I read the note three times like it might change its mind and turn into something friendlier the fourth time. It didn't.
I searched the rest of the pier anyway, checking behind stacks of crates, down the narrow gap between two warehouses, even crouched to look under a fishing boat pulled up on the sand, feeling faintly ridiculous the whole time. Liora was gone. Not hiding-behind-a-barrel gone. Gone like she'd never been there at all, except for the note that said otherwise, and the empty crate with the broken lid, and the symbol scratched half off its side like someone had tried to erase the evidence in a hurry and gotten interrupted.
I walked back to the inn with the note folded tight in my fist and my thoughts running in circles that didn't land anywhere good.
Pearl was still awake when I slipped back into the room we shared, sitting up against the headboard with a book open on her knees that she clearly hadn't been reading, because she looked up the second the door creaked.
