Hunt’s eyes glittered. “I warned her on the walk over what she’d see.” He added a touch ruefully, “I didn’t realize what a mess it’d be.” He had warned her, hadn’t he? She’d drifted so far away that she’d barely listened to Hunt on the walk. As dazed as if she’d snorted a heap of lightseeker. Hunt added, “She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need you deciding what she can handle.” He nodded toward the alley exit. “Shouldn’t you be researching? We’ll call you if you’re needed, princeling.”

“Fuck you,” Ruhn shot back, shadows twining through his hair. Others were noticing now. “You don’t think it’s more than a coincidence that an acolyte was killed right after we went to the temple?”

Their words didn’t register. None of it registered.

Bryce turned from the alley, the swarming investigators. Ruhn said, “Bryce—”

“Leave me alone,” she said quietly, and kept walking. She shouldn’t have let Athalar bully her into coming, shouldn’t have seen this, shouldn’t have had to remember.

Once, she might have gone right to the dance studio. Would have danced and moved until the world made sense again. It had always been her haven, her way of puzzling out the world. She’d gone to the studio whenever she’d had a shit day.

It had been two years since she’d set foot in one. She’d thrown out all her dance clothes and shoes. Her bags. The one at the apartment had all been splattered with blood anyway—Danika’s, Connor’s, and Thorne’s on the clothes in the bedroom, and Zelda’s and Bronson’s on her secondary bag, which had been left hanging beside the door. Blood patterns just like—

A rain-kissed scent brushed her nose as Hunt fell into step beside her. And there he was. Another memory from that night.

“Hey,” Hunt said.

Hey, he’d said to her, so long ago. She’d been a wreck, a ghost, and then he’d been there, kneeling beside her, those dark eyes unreadable as he’d said, Hey.

She hadn’t told him—that she remembered that night in the interrogation room. She sure as Hel didn’t feel like telling him now.

If she had to talk to someone, she’d explode. If she had to do anything right now, she’d sink into one of those primal Fae wraths and—

The haze started to creep over her vision, her muscles seizing painfully, her fingertips curled as if imagining shredding into someone—

“Walk it off,” Hunt murmured.