Page 25 of Ascendant King

“Yeah.” Coral nodded sharply.

“He couldn’t have gotten far, boss,” Joel said. “Let me take out a hunting pack. We find him and show him what happens when you try to run in our city. Hint: lots of blood.”

“Let’s check his place first.” I studied the stairs. I didn’t smell anything unusual, but these days, fighting mages instead of wolves and humans, my nose wasn’t reliable.

“Wait,” Cade said. He held out a hand, and magic uncurled from his palm. Black tattoos floated down the stairs, tumbling one over the other like a bunch of exhausted puppies. My eyes strayed to his face, the frown that lingered between his brows smoothed away as soon as he saw me watching.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice low.

“Lily is powerful enough that no one other than a strong mage should have been able to slip away from her.” Cade’s eyes went dark, galaxies spinning behind his irises.

“You and I escaped from House Morrison.” When we’d been running from everyone, we’d slipped out of two tracking spells.One I’d crushed between my fingers until it was nothing more than ash and pigment.

“I’m powerful, and you’re… special.” Cade’s voice was the same, even as the stars and constellations behind his eyes shifted as he searched for something. “It’s clear.”

The magic darted up the stairs, faster and more eager than it had tumbled down. Cade bent low, scooping up an armful, letting it cling to his skin again. The lines of ink became long blades and sharp thorns.

My chest ached, the magic Cade had given to me still drawn to him despite the fact that he’d cut it off. Or maybe it was just me wanting him. Me wanting his hands to touch me as familiarly as he had touched his magic.

I looked away. When I caught Joel’s eyes, he jumped. “With me.”

We headed down the stairs, Cade behind us, Lily and Coral protecting our backs. No spells attacked us on the stairs; no one jumped out from the magic nothingness of a mage’s teleportation spell.

At the door to the basement apartment, I glanced at everyone. “Ready?”

Then, I shoved my shoulder into it. The door cracked, the frame itself giving way, the wood soft and rotten. Los Santos fog and rain hadn’t been kind to it.

Inside, the lights were on, illuminating a small studio apartment, food left simmering on the stove. Posters on the wall for local bands gave some hints of personality, but with a glance, I saw there were no photos up, no ticket stubs clipped to the fridge.

“Search it,” I directed Coral and Joel. “We might not have that much time.”

I approached the stove. The stir-fry was sticking to the bottom of the pan, the rice and vegetables burned, an openbottle of soy sauce next to the wok, waiting to season the dish. I reached out and clicked off the burner.

The kitchen was utilitarian: one plate, one set of cutlery, one sponge, one bottle of dish soap. There wasn’t anything in the cabinets other than mass-produced cans and boxes of food straight from a chain grocery store.

The fridge had a single magnet on it, but whatever it had been clipping to the fridge was absent. Inside the refrigerator was a six-pack of beer, cheese, milk, and cases of product.

“Thorn doesn’t need to be refrigerated, does it?” I asked Joel.

He looked up from where he was going through a dresser. “The chemists would know for certain, but we didn’t ever put it in coolers unless we were hiding it from the popo.”

I opened the freezer and found a few Lean Cuisine meals and a stack of cash in a zip-lock bag.

“If you were running, what’s the first thing you’d grab?” I asked the room at large.

“Lily,” Coral said immediately, the consort smiling at her mage.

“My phone,” Joel said.

“Money,” Cade said.

“Ding ding ding, the finalJeopardy!question goes to the handsome prince.” I pulled out the cash, as thick as my fists stacked together. “So, why did our mystery dealer leave the money and the product behind?”

No one seemed to have an answer for that, and I didn’t find anything else interesting in the kitchen. Lily and Coral had struck out in the modest living room. I showed Coral how to tear open the couch pillows, but nothing was inside other than a disturbing amount of silverfish.

Joel had checked all the drawers, pulling them out to see if anything was taped underneath or behind them. He’d stackedthem neatly to the side, and I saw an assortment of nearly identical shirts and jeans. Even his underwear was all black.

Cade had finished searching the bed, doing a good job of pulling it apart and flipping it over. He’d torn open the seams, but nothing was inside. He was examining the bedside table, but it was bare of everything except a ring of water damage on the wood.