Page 64 of Vicious Kings
There is one thing I'm sure of. Wilhelmina Moreau walked into this university with a purpose. She is also an omega, which makes her capable of accessing people and places I can't get to without being viewed as a threat.
Maybe she will be useful, yet.
If nothing else, she's interesting.
Twenty
LOCKE
The corridor falls silent once Caelyx's footsteps retreat from the archives, leaving me alone with the stone and shadows that predate this university's transformation from a military structure to halls of decadence.
I watch him through the window's reflection, noting the arrogance in his gait. He carries himself like he's daring the world to challenge him.
The son of a bitch stole my authorization crystal. I felt it the moment his fingers brushed my pocket during one of our last encounters, but I let him take it. Better to know what he's looking for than to stop him and have him find even more creative ways to satisfy his curiosity.
And Caelyx isalwayscurious.
I wait five minutes, counting the seconds. Then I move, my footsteps silent against stone worn smooth by ages. The restricted archives call to me, pulling me toward whatever secrets Caelyx found interesting enough to risk my wrath.
The door yields to my touch. The wards recognize my signature even without the stolen crystal. I slip inside, letting the darkness swallow me whole. The air here tastes of ancient magic. I breathe it in like fine wine.
My magic unfurls, invisible tendrils of power spreading through the archive like roots seeking water. Every document Caelyx touched left a trace, a fingerprint of his magic burned into paper and leather. I follow the trail, letting it guide me through shelves that stretch into impossible distances.
The hunter records. Of course.
The files float from their resting places at my command, arranging themselves in mid-air in the exact order Caelyx examined them. Moreau clan history. Individual hunters. Recent incidents. And there, the one he lingered over the longest, the one that made his pulse spike with interest I could feel even now through the residual magic.
Wilhelmina Moreau.
I pull the file closer, scanning the sparse details with eyes that have read thousands of such reports over the centuries. Age twenty. Omega. Origin, Moreau clan.
An omega hunter.
The universe has a twisted sense of humor.
But it's what'snotin the file that interests me. No mention of parents. No childhood records. Nothing that explains how an omega ended up in a hunter clan long enough to be trained. The Fae have strict protocols about omega detection and retrieval. For one to slip through the cracks for twenty years?
Impossible.
Unless someonewantedher to slip through.
I move to the next file Caelyx examined, another hunter from the Moreau bloodline. Then another. He was searching for a pattern, a connection.
Smart. Paranoid as fuck, but smart.
The final file makes my blood run cold. "Unresolved Incidents." I know this section exists, but it's rarely accessed. The filing system's equivalent of a junk drawer, filled with cases that didn't fit neatly into the bureaucracy's ordered boxes.
A hunter, female, approximately forty-five years old. The line of text below materializes before my eyes only. Caelyx wouldn't have even known to look for the addition hidden beneath the glamour. The unknown hunter was captured eight years ago after an assassination attempt on Prince Corvinus.
An attempt I don't remember, because it never happened. I haven't left the prince's side for any significant length of time in longer than I care to calculate, but the last time someone tried to kill the son of a bitch, it wasn't a close call and it certainly wasn't a woman.
It's possible it could have happened while I was away briefly on a trip, but surely Corvinus would have mentioned it. He never shuts up about the slightest inconvenience, let alone a full-blown attempt on his life.
And that's far from the only anomalous aspect of the ordeal. There's no execution record.
Strange.
I close my eyes, pieces clicking together in my mind like a puzzle I should have solved weeks ago. Eight years. Billie would have been twelve. The perfect age to be traumatized by losing a parent, young enough that the wound would never truly heal.
