“It is no trivial matter. Even if the Horn is long defunct, it still holds a special place in Fae history. It will mean a great deal to my people if it is recovered. I’d think with your professional expertise, such a search would be of interest to you. And your employer.”

She looked back at her computer screen. “Whatever.”

He paused, and then his power buzzed, warping every audio feed before he said, “I loved your mother very much, you know.”

“Yeah, so much you left a scar on her face.”

She could have sworn he flinched. “Do not think I have not spent every moment since then regretting my actions. Living in shame.”

“Could have fooled me.”

His power rumbled through the room. “You are so much like her. More than you know. She never forgave anyone for anything.”

“I take that as a compliment.” That fire burned and raged inside her head, her bones.

Her father said quietly, “I would have made her my queen. I had the paperwork ready.”

She blinked. “How surprisingly un-elitist of you.” Her mother had never suggested, never hinted at it. “She would have hated being queen. She would have said no.”

“She loved me enough to have said yes.” Absolute certainty laced his words.

“You think that somehow erases what you did?”

“No. Nothing shall ever erase what I did.”

“Let’s skip the woe-is-me bullshit. You came here after all these years to tell me this crap?”

Her father looked at her for a long moment. Then strode for the door, opening it in silence. But he said before he stepped into the street, his red hair gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, “I came here after all these years to tell you that you may be like your mother, but you are also more like me than you realize.” His amber eyes—her own—flickered. “And that is not a good thing.”

The door shut, the gallery darkening. Bryce stared at the computer screen before her, then typed in a few words.

There was still nothing on Hunt. No mention of him in the news. Not a whisper about whether the Umbra Mortis was imprisoned or tortured or alive or dead.

As if he had never existed. As if she had dreamed him up.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

69

Hunt ate only because his body demanded it, slept because there was nothing else to do, and watched the TV screen in the hall beyond his cell bars because he’d brought this upon himself and Vik and Justinian and there was no undoing it.

Micah had left the latter’s body up. Justinian would hang there for seven full days and then be pulled off the crucifix—and dumped into the Istros. No Sailings for traitors. Just the bellies of the river beasts.

Viktoria’s box had already been dumped into the Melinoë Trench.