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“It’s a piece of crap, Red,” I confirm. “Do us all a favor and let it go where all things that should never see the light of day again go to die.” I wink at her. “The moat.”

She frowns at my joke, clearly not in the mood for humor, shifting her gaze back toward Pace, whose fingers are flying over the keys.

“Okay, here she is getting into it.” On the screen, she drives away, and Pace switches to the camera covering the bridge, watching her leave the palace grounds. He glances at us over his shoulder, lifting an eyebrow. “This could take a while.”

And so it begins.

It takes an hour just to track one tiny, vaguely Asian ball of energy around Forsyth. From the palace to a place off Sixteenth Avenue, Pace manages to jump from camera to camera. Some of them are broken, others aren’t attached to a recording device whatsoever, but he makes it work.

“Is that a tailor?” Lex asks when we finally catch her getting out of the car. She walks into the dress shop, and then a few minutes later, returns in the frame, carrying a garment bag. She hangs the bag in the back of the car and drives off.

Verity wrings her hands, looking distressed. “She must have been picking up my dress for Lex and Sy’s graduation. I told her to take the day off, not run my errands.”

“Anywhere else she might have gone?” Pace asks, glancing at her. “Could help us narrow it down.”

Her forehead creases pensively. “Maybe the bakery?” She flicks her eyes at Lex. “I, uh, wanted a cake designed for the graduation afterparty.”

Lex looks up, stunned. “For me?”

“Yeah, well,” she rolls her eyes, “your father doesn’t have the best track record.”

Pace nods, and the monitors hop across town, giving various angles from gas stations and light posts to the front of businesses and government property.

“Are these all your cameras?” Ballsack asks, leaning over the desk.

“Some are mine. Others I’ve hacked into.” He leans forward. “Wait, is that your girl?”

We all peer at the black-and-white footage of a girl pulling up to a bakery. I’ve never been, but I recognize the name. It’s the same one that did Trudie’s absurd petit fours. We watch her go in, and ten minutes later, she comes back out empty-handed.

When the shitty car leaves the parking lot, Pace spits a curse. “She’s in North Side,” he explains. “I have a lot of dead spots out there.”

He tries to trace her, Ballsack hovering right up against his side, but none of us spot the car in any of the shots. The longer it goes without sight of her, Verity grows more and more upset, pacing in front of the couch with a drawn face.

They’re at it for two hours before Pace slumps back in his seat, groaning. “Guys, this is a needle in a haystack.”

“Keep looking,” Verity demands.

But Pace is gassed, rubbing his thumbs into his eyes. “I’m not going to be much help on no sleep. Maybe we can pick back up tomorrow.”

“But…” Verity’s eyes begin welling again, jumping from the empty monitors to Ballsack’s dejected gaze. “I can stay! I’ll look through everything myself. You can trust me.”

“You need rest even more than we do,” Lex argues, pushing to his feet. “Stella wouldn’t want you putting the baby in—”

His words clip off when Ballsack suddenly storms from the room, not even offering us a dirty look in his wake. Lex glances at me, shrugging helplessly, because he knows just like I do that kicking up a fuss about this is a bad idea.

Verity looks at us—all of us—the desperation clear in her eyes. “We have to find her! She didn’t just fall off the face of the earth. She’s out there somewhere!”

Pace and Lex both stand there, limp as the tears spill over, rolling down her wan cheeks.

Sometimes I hate being the one who has to say the truth aloud. “Verity, he has a point. StellaisSouth Side. The minute she walked out of the palace, she stopped being our problem.”

Her gaze snaps to me, flashing in such utter fucking shock that I almost want to take it back. “You’re saying you don’t care about Stella,” she hisses, “because she just so happens to have grown up in another fucking territory?”

Calmly, I reply, “No, I’m saying she has the Lords on her side, which is good because they keep what’s theirs. Out of any of the houses, the Lords are the least likely to let something like this slide.”

“If something happened to Stella, they’ll find her,” Pace explains, reaching out to touch the curve of her belly. “But we have you and the baby to think about. We have to let them do their thing, so we can do ours.”

She searches his eyes, the anger in her face only growing. “Stellaisours!”