Clara sat perched on my shoulder as I walked down the dark harbour street. The same route I’d walked every night since Daniel disappeared. Fucking bastard; how dare he just up and vanish without a damn word? A drug runner going missing in this city is definitely not unheard of; criminals aren’t exactly the safest people. But seeing his name alongside all the other missing people in the papers didn’t help settle the worry that there was something more going on. That many people don’t just go missing for no reason.

  Clara nuzzled into my hair, hiding from the rain as it poured down from above. I’m surprised she always insisted on coming along on these walks, rain and snow be damned. Such a strange cat. I suppose she probably misses Daniel as much as I do.

  The rain hammered down on the tin rooftops, filling the air with tiny pinpricks echoing the grief prickling behind my eyes. I’d told myself I wouldn’t cry for Daniel anymore. I don’t think I had many tears left in me with how much I’d cried the last few weeks. Instead, I walked in silence down the docks, hoping Daniel would stick his pale, stupidly freckled face out of a dark alley. That everything would be fine, but no. Of course not.

  Clara tensed where she sat on my shoulder, her ears pulling back. Had she not been there, I wouldn’t have noticed the noise from the alley behind us. I spun around, my eyes struggling to see in the dim moonlight. I didn’t see Rhett until he spoke, but there he was, sitting on a barrel. The rain had stuck his dark curls to his forehead, covering his one remaining eye. As usual, there was no warning, no hello. Just Rhett appearing out of nowhere like he was supposed to be there.

  “Scarlet,” His voice carried on the wind, smooth as gravel and twice as annoying. I hurried towards him, matching my steps to my rapidly increasing heart rate. Rhett lounged on the barrel like he owned the whole miserable dock. He pulled his wet hair back from his eye as he flashed his signature, infuriating half-smile. He’d come to use it more and more since his brother disappeared. His way of pretending everything was fine. Clara hissed. Clearly, she’s the only one here with common sense. Rhett leaned back, pressing his hand over his heart like Clara had offended him. Dramatic asshole.

  “Ouch! I come all the way down here to protect your delicate self, and this is the greeting I get?” He remorsed.

  “I don’t need your protection, Rhett. You know this.” I groaned.

  He slid off the barrel, stepping towards me as he spoke. “Please, Scarlet. You’re my best gunslinger. I have to protect my assets.” He smiled, wrapping his arm around my waist and dragging me with him as he began walking. My breath caught in my throat as we moved. He always did this when something was wrong. Flirted, smiled, pretended like he was above it all while he lost himself in women and bottles. Tragic really. His hold tightened as if he could physically pull me away from everything that had happened. He just swept me along like he always did, dragging me into his messes like it was a kindness. It’s his fault I’m here after all. His fault, I’m stuck in the underbelly of this damned city.

  “Let go,” I muttered without expecting him to listen; he didn’t. His grip on me stayed.

  “You’re shaking,” he said softly, bending a little so he could catch my eyes. His breath smelled faintly of whiskey, rain, and that stupid clove gum he chewed when he was trying to quit smoking.

  “And before you lie, darling, I’ve known you long enough to tell when your nerves do that little stutter thing.”

  “Can you stop pretending everything is fine?” I asked him, dryly. “I’m sick of it.” I groaned as I turned to face him.

  He stopped walking but didn’t let go of my waist. Instead, his other hand grabbed my other side as we stood there, in the middle of the harbour in the pouring rain.

  “What am I supposed to do, Scarlet?” He asked. His voice was too calm, too quiet. I’d been hoping he’d scream, actually react, but no.

  “Your brother is missing, Rhett! Stop acting like nothing has changed when it so clearly has.” I shouted, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Have you done anything other than ravish the brothels since he vanished?” I prodded.

  His eye was cold, the usual warm charcoal having turned to a chilly abyss. He stared at me as if I had just told him it was his fault Daniel was gone. The rage on his face wasn’t the usual hot hatred I saw on him every day. This was something cold, something deeper.

  His jaw clenched hard enough that I thought I heard his teeth grind. Rain slid down his cheekbones, carving cold lines into the face I’d seen wear every emotion except honesty.

  “Careful,” he murmured.

  “I’m done being careful.” I shoved his chest, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to push back against that dead-eyed stare. “I’m done tiptoeing around you while you pretend you’re fine. Your brother is gone, Rhett. Vanished. And you,” My throat tightened. “You’re acting like you’re waiting for it to happen again.”

  Something flickered across his face. A flash of real feeling, real pain, before it iced over again.

  “You think I don’t care?” he asked, voice low, dangerous in a way that wasn’t aimed at me.

  “You think I haven’t checked every gutter, every alley, every godsdamn brothel from the harbour to the industrial district? I’ve been tearing this city apart looking for him.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Then why won’t you talk to me?” I shot back. “Why won’t you let me help?”

  “Because you’ll get hurt.”He stepped closer, too close, his hands still gripping my arms as if

  I’d disappear if he let go. “And I can’t lose you, too.”

  My breath caught, a raw, involuntary thing. Clara hissed at the tension spiking between us, her tail lashing.“Rhett,” I whispered. “You don’t have to do this alone. Daniel mattered to me, too.”

  His fingers loosened. His head dipped, just barely. And for the first time since his brother disappeared, the mask slipped all the way off.

  “I know,” he said. The words sounded dragged out of him. “And that’s why I’ve been trying to keep you out of it. You… you’re the last good thing I’ve got.”

  The rain swallowed his voice at the end, but I caught enough. Too much. I didn’t hug him. He didn’t cry. Neither of us was built for that softness. Instead, he looked at me like the world was collapsing and he was already halfway buried under it. Then, quieter still:

  “If you saw what I’ve seen these last weeks… you’d understand why I’m afraid.” “Then show me,” I said. His eyes snapped up, wide, vulnerable, terrified. “Scarlet~”

  “Show me,” I repeated, firmer this time.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. Just breathed, shallow and uneven, like he was deciding whether to trust me or run. Finally, he nodded. A tiny, broken thing.

  “Fine,” he said. “But once you know… You can’t unknow it.”

  He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. Unfolding it, I saw a list. Names. All young. All gone. These were the same names the papers had been counting forever. He held the paper out in front of me, showing me the list like I didn’t already know exactly what was on it. Sickness twisted in my gut. “Rhett~”

  “Six disappearances since winter,” he said, tapping the top of the list. “All of them within walking distance of the noble quarter.”

  He reached forward and gently tucked a loose curl behind my ear. I froze. Only my pulse moved. Leaping exactly where his fingers brushed. All these disappearances?”

  He tapped the parchment.“Every. Single. One. It happened around a Morn?ngstar's birthday.”

  My stomach went cold.“That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” he countered. “The family’s old. Old magic. Old power. Old secrets.” He leaned in, breath warm against my cheek. “And you know I’m right.”

  I didn’t want to think he was right. He couldn’t be. Why the hell would the Morn?ngstars be kidnapping people? Yann?k would never. I’d known the guy for years, and he’d never hurt a fly, let alone kidnap this many people. The names on the list were nobodies, no one who posed a threat to the family. It made no sense why they would want them gone. It had to just be a coincidence. Sure, the family was known to be a bit unusual, but what nobles weren’t?

  I looked back at Rhett, not knowing what to say, what to do. I stayed quiet, just staring at him while trying to make sense of it all.

  “I know you think you’re right,” I said, the words trembling before they even reached the air. “But that’s not proof, Rhett. It’s gossip and bad timing.”

  He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Bad timing? They vanished on their birthdays, Saoirse. You think that’s a coincidence?”

  He was still too close, close enough that I could see the water dripping from his dark lashes, the tightness in his jaw when he swallowed. His eye was wide and bright in the harbour light, that desperate gleam he got when he’d been drinking truth instead of liquor.

  “Yann?k wouldn’t,” I stopped myself, because the sentence was already splitting apart in my mouth. What? Kidnap people? Lie to us?

  Rhett’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “You want to believe that,” he said. “I do too. But every time I start digging, every name, every missing person, it circles back to that family.”

  Clara made a low, unsettled noise on my shoulder, tail twitching. The air felt colder suddenly, like even the rain was listening. Rhett lowered his voice. “Daniel mentioned some Leo girl he’d been seeing before he vanished. He didn’t tell me much. Just said she was connected to the Morn?ngstars.”

  My stomach knotted. “That’s Yann?k’s sister.”

  He hesitated. The silence was enough of an answer. His expression hardened again, the wall sliding back into place. “You can’t tell me I’m wrong about this, Saoirse. Lightning flared somewhere out over the water, throwing his face into brief, harsh relief: cheekbones, stubble, fear. Then thunder rolled, distant but heavy, and the sound seemed to shake him out of whatever memory he’d fallen into. He exhaled, long and ragged. “We shouldn’t talk here. If they’re watching.”

  “Calm down,” I sighed. This was all too much. He glanced past me, scanning the mouths of the alleys. For a second, I thought I saw movement too. A flicker of something human-shaped before the rain swallowed it.

  Rhett grabbed my hand. “We need to go. Now.”

  I didn’t have time to consider his words before we took off running. Clara stirred on my shoulder, digging her claws in through my coat and into my skin to stay put. He dragged me along, ducking through alleyways and around corners. Running from something, or someone that probably wasn’t even there. I told myself we weren’t in danger as we ran through the harbour district. Trying to convince myself this was all just another of his hunches that wouldn’t lead to anything, even though it did little to quell my growing suspicion.

  I held onto his hand like it was the only lifeline I had as I slipped on the slick cobblestones. At least I knew I could trust Rhett to never let go, especially after what he had just revealed to me. If I’m really the only quote-unquote good thing he has left, no way he was going to let me fall victim to whatever he thinks was back there. He kept me on my feet as we ran, pulling me along like he knew exactly where we were going. The city passed by in a blur, just like so many times before when I’d run for my life. I wasn’t supposed to be this afraid, but I couldn’t help it. Something about tonight was different, more serious than the petty crimes I would usually be running away from. We’d stuck our noses in something bigger, in something where they definitely didn’t belong.