Aurelian Vale;
The box looks harmless.
Plain brown cardboard, no logo, no return address… Nothing dramatic about it.
Yet it is sitting on my desk because it contained Anu's diary.
Stolen from her home, and returned to Zane's like a message.
Zane stands across from me, arms folded behind him, with his usual calmness sharpened into something harder.
He's more invested in this than I thought he'd be, and right now I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
"She's shaken," he says quietly, and I blink up at him.
"The missing pages were specifics. The ones that contained information on us. They're playing games." He adds, and I take a deep breath.
Of course they are.
Careful enough to remove what they wanted, and careless enough to send it back.
I do not give him an answer, though. There's currently nothing to say. Instead, I pick up the box and slowly turn it in my hands.
The cardboard is cheap. Standard. The type bought in bulk somewhere.
"Where was it left?" I ask.
