dealt with them in the House of Flame and Shadow. Thank the gods none had ever shown up at the gallery, though.