Page 115

I step inside, taking in the empty but made up bed, and the arm chair by the window. Remy checks the open bathroom door. Nothing. Behind us, Stacy enters the room. She opens the closet door, but there’s nothing but hanging clothes.

“What in the world,” she mutters, eyes scanning the room frantically. She reaches for her belt and pulls out the walkie-talkie hanging there. “This is Stacy. I’m in Mrs. Maddox’s room in Hall C. She’s not in her room. Does anyone have eyes on her?”

She offers me a sheepish look of apology while a mumbled conversation crackles over the walkie. Voices checking different areas, growing more concerned by the second.

“Hall D clear.”

“Garden area negative.”

“She was just here a while ago.” Stacy fumbles around the room. “I saw her myself. She was resting after breakfast. She can’t have gone far⁠—”

In my gut, dread begins to build as more staff appear in the hallway, faces paling, radios buzzing with increasing urgency.

“This is unacceptable,” I say, voice low and cold, barely aware of Remy as he walks over to her chair by the window. The book Modern Masters sits on the small table beside it. She’d been holding it the last time I was here. “How do you just lose a resident?”

Staff mutter apologies and excuses, but I’m no longer listening. Remy opens the book, his forehead furrowing deeply. He looks up at me, something unreadable in his eyes.

“Dad?”

The word lands like a punch to the chest. “What is it?”

He holds the book out. I grab it, flipping quickly through the pages. It’s not just artwork or a biography of 20th-century artists. It’s maps. Diagrams. Blueprints. They’re familiar–the old tunnel systems, hidden entrances, forgotten passages beneath Forsyth.

The realization hits me like a physical blow. The room seems to tilt for a moment. I look at Remy. He’s staring at me, waiting, his face a mask of barely contained fury and confusion.

“Timothy?” Graves says quietly from the doorway, sensing the shift.

I close the book slowly, my hands trembling slightly.

“Get security,” I say, voice hoarse. “And then call Max.”

Remy’s fists clench at his sides. “What the fuck is going on?”

I meet my son’s eyes, the weight of decades of secrets crashing down between us, crumbling in this moment I never saw coming, even if I should have.

I should have.

“Amber… your mother… there’s only one reason she would have these maps.” I say, the words taste like ash. I hold up the book again. The proof. All the evidence we need. “She’s the person we’ve been looking for.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “She’s the Guardian.”

The staff puts the building on lockdown almost immediately. Alarms don’t blare–Saint Mary’s is too refined for that–but the atmosphere shifts. Doors click shut down the hallway. Footsteps quicken. Voices murmur in hushed, urgent tones. It slowly trickles out through the staff that Amber often slips away. She’s quiet, considered “not a problem,” and everyone assumes she’s somewhere else on the grounds. But I know the truth now. It’s clear as the rising sun. She’s a master manipulator. She has been this entire time.

I wonder how long she’s been plotting this?

I stand in the center of her empty room, the book still heavy in one hand, my phone in the other, the other side of the line already ringing. Graves and Remy are both watching me, waiting for direction. For the first time in a long time, I feel the full weight of the crown I no longer wear pressing down on me. I may no longer be King, but this is my responsibility.

“Lock down the House of Night,” I speak into the phone, my voice more authoritative than I’m feeling. The truth is that I’m reeling, the pieces we’ve been searching for falling into place with horrifying clarity.

DK picks up, and I explain to him what’s happening, although it takes a few tries to make it stick. “Amber Maddox is the Guardian, and we have no idea where she is.”

“Your wife?” DK sounds as confused as I feel. “Are you sure?”

“This is real, Damon. Be careful. Don’t take your eyes off Arianette.”

“Understood.”

I hang up, my eyes shifting between the two men. Remy’s expression changes as the whirlwind of emotions passes over him–anger, betrayal, disbelief. Graves stands in front of me, slightly pale, hands clasped tightly together.

“Should I go home and help?” Graves asks. “I can assist in locating all of the entry points.”