Too quick for my burning eyes to see, Haze dropped the papers on the desk and vaulted right over it. When I blinked again, his blurry form stood in the door frame, peering into the hallway.
The picture. I wiped my eyes. I needed that picture.
My fingers closed around the small square. It slipped out of my grasp twice, but I finally managed to carefully place it in my pocket.
Tears threatened to spill. I furiously wiped at my eyes again. I would not cry. Not now.
"I don't hear anything," Haze said. "This house is huge."
"Maybe"—I flinched when my voice broke. "Maybe s-someone left a window open. It was windy outside."
His fingers tapped the door frame next to his head. "Maybe."
A part of me didn't care if we weren't alone. Didn't care if my stepmom found me snooping through Dad's things. Didn't care if Dad found out. Hell, I kind of wanted him to know that I knew—wanted him to panic.
Unless...these were nothing but rumors. Simply speculations of news reporters and outsiders. False information.
Icy numbness spread from my fingertips all the way up my arms. I shivered.
Even now I didn't want to believe that Dad was the villain. That there was some rational explanation for all this. Maybe whatever I'd find here didn't mean anything. Maybe it wasn't something he could have shared with me. Maybe he'd wanted to protect me from nasty gossip.
But I was older now. And he'd made zero effort to tell me about my own mother. Ever. Then why keep a file and why hide it from me? Didn't I deserve to know what he knew?
Didn't I deserve to know what had happened to her?
"Ariel."
Haze's voice brought me back. He stood above me, eyebrows drawn together.
"I... Sorry." I cleared my throat. "Please... Please keep looking."
His frown deepened. "I think we should get outta here."
I shook my head. "Not yet."
He didn't look particularly convinced, but after a moment, he nodded. "You got it."
My vision cleared and I focused on the stack of papers in front of me. It was everything I'd both hoped for and dreaded. There was no going back now.
I felt Haze's eyes on me a little longer as I clenched my jaw and exhaled through my nose. When he turned back to the cabinet, I tore the sticky note off the first page and read the entire headline.
Prime suspect in Pierce disappearance.
I sucked in a breath.
Mom wasn't...dead?
After admitting to having made a deal with Irene Pierce, wife to newly appointed ambassador Benjamin Pierce, Jornan, a demon of greed, was arrested last night. The demon, well-known to law enforcement, was sent to Pyrarcis for questioning. At this moment, jurisdiction lies with the high council of Pandaemonium.
I felt myself frown. Haze had convinced me that the demon had already been imprisoned. But then where had the paper gotten this information from? Admittedly, it was a human newspaper, but still. Maybe this was all some elaborate cover-up.
But then where was Mom?
I turned the page and scanned the next headline.
Ambassador Pierce's wife: innocent victim or master manipulator?
What the hell?
The edge of the paper crumbled under my tight grip as my eyes flew over the first paragraph.
New evidence suggests the disappearance of Irene Pierce may have been planned by none other than the victim herself. Sources close to the family reveal that Mrs. Pierce may have wanted an out. Her infant daughter, however, was not included in her plan. Ambassador Benjamin Pierce, father of the child, allegedly found her left to fend for herself after he returned from a work trip.
Bullshit. Mom would never leave me.
Would she?
The distinct sound of the garage door opening made me flinch.
Haze shut the binder in his hands with a quiet thud and made for the door. This time he only lingered there for a second. Bright crimson eyes snapped to me. "Looks like someone's home after all."
No, no, no. I needed more time. If Dad found out I was onto him now, he would have more than enough time to prepare—to come up with some kind of theory that he could present me with.
Haze must have seen my panicked expression because his fingers closed around the hilt of the sword on his back. I'd almost forgotten he'd insisted on bringing that thing. "I got this," he said.
"No!" I jumped up and grabbed his elbow. "It's just... Just my stepmom."
I think.
"Oh." He lowered his arm and frowned. "So, I don't need this?"
"No. As much as she gets on my nerves, she's harmless."
"Well, if you change your mind..." His lips curled up ever so slightly. "Say the word."
Noted.
"Let's just..." I scrambled for all the loose papers about Mom. "Let's grab what we have and go. If I'm lucky, he won't notice anything is missing. At least not for a while."
He nodded slowly and scooped up the binder once more to tuck it under his arm.
"You found something else?" I asked.
"Think so."
I hated to admit it, but stumbling into him at the park might have been the best thing that could have happened to me today.
We'd just closed Dad's office door behind us when the click of high heels on hardwood sounded from up ahead. She was in the kitchen. Right between us and our exit.
"Ariel, is that you?" my stepmom called, her voice somewhere between a yell and a screech.
Suppressing a curse, I grabbed Haze's arm and pulled him further into the house. The back part of the living room opened in front of us. Except for a new glass table, the sitting area made of two large, beige-colored L-shaped couches and a couple of matching armchairs still looked exactly the same. To the left, wide, carpeted stairs led to the second floor.
I made a beeline for the back of the stairs, still dragging Haze with me. With one hand I opened the storage room door, swiftly but quietly, with the other, I shoved him inside. He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my index finger to his lips, silencing him.
His eyes widened, but he complied.
Before I could overthink what in the world had driven me to touch him like this, I stepped back and slammed the door in his stunned face.
Smooth.
The feel of his soft lips still lingered on the tip of my finger by the time I retrieved my alchemy notebook from my backpack. I pretended to unzip my pack once more when I saw my stepmom approach out of the corner of my eye.
"Ariel," she said, her voice tight, "what are you doing here?"
I raised the notebook for her to see. "Just wanted to get this."
She crossed her slim arms tightly in front of her chest. The golden cocktail dress hugging her small frame matched her long blond hair perfectly. She looked ready for a night out—and not happy to see me.
"You came all the way out here...for a notebook?"
"Yup. I, uh, used to draw in this. Kept it in a storage box in there." I nodded at the closed door.
Please, just buy it. We both know you don't really care.
"Seems a long way just for a stupid book..." Her red-painted lips drew into a thin line. "Then again, you've always been sentimental."
And she never missed an opportunity to take a jab at me.
"Not much to be sentimental about here, is there?" I said through gritted teeth.
Except I had something of incredible value in my pocket right at this moment. Bet she had no idea Dad had kept a picture of Mom. No point in bothering her with that little tidbit of information though.
"Your father is much too lenient with you," she sneered. "Don't forget to lock the door on your way out."
That had to be the longest conversation we'd had in the last two years.
I waited for her to stalk back down the hallway before getting to my feet. Only when the front door slammed with a bang did I release Haze. And, boy, was he not amused.
"I never say no to a little adventure, but shoving me into a broom closet..." He ran his hands along the top of the door frame, a dangerous glint in his dark red eyes. "I don't think we're on that level yet, Cupcake."
"I panicked, okay?" I grumbled, ignoring the way he took up almost the entire frame. "If she saw you, she'd call my dad and then he'd ask all kinds of questions I don't wanna answer."
He tilted his head down towards me. "Isn't he gonna see us on the tape anyway?"
"He doesn't check it regularly..." I bit my lip. Someone else did though.
"But?" he prompted.
Damn, was I that easy to read?
"His head of security does. I'd say, I've got about forty-eight hours until he knows."
Forty-eight hours to figure out what else he'd lied about—and why someone wanted me dead. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that it had to do with Dad. Glimmerweald and its crystals were involved, just like Renis and Leyn. The jury was still out on Flamel.
"Please tell me you found something else," I said.
"How about this..." He stepped back and grabbed the binder he'd taken off the shelf in Dad's office from the cabinet behind him. "You tell me why we're really here and I'll—"
"I can't."
He narrowed his eyes. "Can't or won't?"
"Won't." I sighed. "Look, you can either help me or leave."
His eyes flitted across my face, and he clenched his jaw. Exhaling through his nose, he extended the binder to me. "Fine."
I expected him to stalk past me and out the door. Instead, he took a stroll around the living room, glancing at the display of designer decorations. He stopped in front of the only family portrait in the room right above the fireplace. It was one of those typical holiday photos, posed and fake, taken the winter before I'd gotten my scar.
"You grew up here?" he asked.
I turned to the binder and flipped through the first couple of pages. "Yeah, why?"
"Not gonna show me your room?"
My eyes automatically went to the stairs, and I swallowed. Dad probably hadn't touched it. At least he'd always said this was my home too and a place I could return to whenever. Somehow that just made it worse.
"It's nothing special..." I shrugged. "This isn't really my home anyway. Just... Just where I used to live."
He arched a brow.
"I mean, look at this place?" I waved my arms. "Everything's in perfect order. Not a single thing amiss. There aren't even any real plants in here. The whole place is like a damn museum."
Something about the way he looked at me made me want to disappear inside my hoodie.
"Are you gonna help me or not?" I snapped before he could overanalyze me some more.
His jaw ticked, but he stepped over to me in a few large strides and took the binder. He opened it to a part in the middle and pointed at a photograph of a strange crystal. Unlike ordinary lux, portal, or sensor crystals, this one was pebble-sized and barely gave off any visual glow. Its color was something between silver and deep blue.
"Have you ever seen a crystal like this?" he asked.
"No," I breathed, suddenly excited.
"What does it remind you of?"
"Glimmerweald... The trees."
But that made no sense. According to Professor Flamel, an energy crystal had only been brought to the ambassadors this year. Why would Dad have a picture of one in here?
Haze flipped to a section in the back.
A group of cloaked figures stood among a thicket of white-barked trees. The quality of the picture wasn't the best, likely due to the dusky purple sky, but the portal in the background was easy to make out. I'd never seen trees like these before. Something about the figures felt oddly familiar though.
When I looked at Haze for clarification, he said, "Vespyrea."
"That's Vespyrea?" I stuttered.
Did Dad have something to do with that too?
My head was already starting to spin again, and I leaned toward the closest thing in the room. Haze.
He moved closer, leaving a sliver of space between us. Voice low, he said, "From the looks of it, your dad was doing a little investigating of his own." He flipped another couple of pages. "It's not much though."
"Bet there's more at the archives."
"Could be."
My shoulders dropped and I took a deep breath. Maybe Dad wasn't involved in whatever happened to the shifter realm after all. Maybe he'd been trying to figure that out himself.
"There's something else," Haze said slowly, handing me a clear plastic folder. Inside was a triangular maroon cloth. A patch. Stray threads along frayed edges made it look worn, old.
Dread settled in my stomach. This couldn't be right. Why did he have this?
With unsteady hands, turned the piece over, hoping—praying I was wrong.
I wasn't.
The jagged bullet inside the triangle was identical to the one tattooed on Clarence's arm.