Hunt reined in his grunt that would have suggested otherwise.
Aidas tilted his head to one side. “You were very sad then as well.”
It took Hunt a moment to process it—the words. The bit of history, and the bit of now.
Bryce rubbed her hands together. “Let’s talk about you, Your Highness.”
“I am always happy to do so.”
The cold burned Hunt’s lungs. They could last only minutes at this temperature before their healing abilities started churning. And despite Bryce’s Fae blood, there was a good chance that she might not recover at all. Without having made the Drop, the frostbite would be permanent for Bryce. As would any digits or limbs lost.
She said to the demon prince, “You and your colleagues seem to be getting restless in the dark.”
“Is that so?” Aidas frowned at his polished leather shoes as if he could see all the way down to the Pit. “Perhaps you summoned the wrong prince, for this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Who is summoning the kristallos demon to hunt through this city?” Flat, cutting words. “And what killed Danika Fendyr?”
“Ah yes, we heard of that—how Danika screamed as she was shredded apart.”
Bryce’s beat of silence told Hunt enough about the internal wound that Aidas had pressed. From the smile gracing Aidas’s face, the Prince of the Chasm knew it as well.
She went on, “Do you know what demon did it?”
“Despite what your mythologies claim, I am not privy to the movements of every being in Hel.”
She said tightly, “Do you know, though? Or know who summoned it?”
His golden lashes shimmered as he blinked. “You believe I dispatched it?”
“You would not be standing there if I did.”
Aidas laughed softly. “No tears from you this time.”
Bryce smiled slightly. “You told me not to let them see me cry. I took the advice to heart.”
What the Hel had gone on during that meeting twelve years ago?
“Information is not free.”
“What is your price?” A bluish tint crept over her lips. They’d have to cut the connection soon.
Hunt kept perfectly still as Aidas studied her. Then his eyes registered Hunt.
He blinked—once. As if he had not really marked his presence until this moment. As if he hadn’t cared to notice, with Bryce before him. Hunt tucked away that fact, just as Aidas murmured, “Who are you.”
A command.
“He’s eye candy,” Bryce said, looping her arm through Hunt’s and pressing close. For warmth or steadiness, he didn’t know. She was shaking. “And he is not for sale.” She pointed to the halo across Hunt’s brow.
“My pets like to rip out feathers—it would be a good trade.”
Hunt leveled a stare at the prince. Bryce threw Hunt a sidelong glare, the effect of which was negated by her chattering teeth.
Aidas smiled, looking him over again. “A Fallen warrior with the power of …” Aidas’s groomed brows lifted in surprise. His blue opal eyes narrowed to slits—then simmered like the hottest flame. “What are you doing with a black crown around your brow?”
Hunt didn’t dare let his surprise at the question show. He’d never heard it called that before—a black crown. Halo, witch-ink, mark-of-shame, but never that.
Aidas looked between them now. Carefully. He didn’t bother to let Hunt answer his question before that awful smile returned. “The seven princes dwell in darkness and do not stir. We have no interest in your realm.”
“I’d believe it if you and your brethren hadn’t been rattling the Northern Rift for the past two decades,” Hunt said. “And if I hadn’t been cleaning up after it.”
Aidas sucked in a breath, as if tasting the air on which Hunt’s words had been delivered to him. “You do realize that it might not be my people? The Northern Rift opens to other places—other realms, yes, but other planets as well. What is Hel but a distant planet bound to yours by a ripple in space and time?”
“Hel is a planet?” Hunt’s brows lowered. Most of the demons he’d killed and dealt with hadn’t been able to or inclined to speak
Aidas shrugged with one shoulder. “It is as real a place as Midgard, though most of us would have you believe it wasn’t.” The prince pointed to him. “Your kind, Fallen, were made in Midgard by the Asteri. But the Fae, the shifters, and many others came from their own worlds. The universe is massive. Some believe it has no end. Or that our universe might be one in a multitude, as bountiful as the stars in the sky or the sand on a beach.”
Bryce threw Hunt a look that told him she, too, was wondering what the Hel the demon prince was smoking in the Chasm. “You’re trying to distract us,” Bryce said, arms crossing. Hoarfrost crept across the floors. “You’re not rattling the Northern Rift?”
“The lesser princes do that—levels one through four,” Aidas said, head angling again. “Those of us in the true dark have no need or interest in sunshine. But even they did not send the kristallos. Our plans do not involve such things.”
Hunt growled, “Your kind wanted to live here, once upon a time. Why would that change?”
Aidas chuckled. “It is dreadfully amusing to hear the stories the Asteri have spun for you.” He smiled at Bryce. “What blinds an Oracle?”
All color leached from Bryce’s face at the mention of her visit to the Oracle. How Aidas knew about it, Hunt could only guess, but she countered, “What sort of cat visits an Oracle?”
“Winning first words.” Aidas slid his hands into his pockets again. “I did not know what you might prefer now that you are grown.” A smirk at Hunt. “But I may appear more like that, if it pleases you, Bryce Quinlan.”
“Better yet: don’t appear again at all,” Hunt said to the demon prince.
Bryce squeezed his arm. He stepped on her foot hard enough to get her to cut it out.
But Aidas chuckled. “Your temperature drops. I shall depart.”
“Please,” Bryce said. “Just tell me if you know what killed Danika. Please.”
A soft laugh. “Run the tests again. Find what is in-between.”
He began to fade, as if a phone call were indeed breaking up.
“Aidas,” she blurted, stepping right to the edge of their circle. Hunt fought the urge to tuck her to his side. Especially as darkness frayed the edges of Aidas’s body. “Thank you. For that day.”
The Prince of the Chasm paused, as if clinging to this world. “Make the Drop, Bryce Quinlan.” He flickered. “And find me when you are done.”
Aidas had nearly vanished into nothing when he added, the words a ghost slithering through the room, “The Oracle did not see. But I did.”
Silence pulsed in his wake as the room thawed, frost vanishing.
Hunt whirled on Bryce. “First of all,” he seethed, “fuck you for that surprise.”
She rubbed her hands together, working warmth back into them. “You never would have let me summon Aidas if I’d told you first.”
“Because we should be fucking dead right now!” He gaped at her. “Are you insane?”
“I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Or anyone with me.”
“You want to tell me how you met Aidas when you were thirteen?”
“I … I told you how badly things ended between me and my biological father after my Oracle visit.” His anger banked at the lingering pain in her face. “So afterward, when I was crying my little heart out on one of the park benches outside the temple, this white cat appeared next to me. It had the most unnatural blue eyes. I knew, even before it spoke, that it wasn’t a cat—and wasn’t a shifter.”
“Who summoned him that time?”
“I don’t know. Jesiba told me that the princes can sneak through cracks in either Rift, taking the form of common animals. But then they’re confined to those forms—with none of their own power, save the ability to speak. And they can only stay for a few hours at a time.”
A shudder worked its way down his gray wings. “What did Aidas say?”
“He asked me: What blinds an Oracle? And I replied: What sort of cat visits an Oracle? He’d heard the screaming on his way in. I suppose it intrigued him. He told me to stop crying. Said it would only satisfy those who had wronged me. That I shouldn’t give them the gift of my sorrow.”
“Why was the Prince of the Chasm at the Oracle?”
“He never told me. But he sat with me until I worked up the nerve to walk back to my father’s house. By the time I remembered to thank him, he was gone.”
“Strange.” And—fine, he could understand why she hadn’t balked from summoning him, if he’d been kind to her in the past.
“Perhaps some of the feline body wore off on him and he was merely curious about me.”
“Apparently, he’s missed you.” A leading question.
“Apparently,” she hedged. “Though he barely gave us anything to go on.”
Her gaze turned distant as she looked at the empty circle before them, then took her phone out of her pocket. Hunt caught a glimpse of who she dialed—Declan Emmet.
“Hi, B.” In the background, music thumped and male laughter roared.
Bryce didn’t bother with niceties. “We’ve been tipped off that we should run various tests again—I’m assuming that means the ones on the victims and crime scenes a few years ago. Can you think of anything that should be reexamined?”
In the background, Ruhn asked, Is that Bryce? But Declan said, “I’d definitely run a scent diagnostic. You’ll need clothes.”
Bryce said, “They must have done a scent diagnostic two years ago.”
Declan said, “Was it the common one, or the Mimir?”
Hunt’s stomach tightened. Especially as Bryce said, “What’s the difference?”
“The Mimir is better. It’s relatively new.”
Bryce looked at Hunt, and he shook his head slowly. She said quietly into the phone, “No one did a Mimir test.”
Declan hesitated. “Well … it’s Fae tech mostly. We loan it out to the legion for their major cases.” A pause. “Someone should have said something.”
Hunt braced himself. Bryce asked, “You had access to this sort of thing two years ago?”
Declan paused again. “Ah—shit.” Then Ruhn came on the line. “Bryce, a direct order was given not to pursue it through those channels. It was deemed a matter that the Fae should stay out of.”
Devastation, rage, grief—all exploded across her face. Her fingers curled at her sides.
Hunt said, knowing Ruhn could hear it, “The Autumn King is a real prick, you know that?”
Bryce snarled, “I’m going to tell him just that.” She hung up.
Hunt demanded, “What?” But she was already running out of the apartment.