Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,94

mean anything....” Vanessa said, but he spoke over her.

“Look. It’s in here again.” He flipped more pages to a point farther back in the notebook, marked by his own folded copy of the property list. “‘Hidden in the grove.’”

“Kris, there’s no rhyme or reason to this.” Kori frowned at the notebook. “It looks like those two phrases were spoken months apart.” But it was closer to a year, if the glimpse of the dates I’d gotten could be trusted. “How do you know those two are even related?”

“I don’t.” Kris leaned back on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest, and I did not think about how, the day before, I’d seen him without a shirt. And touched his stomach. I didn’t think about that at all. “What I do know is that we’re looking at a list of more than twenty warehouses, and those are just the ones Vanessa’s been able to verify as Tower’s. But nothing else on that list sounds like anything I’ve found in here after reading and rereading the damn thing for nearly two hours. But two of these phrases could be pointing at the warehouse on Sycamore Grove.”

He flipped back to the first passage and spoke over another objection. “Blood in the trees.” Then he looked up, eyeing each of us expectantly. “We’re looking for a blood farm. A hidden blood farm.” He flipped back to the second passage, still marked with his index finger. “Hidden in the grove.”

“It can’t hurt to look.” Vanessa shrugged and closed her laptop. “We have to start somewhere, and that’s one of only two properties that won’t take us into Julia’s territory.”

Kris sat up straight on the couch, enthusiasm echoing in his very bearing. “Which is more evidence that Elle was right. Julia knows we’d expect her to hide her most valuable assets in her own territory, where it’s easier to protect them. Relocating to the south fork is ballsy. But then, so is Julia.”

“The south fork?” I glanced around the room in question.

“The south side of town, defined by a fork in the river that divides the city,” Ian said. “Tower rules the west side. Cavazos has the east side.”

“They’ve been fighting over the south side for years,” Kori added. “But so far, neither has a foothold. The south side is your best bet if you want to avoid syndicate entanglements.”

“So, if the blood farm is on Sycamore Grove, Julia’s effectively hiding it in plain sight?”

“Well, I doubt she hung up ‘Coming Soon’ signs or set out a welcome mat.” Kris smiled at me, and I looked away, and when he continued, his voice was...different. Disappointed, maybe. But not angry. He wasn’t mad that I’d lied to him, but I’d almost rather see his anger than his pity. “But she’s definitely hidden it where we’d be least likely to look for it.”

“Where anyone would be least likely to look.” Van glanced from me to him, then back to me, silently questioning the change between us. But it was nothing I could explain to her, or to any of them without further embarrassing myself.

“Why are Seers always so damn obscure?” I flipped through the notebook absently. Casually. “What good are her predictions if they’re too vague to be used?”

“She wasn’t always vague.” Kris took the journal from me and closed it. “Her waking predictions were usually much clearer, like what Hadley told us the other day. But when Elle was asleep, she couldn’t elaborate, and when I woke her to ask, she never remembered what she’d been dreaming.”

“Okay. So we’re going to do this.” Van closed her laptop and stood.

“Yes.” Kris stood and slid the notebook into his duffel bag on the floor by the couch. “But you’re staying here.”

“No way.” Vanessa clutched her laptop to her chest. “Kenley needs me.”

“She needs you to stay alive and unharmed. You have no combat experience, and I don’t want to leave Gran alone if I don’t have to.” Kori glanced at me as she lifted a shoulder holster from the arm of the couch and slid her arms through the straps. “You, too.”

Vanessa looked as if she’d argue, if she didn’t already know it would do no good.

I knew no such thing.

“I’m going.” If Kris was right and the blood farm was at the Sycamore Grove warehouse, then there was every chance in the world that I could cull a couple more indentured servants from Julia’s bonds, and a couple of guns made loyal to us—or at least