Chapter 84 84

Chapter 84 Part 2-Chapter 1

~Sponsor~

Three weeks is long enough for hope to thin out, but not long enough for the hurt to lessen.

Seattle felt colder now, sharper around the edges, like the whole city had shifted in Cyne’s absence. The days stretched longer. The nights darker, and every time the building settled, my pulse reacted like someone was standing behind me.

Nightfall Investigations office had always felt cramped and alive, the kind of space that gathered sound instead of muffling it. Now the office felt hollow.

I stood in front of Cyne’s desk, staring at the second envelope sitting dead center like it had every right to be there. No markings. No stamp. No name. Not even a crease in the wrong direction. Whoever had brought it knew what they were doing.

Raines paced near the door, rubbing her forehead tiredly, her coat half-buttoned and still damp from the rain outside. She’d barely slept these past weeks either. Not because of Cyne, because of Mara, she was still missing, and the trail was growing colder every day. We were losing both of them, and the weight had carved itself into our shoulders.

“Open it,” Raines said, stopping mid-pace. “Before I throw it out the window.”

“I’m thinking,” I muttered.

“No,” she corrected, crossing her arms, “you’re stalling.”

Maybe I was. My stomach would twist and my breath would catch each time I reached for the envelope, before I’d stop short. Cyne had vanished during the corridor hunt: no warning, no sound, no fight we could track. He was simply there and then gone. Everything he owned was still here. Everything…except him.

Raines softened. “Look…whatever’s in there? We deal with it, okay?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Sure…we deal with it.”

I slipped my fingers under the flap and tore it open, and Raines stopped breathing. So did I.

Two things slid out onto the desk: A pendant, and a strip of torn fabric…black, stiff, unmistakably from Cyne’s coat.

My knees nearly gave out.

Raines exhaled a strangled, “Shit.”

The pendant gleamed faintly, etched with intersecting lines in a circle. Not Vassell’s mark. Not any cult we’d crossed so far. This symbol felt older. The kind of old that didn’t show itself unless it wanted to be seen.

“He’s alive,” I whispered, because the alternative crushed the air out of my lungs.

Raines blinked hard. “What makes you think that?”

“If he were dead,” I murmured, brushing my fingertips over the torn fabric, “they wouldn’t taunt us. They’d display it.”

Raines swallowed. “Okay…you have a point. That’s messed up, but you have a point.”

I lifted the strip of coat…cold, stiff, wrong. Cyne always carried a quiet chill with him, something not-quite-human humming under his skin. This scrap didn’t carry that hum…which meant whatever tore it off wasn’t him.

“Cyne didn’t send this,” I said.

“Obviously,” Raines snorted. “He’s off-grid.”

“No.” I shook my head slowly. “Not what I meant. He wouldn’t leave a piece of himself behind unless someone forced him to. And that only happens if he allowed the situation to escalate for a reason.”

Raines sat heavily in the chair across from me. “You’re saying he walked into this?”

“I’m saying he chose it,” I pointed out.

Her jaw tightened. “Then what the hell does the pendant mean?”

I stared at the symbol, tracing its lines with my eyes. “It’s not Deliverance. Not Second Order. Not Vassell’s lineage. This is something older. Something that existed before any of them.”

“Terrific,” Raines muttered. “Love that for us.”

A cold ripple crawled up the back of my neck. Not a breeze. Not nerves. Something watching. Something listening. Something waiting.

Raines didn’t notice. She was staring at the pendant like it might bite. “Okay. So Cyne’s alive. And somebody wants us to know that.”

“They want me to know it,” I corrected quietly.

That truth settled between us like a dropped weapon.

Raines rubbed her temples. “Sponsor…they’ve been circling you since day one. Why? What makes you this important to them?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Well, we’re gonna figure it out.” She dragged in a breath. “Because if this pendant is connected to whoever took him, then this…” she pointed at the coat scrap, “is a warning.”

“No.” My voice hardened. “It’s an invitation.”

Raines’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, come again?”

“They want me,” I said. “Not you. Not Mara. Me.”

“And you think that’s a good thing?” she snapped.

“No,” I answered honestly. “But it’s leverage.”

Raines hesitated. “Sponsor…if you’re thinking of walking into whatever trap they’re setting—”

“I’m not walking blind.” I closed my hand around the pendant. “I’m answering.”

She stared at me with a frown. “There’s a difference?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “There sure as hell is. When you chase someone, you follow their path. When you answer them, you drag them into yours.”

Raines stared at me like she didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. “So what’s the next move?”

“We go back to the corridor,” I answered. Simple, straight.

Her head snapped up. “Absolutely not.”

I shrugged. “I won’t go alone.”

“And who’s going with you? Because your undead, shadow-slash-protector, isn’t here,” she snipped.

“He will be,” I told her, my voice certain.

Something flickered across Raines’s face, worry, stubbornness, grief, but she didn’t argue again. She grabbed her jacket and moved toward the door.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if you get eaten by a cult, I’m quitting life.”

I slipped the pendant into my pocket and stood, feeling a sudden breath ghost across the back of my neck.

Not wind. Not imagination. A presence I knew down to my bones. Cyne.

My voice cracked. “He’s definitely alive.”

Raines paused. “What? You already said that.”

“I know, but he’s alive,” I repeated, my voice almost giggly with relief. “And he’s coming back bloody.”

Raines tightened her grip on the doorknob. “You’re fucking weird. But…good, because when we find the bastards who took him—”

“We won’t need to,” I whispered.

Raines frowned. “Why not?”

“Because whoever took him…” I pressed a hand to my chest as the truth settled sharp and certain. “They’re already running.”

Raines stared at me, one eyebrow raised, her expression saying she thought I had lost it.

Hope bloomed under my ribs: cold, fierce, impossible to ignore, and with it came something else. Something darker. Something that felt like Cyne had left it behind for me to find.

The hunt wasn’t over. It had only changed direction. And now? Now it was personal.