20. Axe

Chapter 20

Axe

THE PHANTOM

A s Elara disarms the estate's second floor, we stay close behind, wary of any missed or deliberately left behind snares, webs, or nets. Elara seems to enjoy our rare moment of weakness a little too much.

The Sovereigns would've carved into me for such a failure. Elara just smiled, her eyes glinting with refreshing, harmless amusement.

Well, harmless in the figurative sense.

Unlike Kaspian's clear distrust, Cav's suspicious prowl, and Wilder's glowering, I follow her lead with ease. Potential pitfalls barely even register to my peripheral senses, like I can sense them before Elara gets to the ones that weren't connected to the button she pressed.

"Maverick's bedroom," Kaspian barks behind me. "Take us to it."

Elara doesn't bother to turn and acknowledge him, though her back stiffens as she turns right down a hallway, Sasha throwing a glare in his direction as she walks beside Elara.

Now, surrounded by the frozen remnants of a life cut brutally short, familiar minutiae triggers visceral flashes of recollection I can't fully suppress. Maverick's overflowing bookshelf stacked with well-thumbed fantasy epics, and coding manuals; the teetering stacks of once-beloved graphic novels and gaming guides; custom-built cubbies and slots fashioned between the shelves to stash ... what, exactly?

I blink, and the room doesn't look how I just described it. It's messier, the books and manuals tossed, the stack of graphic novels tipped over, drawers left open.

How did I know what it looked like before?

I systematically take stock of the scene, my gaze roving for even the most minuscule divergence that could prove meaningf?—

There. Next to the disheveled bed, nearly obscured by the room's arabesque wallpaper pattern.

To the unwitting observer, it could pass as mere idle scribbling. But the cadence of the dots and dashes subtly penned on the wallpaper rings alarmingly familiar, catalyzing a renewed sense of purpose I can't allow myself to telegraph.

My fingers twitch, begging for my phone, but I clench them until my nails dig into my palms, and they still.

I don't have to give them everything.

The cut on my face throbs, taking over where my fingers left off.

I haven't been honest with my brothers-in-arms, and that alone makes me sick. To involve Elara in the same tangled mess of lies and deceit makes my gut churn. But I have no choice.

Not if I want to keep her safe.

I stride toward the wall, ignoring Kaspian's demands to know what I'm doing. My fingers trace the pattern of dots and dashes, translating the message effortlessly in my mind. Coordinates. A meeting place. Wraithwood Estate.

Maverick knew he was in danger. He left this message for Elara to find William Jonquil's ancient office. And find it, she did.

I turn back to the others, my face a mask of calm indifference.

Elara's eyes narrow, her gaze flicking from me to the wall and back again. But she says nothing, merely nodding toward Maverick's computer.

"That's his baby, right there," she says to Kaspian. "Whoever was dressed in black and tore through this room didn't take it for some reason."

"He was looking for something else," Sasha adds. "Something specific. Is there another enemy we have to keep an eye on, or are you all popping out of the Cimmerian Court like fresh acne?"

Nobody answers. With a jerk of his chin, Cav sends Wilder to inspect Maverick's closet and me to rummage through the nightstand drawer and bookshelf, where I pull items out at random, knowing I won't find anything.

I pause, frowning. Then remember all Maverick's clues thus far have been electronic. So why did the intruder leave the computer for us to find?

Because he didn't want to actually take something crucial. Only for it to look that way.

Wait. How do I know that?

My head starts to ache, more related to my mental gymnastics than the cut on my face.

Kaspian draws my attention, moving directly to the fully equipped gaming chair in front of the computer.

Elara watches Kaspian warily as he activates it. His green eyes lower with an eerie calmness as he begins to type with one hand, refusing help, the sound of the keys clicking adding to the sounds of her late brother's room being pilfered.

Again.

If it breaks Elara's heart to see us put a dent in Maverick's formally preserved space, none of it shows on her face. Likely a trait she gained by spending time with us.

Any man falling for her would be saddened by that fact, but I'm glad for it.

The screen flashes alive, casting a blueish hue over Kaspian's intense expression. He leans in, reading something that prompts a low curse to slip out.

"What is it?" Wilder abandons his search and moves closer.

Kaspian doesn't answer immediately, his hand flying over the keyboard once more. Screens pop up and vanish in rapid succession before he finally leans back.

From the corner of my eye, Elara and Sasha exchange a furtive glance before they make their way toward us. Their presence is both comforting and unnerving, a potent mix of familiarity and fear that sets my senses on edge.

"Is there something we should know?" Elara finally asks, her attention fixed on the screen.

Kaspian doesn't look up from his work.

"Possibly," he replies cryptically. His face is a mask of concentration, the whites of his eyes reflecting the changing colors from the screen as he rapidly sifts through Maverick's encrypted files.

"For all we know, this could be another dead end," Cav muses from his post near the door, striking a note of skepticism among us. His hands are tucked in his pants pockets, blue eyes sharp as they move between us all.

The mild burns on his arms bloom red in the artificial light of the room, seemingly as angry as the expression he's worn since extricating himself from a caustic ambush.

Elara bristles at his words. "So far, Maverick's given us the most evidence against the Sovereigns."

"He's also the one who broke the jewel in half and played hide-and-seek with us," Wilder states.

Elara frowns at him.

"Fuck, this isn't good," Kaspian says.

I ignore the surge of adrenaline that floods my veins and instead move closer to the computer. The image there causes my heart to stutter.

It's a map—a detailed layout of Titan Falls as it is today—but it's not the geography that has my blood running cold.

There are red dots scattered all over it.

"Missing persons," Kaspian murmurs, answering our silent question. "Each dot represents a missing person case in Titan Falls."

Elara swallows audibly, her hand shooting out to clutch Sasha's. Their knuckles blanch as they grip each other, their eyes wide and fixed on the horrific constellation illuminating the screen.

"Maverick was tracking them," I surmise. "And look at the dates... this has been happening for decades."

"More than that," Cav interjects, his eyes squinting as he studies the map from over my shoulder. "Some of these cases go back to the late seventeen hundreds."

"When Sarah Anderton was alive," Elara whispers.

The sudden silence in the room is deafening, underscored by the steady hum of Maverick's computer and the fast breaths of Elara and Sasha.

"What was Maverick looking for?" Wilder asks, breaking the eerie lull. "Why all these people?"

"Not people," Sasha says, her voice strained. "Women. Look."

She points shakily to a sidebar on the screen, populated with thumbnail photos of the victims staring back at us. All young, all beautiful, all gone without a trace. With a quick glance at the information attached to each woman's photo, their ages and dates of disappearance become horrifyingly clear.

"They were all university students," Elara says, her voice flat. "All around our age when they... disappeared."

Cav turns away, cursing under his breath. There's a hardened set to his jaw as he clenches his fists, the tendons standing out starkly through his skin. Kaspian's eyes harden, his fingers pausing on the keys before he pulls his other arm out of his sling and truly flies over the keys, pulling up more information that Maverick had uncovered.

Elara's face is pale under the harsh light of the computer screen. Questions must spin in her mind, each one bouncing off the walls of her skull but never finding their way to her lips.

I give her a nod of reassurance, hoping she knows I'm here for her. I think.

The silence breaks when Wilder throws a well-worn book—Jonquil's logbook—onto the table, a frayed ribbon marking a page in its center.

"Maverick was translating this," he announces.

The script is old English with flourishes that speak of an age when quills were common and ink was handmade. Some symbols are circled in red while others have been crossed out with black.

"See here?" Wilder adds, pointing at a list of names, faded with time but still legible. "William Jonquil was tracking missing women, too, which is probably what got Maverick started on this path."

"I've seen those symbols before," I say between a staccato of blinks. My mind is running through a microfiche of my memories, trying to find the right one.

"Where?" Cav demands.

"When…" I close my eyes, my brows tightening. "When they were deciding which ones to put on me."

Elara releases Sasha's hand, stepping toward me with a grace I don't deserve. Her gaze sweeps over me before her hands close around mine, pulling them to her chest. Delicate fingers hold my scarred ones.

Her stare doesn't waver.

"No one deserves this," she says. "Including you. Tell me you didn't have anything to do with this. That none of you are involved with these missing girls." Her throat bobs. Her eyes don't stray as they hold mine. The raw vulnerability in her gaze makes it impossible for me to look away. "Please."

My tongue swells with the need to offer her the solace she seeks. She wants my denial as much as she dreads it might be a lie.

"No," I grind out, my voice rasping against the charged air surrounding us. "I swear, Elara. None of us have anything to do with taking girls."

Kaspian nods, his fingers stilling on the keyboard. "We're monsters, but we're not those monsters."

Cav doesn't respond verbally; he only looks away, his eyes far too weary for someone who thrives in havoc.

Wilder's focus flicks between Elara and me before he adds, "We've been trying to break free from the Court for years now. But they hold our families hostage. Our heritage, reputations … curses. They threaten it all to keep us in line."

Elara's gaze softens slightly before she releases my hands and steps back. She gives a slow nod. "I believe you."

It's not relief that floods me then, but something far more profound and unsettling: trust.

After a beat, her forehead wrinkles and she looks to the side, deep in thought.

"Families…" she whispers, more to herself. Then her eyes widen and lock onto the back of Kaspian's head. "The Sovereigns have been doing this for centuries. Kaspian, check on these girls' last names. Are they from powerful families? Or descendants of the founders of Titan Falls?"

"Way ahead of you," Kaspian responds.

It's then I notice Jonquil's logbook to the right of the computer, where Kaspian's been cross-referencing it. "The missing women Jonquil linked together, Mary Primrose, Beloved Hawthorn, Elizabeth Thistle, Sophronia Bluebell, Mary Cowslip … they are all from the original settling families of Titan Falls."

Sasha gasps softly, her hand clutching at Elara's arm if trying to absorb some of her best friend's startling calm.

"So they knew Sarah Anderton," I surmise.

Wilder cocks a brow. "Any chance they're part of the families who hired Sarah to off someone?"

"That's not what Jonquil or Maverick were focused on," Kaspian murmurs, his eyes darting from page to screen and back again. "I'm forced to admit Big Brother was thorough, beastie."

"And the latest girls?" Cav asks. His attention shifts from the screen to Elara, his eyes flaring with a renewed intensity. "She's right. The victims seem convenient for the Court. It makes sense they'd target those with power or influence."

"For what ?" Elara asks with horror.

"The fucking devil's work." Sasha whispers a soft prayer, her fingers dancing over the gold pendant hanging around her neck. Her doe eyes are stretched to their limit, but she doesn't look away from the unfolding drama.

A moment later, Kaspian pulls back from the screen and turns to face us.

"They're all connected," he confirms, his voice grim. "Every single one of them has ties to Titan Falls' founders or influential families."

Elara squares her shoulders and crosses her arms. "We need to warn the ones that are still alive."

"And what? Tell them their children could be next in a dark arts sacrifice by a secret society that doesn't exist to them?" Cav shoots back incredulously.

"We can't just do nothing!"

Cav runs a hand through his dark hair and sighs heavily. "Hundreds of people settled here 200 years ago. Since then, families have split off, names have changed, and family trees have been broken. What you're asking is impossible in the amount of time we have."

"Sacrifices," Elara whispers so quietly I almost don't hear her. She's grabbed the one word Cav used to describe why those girls were taken. "It's got to be linked to the ruby Heart somehow."

"Founding families, Sarah's legendary treasure, dark rituals." I flex my fingers to stop my hands from shaking. "Cav's and my scars … I'm just the surface of it."

If my body is any clue, the Court isn't merely a group of wealthy elites seeking power and influence; they are devotees of an ancient, occult order, willing to sacrifice innocent lives in their pursuit of dark ambitions.

"Each of us is a thread in whatever fuckery the Sovereigns are weaving," Kaspian adds, his voice cold and hard as he closes Jonquil's ledger with a thud.

Suddenly, Sasha whirls on Elara, her hand reaching out to grasp her friend's. "Oh my god , are you next? You're related to this Jonquil guy, and he—has anyone figured out what happened to him while he was investigating his version of these Sovereign guys?"

I grip the edge of the desk, finding it hard not to lunge for something at the thought of—"Nobody is taking Elara."

Even I'm surprised by the vehemence in my voice.

For one heart-stopping moment, everything else seems to melt away. The looming threat, the cryptic symbols, the disturbing pattern of missing women. There's only her, her natural light pulling me out of the darkness I've been drowning in.

Kaspian rises from the chair, snapping me back to the grim present. "Why not? If we could figure it out, so could they."

His attention rests on Elara for a second before he quickly looks away, as if afraid of revealing too much.

"I won't let it happen," Cav adds, echoing my sentiment.

"If they wanted to get at Elara, they shouldn't have surrounded her with us," Wilder affirms with a killer smile. Literally a you're dead if you touch her kind of smile.

That smile falls a second later with surprising seriousness. He's remembering what happened to the last girl he tried to protect.

Despite the situation, Elara looks at each of us with a soft curve to her lips. A smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and I understand why.

If only we'd met under different, happier circumstances.

She turns serious again. "We need to find out more about Sarah Anderton, too. There has to be a reason her name keeps coming up, and not just because she owned the Heart. I plan on finding Clover on campus tomorrow, the girl who?—"

"We know exactly who the fuck she is." Kaspian cuts in, a venomous fire in his gaze.

Elara's cheek muscles twitch while she glares at him. "I'm not going to ruin your rivalry with the Vultures. I just want to talk to her and see what she knows about the Andertons. She wrote that paper about Sarah's daughter."

"Absolutely not," Cav says.

Elara opens her mouth to argue, but then Sasha rubs at her temples with a pained expression. "Guys, I need a break from this ancient, historical, serial killing spree thing. Does anyone need coffee? I can go grab some from the 24-hour place nearby. Pretty sure I'm not on this Satanic hit list, so I can drive there and come back while you continue to … uncover additional horrifying evidence."

Elara hesitates, her frustration evident in the line between her brows. She glances at Sasha, acknowledging her need for a breather, before nodding reluctantly.

"I'll take a coffee, thanks," she says.

"Great," Sasha says with obvious relief.

As she grabs the keys from Elara and heads out the door, she turns to look over her shoulder. "The rest of you take it pitch black, I assume?"

Reluctant grumbles all around.

Once Sasha is out of earshot, Elara turns to Maverick's computer now in screensaver mode, a rotating slideshow of fantasy artwork and scenery from his favorite games.

"I'd like to look at all the documents Maverick put on that flash drive." She adds pointedly while watching the screen with profound sadness, "Alone."

Kaspian's eyes shrink like he wants to deny her just for the hell of it, but I step in. "She has a right to see what her brother died for."

"Let her," Cav says. "But we'll be just outside the door."

Meaning it wouldn't do Elara any good to try anything against us. Not that I believe she would at this point. She needs us as much as we need her.

To solve the mystery behind the Heart , I repeat inside my head. We don't need her for anything else.

The thin fabric of her nightgown counters that thought. I cut my gaze to the side, unable to keep such sweet, seductive innocence in my line of vision.

Cav motions for us to leave, Kaspian strolling out first, then Wilder, then Cav. I linger at the doorway as Elara sits in Maverick's chair, her hands stroking the expensive leather around her thighs. From the quiet sigh that escapes her lips, I sense it's not to remember her brother but to feel the body heat Kaspian left behind.

"We forgot to think about one thing," I say.

Elara jumps, and I realize I've waited a good long while before saying anything, and she thought we'd all left.

She turns her head in my direction, clearing her throat and gathering her bearings as she does so. "What's that?"

"The recent missing girls."

Elara angles her head. "Yes?"

The fresh cuts and old scars on my skin throb with their own heartbeats. My body strains as if crying out the answer to her. "They may not be dead."