Page 50 of Searching for the Prince
If Mettle hadn’t taken Simon, Gwil thought he could have kept his operation going under the radar for years, but the chance of getting his hands on a vampire-fae must have been too great an opportunity to pass up. “Have you been able to confirm if Simon is here?”
“Yes.” Robin smiled, it was the first genuine one Gwil had seen. “He’s here and I managed to talk to him. Not for long, but we’re meeting tomorrow, ostensibly for him to show me the grounds.”
“Least you know he’s here, safe for now, and we haven’t infiltrated the place for no reason.”
“Simon is not the only one here, do you remember Sebastian mentioned a cat in his text message?”
He did, he’d thought it a reference to something Robin had knowledge of but hadn’t probed as he wasn’t going to be told everything. “Yeah.”
“Catlin Redbourn is the cat. She’s Ben’s sired sister, and has been missing for several months after an incident at Crofton Hall.”
He’d heard something along those lines. “I guess we’ll be bringing her home too. I doubt Sebastian would take too kindly to leaving one of his House behind.”
“Ben would never forgive me either,” Robin said. “We’ve no idea how she ended up here, but we can worry about that once she’s home.”
Gwil was all for helping Catlin—another positive mark for him in Sebastian’s book wouldn’t hurt in the slightest. “Looks like we’ve got a buy one, get one free. Makes having the wrong face even more worthwhile.”
Robin laughed. “I won’t miss these teeth, but I’ll sleep well tonight. I couldn’t bring myself to believe Simon was here until I saw him. Now we’ll need to ensure we know the grounds and house well enough to move as soon as we have the opportunity.”
Gwil already had a plan. “We’ve a couple of hours of daylight left, I intend to get a couple of hours sleep and then have nose around the ground once it gets dark. My tolerance for daylight isn’t great, and being nocturnal means there should be no reason for them to stop me.”
“Do the house as well. You’re meant to be a cocky fucker. I’m sure wandering out-of-bounds is the sort of thing Will Carpenter would do.”
“Absolutely.”
He left Robin. He needed some sleep then he’d crawl over this place as much as he could get away with—the faster he did so the sooner he could go home. At least they now knew Simon was here, next steps were to make sure they could get him home in one piece.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gwil tapped out a text to Hyax. Hyax had mentioned going to see his mother, and Gwil knew that he would have to face the music once the case was over.
Will:How was your day? How was your mum?
He waited for a reply, and it seemed forever before his phone buzzed.
Mal:Her usual self. When you finally dump R you’ll have to meet her. I’m sure she’ll have a lot to say.
He groaned, he didn’t want to be talked at by Queen Talia but he doubted he’d be able to escape. The new twist with her suspicions of the Elementa meant he might have other ways of ingratiating himself, and maybe that was what she wanted.
The door opened and Jack let himself into Gwil’s room, carrying a stack of towels. “How’s your day been?”
He’d managed to do a fair bit of reconnaissance. As suspected, the staff didn’t seem too bothered about him. “I scoped out some of the grounds, nothing obvious, and none of the patients gave me any reason to think they weren’t here for anything other than to be treated. I checked those places you thought might work to open a portal but those were on the grounds, I’m not sure about the ones in the house yet. I’mintending to get to those tonight, but I’ve a good grasp of the layout of the house in general.”
“The more info we can collect the better, the smallest detail might be key.”
Gwil pointed to the bundle Jack was carrying. “You just here to drop off my towels?”
Jack laughed. “I thought Robin would be here looking for you. I wanted to get the lowdown on what he found out after his stroll with Simon.”
As if Jack’s words had summoned him, Robin arrived.
“The wanderer returns,” Jack drawled. “I take it you’ve managed to speak to Simon.”
Robin looked stricken, his agitation beyond anything Gwil had seen up until now. “Yes, we always planned to get him out of here as soon as possible but Mettle is working on a new treatment, and Simon thinks he’s planning to wipe his memory… no doubt irrevocably. For now, he starting to recall things, but until we get those cuffs off, we’re going to have issues.”
“No surprise there, we’re going to probably have to extract Simon and keep him in some sort of protective shield until we can remove them,” Jack said.
Hyax had explained that they thought the golden cuffs were key to how they were keeping him prisoner and, if Hyax’s suspicions were confirmed, they would either have to find a way to remove them before they left or they needed to make sure they couldn’t be used to get him back.
