LITMIR.BIZ

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asked, his disdain practically freezing the syllables.

      “The familiar is in the possession of the private. Do you imagine that she has done work at the behest of an Arcanist, ever?”

      Gavin pursed his lips briefly. “Private Neya? No. Her opinion on Arcanists is well-known. This was tested in exemption-based investigation, then?”

      Teela nodded. “It involved Barrani, and only Barrani, with the exception of Lord Kaylin and Lord Severn. I did, on the other hand, have reason to confirm that the wing of her familiar does exactly what she says it does. The circumstances were rather more dire. We should not be in danger here.”

      Gavin didn’t ask. Lianne looked as if she desperately wanted to—but not in front of Teela. Smart.

Chapter 5

      The house had a crowded and untidy vestibule. There were six pairs of boots, though none were of a size suitable for children. None of the victims were likely to be young, which was as much of a relief as she could expect in a murder investigation.

      Regardless, the shoes, the coats and the various bits of furniture were not, in any way, magical. They looked the same no matter how anyone present viewed them.

      The hall that led into the house from the vestibule was the same: slightly lived in, but also in decent repair. Worn rugs had been placed over slightly less well-worn floorboards that creaked a lot less under weight than her first apartment had. The sitting room was closest to the front of the house, on the right when facing in; on the left were stairs, beneath which was a door.

      There were doors that implied other rooms, and a wide, brightly lit space at the back of the house that looked into the common yard.

      Nothing about any of the house itself indicated use of magic. Nothing made Kaylin’s skin ache, and nothing like the cracked street outside appeared when she looked through her familiar’s wing.

      “You’re wondering why we were sent here,” Teela correctly surmised.

      “Kind of, yes. Do you see anything that implies magic’s been used here recently? It’s not particularly easy to magically kill a man—or three—and it would leave some markers.” It would be faster and less easily traced to kill them in any of the more familiar, mundane ways, which would still require Hawks to investigate, but not this particular set.

      Teela’s compressed lips made it clear that the answer was no. She turned to Gavin, who was also tight-lipped and about as friendly as he ever got when the sanity of the people making the decisions was in question.

      “Where are the bodies?” Kaylin asked.

      “Downstairs.”

      “Downstairs?”

      “In the basement.”

      Ugh.

      * * *

      Kaylin didn’t particularly like basements. She couldn’t imagine that anyone did, except for small rodents and large insects. She was the shortest of the Hawks present, but even she couldn’t stand up at full height once they reached the bottom of stairs that had probably been a hazard from the day they were first built. Bellusdeo offered to enlarge the basement by sinking the floor, which Kaylin assumed was a joke—until she saw Teela’s thoughtful expression.

      Gavin, however, uttered a very distinct, very chilly no. He followed it up with a lecture on structural stability that only Bellusdeo found relevant. “The bodies,” he added, “are to the left.” He carried a lamp, which bounced off rough walls and rough floors in a way that seemed almost calculated to make them less appealing. Teela had clearly had enough of this and conjured up a magical light of her own, which had the predictable effect of raising goose bumps on Kaylin’s skin.

      And her marks were glowing. Here, they emitted a glow that extended for yards, but they weren’t as bright as Teela’s light, and definitely not as directionally useful.

      “Who reported this to the Halls?” Tain asked. He was generally content to let Teela do the talking, but Teela seemed preoccupied.

      Gavin answered the question as if he’d expected it. “The daughter. A family of four lives here. One of the four is in the basement, along with two of his friends.”

      “The rest of the family was unharmed?”

      “The rest of the family was, apparently, asleep.”

      “They heard nothing?”

      “No.”

      “When did they discover the bodies?”

      “Early morning.”

      “Are they here?”

      “They’re at church, at the moment. The daughter is young, and I believe her mother wished to distract her. We’ve interviewed the mother and the father. Their son was one of the victims.”

      “The mages have left?”

      “An hour ago. Had you wished to speak with them, you might have arrived at the expected time.”

      Imperial mages treated Teela with grudging respect—they’d never once demanded proof of her magical competence when she’d chosen to reveal any—but they treated Kaylin as if she were new to both the Hawks and the basic concepts of magic itself.

      She was willing to admit—to herself, in private—that she didn’t know as much magical theory as she probably should by now. But if they’d bothered to check, they’d see that her reports were filed as part of official evidence and observation in dozens of investigations. She hated to have to justify her existence every single time she met a member of the Imperium.

      Today, given the distraction of Gilbert and Kattea, she wouldn’t have to. She’d have to justify her tardiness to Marcus, but claws and growled threats of losing her throat didn’t irritate her nearly as much as Imperial mages did.

      The small dragon squawked volubly. Kaylin slid her hand over her ear in a vain attempt to preserve some of her hearing. “I get it,” she told the annoyed—and annoying—familiar.

      The hair on her neck had started to stand on end. Her arms, however, didn’t hurt—or rather, didn’t hurt more, given Teela’s light. “Teela.”

      “You see something.”

      “Not yet. But something’s off here.”

      “How off?”

      “Bellusdeo should probably go back upstairs.”

      The gold Dragon had no intention of going back up the stairs, and the smoke she exhaled clearly indicated that she was offended at the suggestion. Gavin looked as if he was about to order her off the premises. She was, however, a Dragon—and even those who served at the Emperor’s pleasure understood the role of the Dragon Court. In theory, Gavin had the legal right to ask Bellusdeo to vacate—but theory was a very, very poor shield against Dragon rage.

      Kaylin was only slightly surprised when Teela’s light hit the top of a second set of descending stairs. These were stone, but as the light illuminated them more fully, they appeared to be carved entirely out of a single piece of rock. “These stairs were here when you came to investigate?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did the person who reported finding the bodies mention anything unusual about the stairs themselves?”

      “Yes. According to the interview conducted with the parents of the deceased, these stairs are new.”

      “How new?”

      “The basement is used for cold storage. The stairs were not—again, according to the parents—present three days ago.”

      “Have you asked the daughter?”

      “No.”

      “Did

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