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Araya was gone.

Jaxon’s fingers tightened on the edge of his desk, the wood groaning beneath his grip. She had vanished from the clinic—no trace, no explanation, no witnesses. Nothing . He might as well not have sent that useless guard at all.

“Are you even doing anything to find her?” Jaxon hissed.

“They’re tearing the clinic apart as we speak,” Caylin replied, not looking up as she sifted through a stack of maps. “The staff swears they saw nothing. And Serafina Hart—” she glanced up, her lips pressing into a thin line. “—is being questioned.”

Jaxon exhaled slowly through his nose, resisting the urge to slam his fist into the desk.

Serafina Hart. He should have cut the troublemaking Healer out the moment Araya accepted her place as his bond. Instead, he’d spent months carefully chipping away at their friendship—but Serafina had always lingered at the edges of their life, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

And when Araya had begged him to bring a Healer for the fae prince, it had been Serafina she asked for.

It had seemed like a harmless concession to keep Araya close when she was so obviously falling apart. But now?

Now she was gone. And Serafina was the last person to see her.

“Just let me do my job,” Caylin said, smoothing out a map of the New Dominion. She picked up his amulet by its chain, the casing Araya had made catching the golden light of the aetherlamps. The bone disc from their bonding was nestled inside, the pristine ivory marked with a single, dark drop of her blood.

Caylin let it dangle from her fingers, holding it out over the map as she murmured under her breath. Power crackled as she drew on the aether in her own amplifier. Jaxon’s amulet swung in slow circles over the map, then suddenly jerked backward—away from the parchment entirely.

“What the hell does that mean?” Jaxon demanded. “Has she left the continent?”

“No.” Caylin frowned down at the map. “I’d be able to find her if she left the continent. But...” She paused, watching him carefully. “Jaxon—this spell only works on the living.”

Jaxon’s breath stalled, panic flaring under his ribs. He hadn’t even considered?—

“Are you saying she’s dead?”

Caylin bit her lip, offering no response.

Jaxon stared at her, panic clawing at his chest. She couldn’t be gone—not like that. They were bonded—he would have known, wouldn’t he?

“Not necessarily,” Darian Hale said.

Jaxon turned sharply, focusing his full attention on Hale for the first time. The High Inquisitor leaned against a bookshelf, his blue eyes unreadable under the flickering glow of the aetherlamps. He was the one person Jaxon knew didn’t have anything to do with this—they’d been in the same meetings all day.

“What are you saying?”

“We’ve been monitoring rebel movements for months,” Hale said. “Mostly in Farhallow. They’ve been smuggling resources— people. Arcanum policy is to declare the ones we can’t track as perished in the crossing…but we don’t know .”

Jaxon sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Are you suggesting that she crossed the Veil?”

“One of our patrol boats went missing while pursuing a rebel vessel the day she disappeared,” Hale said. “We believe it was sunk by the Shadowed Veil—it’s possible the rebel craft they were pursuing sank as well, but…” he trailed off. “Do you have any reason to believe she’d run from you?”

“No.”

Jaxon’s jaw tightened, his fists curling. Araya wouldn’t have run—she loved him. She’d said so. And fae couldn’t lie.

But the thought had wormed its way in now, festering. He saw her eyes—wide and afraid. The way she’d flinched from his hand. The bruises he hadn’t meant to leave.

But she had made him do that. She’d known the cost of challenging him—and done it anyway.

So why did it feel like he was the one being punished?

He forced his jaw to unclench, meeting Hale’s gaze. "She would never."

“Then we assume Loren took her by force,” Hale replied. He turned to Caylin, who offered a faint nod.

Jaxon’s stomach twisted. Loren . The lost, chained prince—where did that fae filth get the idea he had any claim over her? That he could just take Araya and walk away?

“If she has crossed the Veil—willingly or not—” Hale adjusted the cuff of his coat, his voice calm and measured. “We’ll have to get more creative in our search if you want to find her.”

“Meaning?”

“There’s more than one way to track someone,” Caylin said. “If your father approves, we could sweep the districts. Search for signs of rebel activity. Shut them down.”

“If Araya crossed the Veil, she’s in fae hands by now,” Hale added. “ You won’t get her back without a war—a war your father has not been amenable to.”

Jaxon’s chest ached with fury. Araya . Her name burned through him like fire.

He would find her. He would bring her home—willing or not. And if war was the price?

So be it.

“Then it’s time he changed his mind,” Jaxon said coldly. “Tell me what you need. I’ll make it happen.”

His father had spent decades dismantling the fae. But the remnants had always clung to the Veil. They thought it would protect them, hide them.

They were wrong.

Jaxon would tear it all down. They would kneel—or they would burn. And when the ash settled, he would take back what was his.

Hale smiled—sharp and full of teeth. “Let’s begin, then. Time is short. And we take missing bonds… very seriously.”