For the rest of the night, sleep was an impossibility. Cas couldn’t stop replaying the text conversation in his head over and over as he tossed and turned in his bed until, sometime after four a.m., he gave up and climbed out to calm down with a warm shower. After the last message he’d received, it had been hard to keep the panic at bay as he worried about what the sender was doing to Iris. He couldn’t stand the thought of anything else happening to her, especially because of him. He could only hope Ethan had been bluffing about continuing to hurt her after he’d refused to agree to his terms. The guy had called her his girlfriend in the first text, so maybe somewhere in his twisted heart, he cared about her wellbeing too. The thought made Cas feel nauseated, but it was better than the alternative. The broken arm in the last photo had nearly made him lose his dinner. When he got back out of the shower, he felt slightly more settled about the way he’d chosen to respond to the man holding Iris hostage though. Lying would have only gotten him so far, since he was sure the rebels would keep an eye on the news in wait for an announcement that he was stepping down as king. It had been better to set proper expectations up front and pray that the woman he loved wouldn’t suffer further as a consequence. The only question that remained was how he was going to get her back from Ethan. Now that he knew where she was and felt convinced she hadn’t left him of her own volition, he wasn’t just going to leave her in the clutches of the Scourge. Even though he already knew Jacob would disapprove, he needed to do something about this situation. If that meant leaving without the permission of his security team, then that was what he would have to do. Wringing the excess water from his hair with a towel, he traipsed back into his bedroom and picked up his phone to look at the photos Ethan had sent again. There had to be something in the background that he could use to narrow down where the rebel was hiding. A window, a specific kind of architectural feature, maybe a sign from Iris. However, after staring at it for half an hour he couldn’t find anything useful, so he set the device back down with a frustrated sigh. As much as he loved detective shows, he things he saw on TV rarely translated to real life. He didn’t have the know-how to find someone with just a couple pictures… But Jacob did. Cas pressed his lips together, drumming his fingers contemplatively against his pant leg. He was hesitant to tell the guard anything, because he knew how the other man would react, but he also knew he couldn’t handle this by himself. Last time he’d tried, he had ended up practically alone in the outer districts, fighting for his life in a warzone. He couldn’t risk that again—not when he knew the entire kingdom would suffer if something happened to him. So, pressing back against the frantic voice inside of him that urged him to throw caution to the wind and go after Ethan without getting anyone else involved, he took a slow breath and made up his mind. Iris deserved his best, and his best was Jacob. In the morning, he would share the news privately with his guard and hope the other man would help him bring her back. It was his only option.