When he returned to his rooms, he took a seat and opened a drawer on his desk, withdrawing the still-green and vibrant leaf he’d plucked from the vine he’d found outside Aphra Pavan’s room. He ran his thumb along the ridge on the underside. If he could not find Aurora, he would find her witch.

Kiran pulled the hood high over his head. He was glad for the chilly turn in the weather, so he had a good excuse to wrap a scarf around the lower half of his face, besides the fact that the streets of Pavan were crawling with Locke soldiers. He had stayed with Aurora at her mother’s bedside as long as he dared, so long that his skin smelled of her and every breath threatened to send him tumbling into painful memories of what he had given up.

He was stopped five times by soldiers between the tavern and his destination, and each time he answered their questions with as few words as possible. He let them pat him down for weapons because he was not wearing any. He had left his belt and storm-magic supplies back at the tavern too. Zephyr had received word from Taven that soldiers would be executing random searches on the streets and of properties in certain neighborhoods.

Luckily, the tavern was not in an area of suspected rebellion activity, so it was not one of the neighborhoods they planned to search at this time, but all the same they had put a plan in place for where to hide Aurora and her mother should such a search occur. It was lucky that Zephyr was as paranoid as a hunter, because the woman already had a hidden passage installed off her office that led down to the basement, where a small window could be lifted to make an escape. How they would make that escape with an unconscious queen, Kiran did not know, but he felt better knowing there was a plan at least.

As he neared his destination, the appearance of soldiers only increased. He knew they were focusing on the poorest areas of the city in their search for the rebellion. But they were not bothering to stop people in the streets. Instead, they were barging into houses, throwing around furniture and beds, making a heinous mess, and seeming to relish it.

He scanned the area, checking for any wandering eyes, but when the only soldiers he saw were preoccupied with their harassment inside people’s homes, he ducked into the alley where the rebellion’s secret headquarters was hidden.