I shake my head. “No.”
The Unseelie curses under his breath. It’s in the beautiful fae language, so I don’t know for sure what he said, but no matter how pretty it sounds, I know cursing when I hear it.
“Can’t you trace her?”
“I did. We split up to search for Jim, then I found her again. I told her to come back here. She said she would.”
He curses again, and I draw closer to Rys. When Nine lets his temper get the better of him, he starts to give off this freaky silver light that I just know means trouble. I get the feeling that his normally controlled demeanor is hiding a ticking time bomb. That, when it comes to his mate, he’s primed to explode.
No, thanks.
I want to ask him if he was able to track Jim down. Since he came back alone and Riley seems to still be searching, I’m guessing that’s a big, honking nope. Though I don’t say it out loud, I’m hoping the fact that Riley is still missing means that she’s had more success than Nine.
Unfortunately, when she suddenly appears—and she’s by herself—I can feel all of my hope fading.
She’s out of breath, and when Nine immediately stalks toward her, she holds up one hand, the other rubbing a stitch in her side. “Not now, Nine.”
“Riley—”
“What? I told you I would come back and I did. I just made one last stop before I backtracked.”
Nine looks like he wants to argue, but settles on shaking his head, just relieved that she’s back. “Very tricky, my mate.”
Riley flashes him a quick grin. “Hey. I learned from the best, Shadow Man.”
“Hm. Well, is that all? What else did you learn?”
At Rys’s interruption, Riley loses her grin. She looks at him, then turns to me. And I know, even before she says a damn thing, that I’m not going to like what she found out.
“Where’s Jim?” I ask.
“I definitely found him.”
“You did? That’s great!”
“Yeah, well. Hold off on that for a sec, Elle. There’s a reason I couldn’t bring him back with me.”
A million reasons why start running through my head, all of them fucking awful. “Is he okay? Did you see him? Is he—”
Dead?
“He’s alright. I mean, I think he is. Okay. This is what happened. Shade-walking… think about it like a subway. If I don’t get off at the right stop, I could end up at the wrong station. Get it? Well, I figured I’d go one more stop past where I thought they took Jim and I arrived just in time to see them marching him inside.”
Marching. Marching is good. Marching means that Jim’s up and walking on his own two feet.
But marching where?
Rys asks before I get the chance. “Where were they bringing Elle’s human?”
Riley shares a quick look with Nine before fiddling with her pointer finger. She’s plucking at the leather glove, suddenly transfixed by the way it’s molded to her hand.
My stomach drops. “Riley. Please. You’ve gotta tell me. Where did they take Jim?”
She looks up through the fringe of her lashes. “I don’t know exactly, but… based on the building and the gate and the bars… prison?”
No.
I clutch Rys’s arm. “Is there a prison nearby?”