Page 159 of Elven Shadow

Rebecca found herself sharing a surprised glance with Maxwell from across the office. Clearly, he’d had the same thought.

How the hell did anyone else beyond the walls of this compound get wind of Shade’s very recent change in leadership?

“When did this come in?” the shifter asked.

“Just now. Normal mail carrier. It’s the only delivery we got today.”

Today…

Depending on how far away—or how close—the anonymous sender was, they’d found out about Aldous’s sudden demise any time between the night Rebecca had obliterated his spark and mail pickup this morning.

“Did the courier have any information about where it came from?” Rebecca asked.

The blackhorn shrugged again, though all the questions had now formed a confused frown across the lumpy, hairless ridges of his pronounced forehead. “I didn’t ask. Not usually something that comes up in conversation when I’m just accepting packages.”

Maxwell nodded and reached for the box. “I’ll take that.”

“Sir.” The blackhorn handed it over without hesitation, then turned his back toward Rebecca, looking particularly lost. “Anything else I can—”

“I’ll take it from here,” Maxwell interrupted as he turned the plain box over in his hands, looking for the easiest way to start opening it. “You’re dismissed.”

His security guy practically scurried back through the door, taking the liberty of pulling it shut behind him.

“What’s his name again?” Rebecca asked, pointing at the door.

Maxwell fixed her with a deadpan stare. “Rick.”

“That’s right. Rick. Got it.” Not until today had she thought her failure to prioritize learning the names of Shade’s top security team would come back to bite her in the ass. Clearly, she had to start paying better attention.

Rebecca watched her Head of Security inspect the outside of the package, already feeling the knot of dread tightening in her gut. There were just too many unknowns here, which made this the perfect time to start inspecting each of them with a little extra help. “Do we know anyone else who could’ve heard about Aldous?”

Maxwell seemed hesitant to say anything as he headed toward the desk, then cleared his throat. “There are eyes and ears everywhere. Always have been, always will be. Most of them are impossible to track, anyway.”

“Uh-huh. Any idea who these eyes and ears might belong to? Because if there’s still someone in here feeding sensitive information to the outside before we’re ready to share it ourselves…”

“I don’t have an answer for that. Icansay I’ve suspected for a while now that someone in power beyond Shade’s reach was keeping very personal tabs on Aldous.”

That didn’t sound good.

Shifting her weight in the desk chair, Rebecca propped an elbow on the armrest and tapped a finger against her chin as Maxwell gingerly set the package down on the desk. “How personal are we talking?”

“Like monitoring-his-vital-signs personal,” Maxwell replied, then looked up to meet her gaze. “I never found the proof I needed to confirm it, but there was enough to make me believe it.”

She nodded and returned her attention to the plain, unmarked brown box with nothing but ‘To the New Roth-Da’al of Shade’ scrawled across the top in black Sharpie. But it didn’t have a physical mailing address, and the return address and required paid postage were also nonexistent.

Not all that odd for a package sent to a magical organization from another magical organization or individual. Shade wasn’t that hard to find if one knew where to look.

But the inner workings of the task force’s tumultuous last week and its subsequent change in leadership hadn’t been announced in any public way. Which made the writing on this package more than a little concerning.

“Well it makes sense,” she said. “If Aldous was beingthatclosely monitored the way you think he was, whoever was keeping tabs on him would’ve known something big had happened the second Aldous’s heart stopped beating.

“The question after that, then, would be… How did they get their own private access to his vital signs in the first place? Because I’d really love to avoid a similar arrangement, if possible.”

Maxwell narrowed his eyes at her and snorted. “Can’t help you there.”

Rebecca forced back a laugh. “Sothat’swhy you’ve been going overboard in the personal-bodyguard department, huh? You let Aldous slip through the cracks one too many times?”

He bristled at that and looked away from her. “No one everletAldous do anything. My job was to protect him. Barring that, I had—”

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