Hunt said, “But if the Prince of the Pit had gotten his hands on the Horn, he wouldn’t be able to use it unless he had a Starborn Fae to operate it.” He nodded to Ruhn. “Even if whoever wants the Horn now finds it, they’d have to use you.”

Ruhn considered. “But let’s not forget that whoever is summoning the demon to track the Horn—and kill these people—doesn’t have the Horn. Someone else stole it. So we’re essentially looking for two different people: the killer and whoever has the Horn.”

“Well, the Horn is broken anyway,” Bryce said.

Ruhn tapped the book. “Permanently broken, apparently. It says here that once it was cracked, the Fae claimed it could only be repaired by light that is not light; magic that is not magic. Basically a convoluted way of saying there’s no chance in Hel of it ever working again.”

Hunt said, “So we need to find out why someone would want it, then.” He frowned at Ruhn. “Your father wants it for what—some Fae PR campaign about the good old days of Faedom?”

Ruhn snorted, and Bryce smiled slightly. With lines like that, Athalar was in danger of becoming one of her favorite people. Ruhn said, “Basically, yeah. The Fae have been declining, according to him, for the past several thousand years. He claims our ancestors could burn entire forests to ash with half a thought—while he can probably torch a grove, and not much more.” Ruhn’s jaw tightened. “It drives him nuts that my Chosen One powers are barely more than a kernel.”

Bryce knew her own lack of power had been part of her father’s disgust with her.

Proof of the Fae’s failing influence.

She felt Hunt’s eyes on her, as if he could sense the bitterness that rippled through her. She half lied to him, “My own father never had a lick of interest in me for the same reason.”

“Especially after your visit to the Oracle,” Ruhn said.

Hunt’s brows rose, but Bryce shook her head at him, scowling. “It’s a long story.”

Hunt again looked at her in that considering, all-seeing way. So Bryce peered over at Ruhn’s tome, skimmed a few lines, and then looked back up at Ruhn. “This whole section is about your fancy Avallen cousins. Shadow-walking, mind-reading … I’m surprised they don’t claim they’re Starborn.”

“They wish they were,” Ruhn muttered. “They’re a bunch of pricks.”

She had a vague memory of Ruhn telling her the details about why, exactly, he felt that way, but asked, “No mind-reading for you?”

“It’s mind-speaking,” he grumbled, “and it has nothing to do with the Starborn stuff. Or this case.”

Hunt, apparently, seemed to agree, because he cut in, “What if we asked the Oracle about the Horn? Maybe she could see why someone would want a broken relic.”