LITMIR.BIZ

      Wren wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that Sergei had come barging in when she’d finally gotten control of the situation, pleased to see him, or disgusted at the wave of relief she’d felt when she heard him come through the door. And there was absolute disgust at the fact that she’d made two mugs of tea without clicking onto what it meant. She was slipping, totally slipping.

      “It’s a simple enough Retrieval,” Andre was telling her partner. “A monastery outside of Siena, in Italy, has requested our help in reclaiming a parchment that was taken from them last month.”

      “Taken, as in…?” Sergei really had the most wonderful poker face, Wren thought, watching him watching Andre. The lightly sun-reddened skin stretched nicely over cheekbones that were just enough to envy but not enough to make him look male model-ish, and his chin could get so damnably stubborn…like right there, the way he shoved it forward just a hint. Uh-oh.

      “Walked off on its own, from what Andre’s been able to not tell me,” she said, heading off a potential testosterone fit.

      “We—and the monks—are unsure of what happened to it,” Andre admitted. “It is possible that someone stole it. Or…” He shrugged, a subtle gesture meant to imply that anything under God’s hand was possible.

      “Or?”

      “Or there may have been an unknown magical element involved, considering the nature of the manuscript.”

      Oh-ho. Wren really wished she could do the one-eyebrow-raised thing. That was new in the telling. She knew, damn it, she knew old manuscripts always meant trouble. And if it was that old, and maybe magic, she’d lay heavy odds with any bookie in town that it was old-style magic, too. The kind that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore but everyone except the most obsessive, tech-happy Mage knew did. Same power, different channels. Unpredictable channels. If you did A with current, you got B. Consistent, quantifiable. Mostly. Wish up folk-style magics—hedgewitchery, voudon, faith-healing—and you never knew what might come out.

      Bad stuff, sometimes. The older the magics, the less human-friendly they were. She’d never dealt with any of that herself. There were stories, though. Even the Cosa had bogeymen.

      “So, what’s this unknown, maybe-magical bit of paper do?” she asked, focusing herself on the problem at hand. Don’t worry about the long-term stuff, Valere. You’re not in this to save the world. You’re not even in this to save the innocents and uninformed, the way the Silence claimed to be. You’re in it for the paycheck, and the smug satisfaction of a job decently done.

      “It’s a parchment. And we don’t know,” Andre said, finally looking back at her. Guy didn’t look like he wanted to give them that particular bit of information, either, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he was worried about Silence secrecy, or he just didn’t want to tell them anything on principle. Probably both. Sergei had warned her, and warned her, and then warned her again that the Silence liked to play things close.

      “It’s a difficult situation, as all we know is that a number of people have disappeared after coming in contact with it. With no other available information, save that the monks were most insistent that it be returned to them, we have to assume there’s danger.”

      “So you’re acting as agent for them, not taking this on your own?” Sergei, wheelin’ the deal.

      “In this instance, yes. Although we would have taken steps of our own, had they not contacted us.”

      “If you’d heard about it,” Wren said, her tone intentionally doubting.

      “We would have.”

      Andre was solid, confident. Wren had her doubts, but it wasn’t really important here and now.

      Sergei exhaled, a sharp, loud breath of air that recaptured Andre’s attention, his head turning as though he were watching a slow-motion tennis game. “You said that people disappeared after coming in contact with the manuscript? As in, they put it down and walked away, or…?”

      The older man hedged uncomfortably, and Wren took malicious and unashamed pleasure in it, after that little omission of information, earlier.

      “We’re not sure,” he said, finally.

      “Where did it go?” Sergei asked with marked patience.

      “We don’t know.”

      “Okay, so what’s written on this parchment?”

      “We don’t know. Everyone who has read it has disappeared.”

      Sergei exchanged a glance with Wren, who made a “what do you want from me?” gesture back at him. He was the guy who got the details, she was the one who acted on them.

      Sergei’s mouth set in a really tight line. “So, basically, you’re sending us in after an unknown factor in an unknown location with an unknown threat vector.”

      “Yes.”

      She couldn’t help it; she’d swear it on a stack of bibles, the words just came out. “And you people wonder why you can’t keep help….”

      She might as well not have said anything, the way the two of them were still staring at each other, cobra to mongoose.

      “We have arranged for you to take a flight out from Newark airport tomorrow evening. When you arrive in Milan—”

      “Monday.”

      That stopped Andre, who was clearly not expecting to be interrupted at this point, and certainly not by her. “Beg pardon?”

      “Monday,” Wren repeated firmly. “No way I can just up and leave the country in twenty-four hours. Nuh-uh. Forget about it. I need two days, at least.” Leave the country? That meant flying. She didn’t want to fly. Anywhere. “A week would be better. I don’t even know where my passport is—hell, I don’t even know if it’s still valid!”

      “We can and will take care of that,” Andre said, trying to be reassuring.

      Wren was already running off a checklist in her mind. “Yeah, today’s what, Wednesday? Saturday, earliest. I have to let my mom know, and—how long do you think I’ll be gone? I need…luggage. Sergei, can I steal a suitcase? Borrow. I meant borrow. You must have something I can use. And I’ll need to stop my mail. And pay bills. And—”

      “Wren. Be still.” Sergei didn’t use that tone of voice very often. Not in years, she thought. But the ice-sharp tones worked. She stopped cold, the panic that was threatening to take over her brain subsiding to somewhat more manageable levels. Negotiations. Let him handle it. Right.

      “Two tickets. For Friday,” Sergei said to Andre in that same tone of voice. It didn’t work quite so well on his former boss.

      “Ah. Actually.”

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