A Court Of Fire And Pain

Looking for clues

We began to search the floors for anymore signs of blood. "Over here!" Feyre called me. And sure enough there was some more dried blood in the cracks of the stone.

Perfect.

Azriel:

Of course I was in a group with him and Mor. This will be awkward. We walked to the place Aelin had first arrived in this world, where she said she might have heard Suriel. I wish we could just winnow or fly. But flying would attract too much attention to us, and we decided not to let the other court know the extent of our powers, so winnowing was out. The entire walk I stayed far away from Fenrys and didn't make any communication. We were on high alert for danger, so there was a high chance Mor would scent the bond if it activated. Finally we reached the location Feyre described.

There would be no scent of them since it had been more than a week since they had been here. Either way we had to try. We looked around for any clues. Finally my eyes caught on something stuck between the grates of the sewer.

"I think I found something."

They both hurried over and knelt beside me. There was a scrap of red fabric, just like Aelin said she had seen. It was so lucky that it hadn't blown away.

"So we found it. Now what?" Mor asked.

Fenrys looked thoughtful"We should try to figure out where they went from here. Combining our knowledge of our enemy, it shouldn't be too hard to predict where they went from here."

I forced myself not to look at him. "Let's do it then."

Elide:

As we walked towards the location Aelin specified, I kept my distance from Cassain. I didn't trust him, or any of them for that matter. They were definitely hiding something from us, but who was I to judge while we were doing the same thing.

But I also just didn't like him that much. He hadn't done anything, but I felt uneasy around him. Although I always felt that around males I didn't know. After Morath I made sure to always keep my distance from people until I was absolutely sure they were trustworthy. Sensing my agitation, Lorcan put his arm around me in comfort.

We walked in silence until Cassain spoke. "For team feisty we sure are quiet. Come on! It's not like we're at a funeral."

Lorcan stared at him. "If we mess this up, we might be."

I hit him on the shoulder. "Be nice Lorcan." Then I looked up at Cassian, who was taller than me. "He has a point though. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. This isn't the time to play. We need to stay focused or else things might get messy."

He failed to look contrite. "Sheesh you people are stiff. I get your point but no need to be so gloomy."

I stopped walking. "I don't know what hardships you've faced, but whatever it was, Aelin's had it worse. She's already suffered enough, and I will try my best to make sure she gains peace again. So I don't care what you think about me. But I will not mess up this chance. We might seem gloomy to you, but we are trying to focus on the task at hand. You should be doing the same. We aren't here to make friends."

Lorcan nodded. "We'll have plenty of time to hang out later, but right now we have a mission."

Cassian spoke and resumed walking. "Your right. But I still think you need to lighten up. Anyways we're here now, so let's get to work.

Feyre:

I wish we could have winnowed, but I didn't want Aelin to know I had the ability. I had to explain it since it would be used by our enemies, but I didn't let on that I could do it.

Once Aelin found the blood we followed the trail to a mansion with a giant courtyard in the front. Well they sure didn't try to blend in,

We had come up with a theory that Ianthe's 'uncle' was quite possibly an important person in the community, and it seemed we were correct.

"Follow me," Aelin shimmied up a drain pipe and onto the roof of one of the surrounding buildings. I followed her a little less gracefully.

From this height we had a better view of the place.

"We should circle the perimeter and try to spot anything amiss." Aelin whispered. I nodded my consent.

We kept our bodies low down to try and make sure nobody saw us. We crawled our way along the roof and only stood up when we jumped from roof to roof. The whole time we kept our eyes glued to the mansion, desperately trying to see or scent our children.

By the time we completed a whole circle and made it to where we started, we found nothing. I was about to suggest taking a break when Aelin pulled me behind a chimney and pushed me down.

"Someone's coming out."

I peeked around in time to see someone exit the house and enter the courtyard. Then I saw his face.

My head began to pound in fear and I felt my face pale in horror. When I looked at Aelin I saw a similar expression on her face.

"Hybern."

"Erawan."

This chapter was really hard to write. I knew how I wanted it to end, but had no idea what it would actually entail. So yeah. 

Hope you enjoyed!