I sat cross-legged and sketched out my first chalk circle. Magic tingled in my fingertips, as though being so close to Isabel’s work had sent my Hemlock magic into overdrive. Behave, I told my glowing hands. Isabel moved in behind me, but I kept my attention on the spell.
“One sneaking spell, coming right up,” I said.
“Sneaking spell?” she asked. “I was thinking shadow spells would do.”
“Good idea, but I think the ward might cover the whole downstairs floor, in which case, we’d need to get in through the upstairs window.” I chopped leaves off stalks and tossed them into the circle. “Not sure if you have a ladder or not, but I had a brainwave the other day while I was making a stealth charm.”
“Do I even want to know?” asked Isabel.
“If I know you… yeah, you do.”
“Guilty.” She grinned as I leaned over the circle. “Let’s see.”
I tapped the circle’s symbols one at a time. Each sent a shiver through my palms and the smell of burning herbs rose as the circle’s contents were engulfed in flames. The embers danced through the circle but never went over the edge. I’d nearly burned my flat down the other day when I’d left a gap in the circle, so I’d been extra careful this time around.
The flames faded, leaving two band-shaped spells behind. I picked one up, wincing when it singed my fingers, and slid it onto my wrist. Then I did the same to my other wrist with the second band.
“I need somewhere to practise that isn’t covered in circles.” I trod through the room to the hall. “Also, if this doesn’t work, I might need you to catch me.”
“Okay…” Isabel sounded sceptical, but played along.
I gave each band a twist and spread my palms against the wall. It was still splattered with faerie blood from when Ivy had killed one here the other week.
Then I jumped, and my feet left the ground. Isabel watched open-mouthed as I crawled up the wall and onto the ceiling, hanging upside-down. “Spider-Man, eat your heart out. I could do the same to my ankles, but I think this should be enough to get through the upstairs window.”
“Wow,” said Isabel. “Okay, I’ve never thought of that one before.”
“I can make you a matching set.” I shimmied down the wall. “What’re you working on, the shadow spells?”
“Shadows for the break-in, and disguise charms for tonight,” she said. “Also, silencing spells in case we trip a burglar alarm, cleansing spells in case we leave a mess behind…”
I detached my hands from the wall. “I think that’s more than enough. Let me throw another set of these together and we’ll leave.”
In the end, I had to drag Isabel away from her spells so we could break in with plenty of time before the Ley Hunters’ meeting. I had to admit I was tempted to stay indoors and experiment, too, but the rain had stopped, and I was more than ready to see what the Ley Hunters were hiding behind that ward.
We started off by turning on the shadow spells Isabel had concocted. Shadow spells were the most basic form of illusion spell, effectively turning our bodies into human-shaped shadows. In dark rooms, we’d be invisible, and under the cloudy sky, all we had to do was avoid stepping in puddles. I cast a glance in the direction of the raiders’ shop, and heard a distinctive squeaking noise from inside, suggesting the owner had walked into Isabel’s spell. Ha.
Pausing outside the Ley Hunters’ shop, I reached for the door and felt the buzz of the wards against my hand. The downstairs window remained boarded up, and moving the boards would give the game away.
“The ward doesn’t cover the upper floor,” Isabel whispered. Her shadowy palms rested on the door’s edge as she stood on tip-toe. “It stops just above the door.”
“All right,” I whispered, twisting the bands on each wrist. “I’ll go in first.”
“I’ll catch you if you fall.” Isabel was thinner than I was, but also stronger. I barely had the upper-arm strength to pull myself up onto the windowsill even with my sticking spell working. At least being smaller than average would help me crawl through the window.
“Break-in time,” I muttered. I reached the upper level and freed one hand to use an unlocking spell on the window. A moment later, it swung open. It’d be a tight squeeze to get inside, but I could just about manage it. Because of the angle, I had to go headfirst. My head easily went through, and then my knee got stuck. I grimaced, shuffled around, and fell. My hands shot out to break my floor, the sticking charm working its magic, and I shot to the opposite wall and stuck fast.
Isabel’s slim shadowy form jumped down, laughing at me.
“Very funny,” I muttered. My body was sprawled against the wall like a fly in a trap. Freeing my hands, I landed on the dusty floorboards. Someone had once lived above the shop, but not for a while, judging by the thick layer of dust.
I left the room with Isabel at my heels, pausing at every creak in the floorboards. At the top of the stairs, I checked the spirit realm. No people here… but a weird flicker caught my eye. It came from downstairs.
I’d expected a trap, but the flickering… wasn’t human. Or a vampire. Twisting the spells on my wrists, I nodded to Isabel, took the lead and trod carefully and swiftly down the wooden stairs into the room below. The space ahead had clearly once been divided into rooms, but someone had removed the doors, so it was one big wooden-floored space with chairs set out. Like a meeting room. This was our place, all right.
So what’s the deal with the ward?
Isabel looked sideways at me, her shadowy form almost invisible. “Anything?”
I shook my head. “If there is, it’s well hidden. Hang on.”
Checking the spirit realm, I homed in on the flickering. I tiptoed through to the back and paused, looking up at the ceiling. We hadn’t covered the entire upper floor, but the spacing didn’t add up right. A tingle in my fingertips gave it away.
“There’s a room hidden back here,” I muttered to Isabel. “Warded.”
She inhaled sharply. “I know. Step back.”
She reached forwards with a purple device in one hand. “Spell sensor. Only works on minor ones, but—”
A flash went off, and the spell sensor beeped faintly.
“I don’t think that’s minor.”
The flash expanded, and the ceiling collapsed.
I threw up a shield charm above our heads, but the shattering pieces of plaster and wood fell through the spell. I ran for the door, then skidded to a halt. The damned ward—
Wait. I skidded to a halt and spun around. The ceiling above this part of the room remained where it was, despite the intermittent tingling of magic against my palms and the convincing sound of collapsing floorboards. “That’s an illusion? Damn. I could have done a better job.”
I raised my hands, feeling for the edges of the spell, and switched it off. The collapsing pieces of plaster disappeared, and the space behind me looked as good as new. Threads of magic caressed my hands, and I gave them a sharp tug. The illusory wall fell away, revealing a box-sized room. Empty, dust-covered, and… warded.
“Nice try.” I searched for the warding spell and tugged that one undone, too. The air rippled, as though an invisible curtain had parted. But there was nothing behind the curtain except a small metal-looking device the size of my palm, lying on a table.
I checked the spirit realm, and the flickering stirred again. It came from the direction of the metal device.
Weird. The only items that caused an impact in the spirit realm were generally necromancers’ candles. I reached for the device, felt no other hostile spells ready to grab me, and picked it up. The smooth surface was cool to touch, while it easily fit into my jacket pocket.
The door rattled. Someone was here.
I ran for the stairs, throwing down a sound-proofing spell to muffle our steps. With Isabel on my heels, I took the stairs two at a time and careened into the room we’d climbed in through.
“I closed the window,” Isabel whispered, tugging on my arm. “If we climb out th
at way, they’ll see us.”
“Back window?” I suggested, making for one of the other rooms. In the second room we tried, a dusty window overlooked a garden overgrown with weeds. Not ideal, but it’d do.
With a crash, the door opened downstairs. Isabel threw an unlocking spell at the window and urgently beckoned me to go first. I shook my head, but she grabbed my arm insistently.
Not about to stick around and argue, I climbed onto the windowsill and pushed the window as wide as it would possibly go. A child could probably crawl out. As a full-grown adult, even a vertically challenged one, this was going to hurt.
I squeezed my head through the gap, manoeuvring my body at an angle. Reaching down with my sticky-charmed hands, I pulled my legs out, wincing when my knee cracked against the glass. Once my legs were out, I awkwardly climbed sideways to stand on the sill, freeing one hand to help Isabel climb out. She crawled head-first, too, and I shuffled to the drainpipe to make room for her.
Isabel remained upside-down, using her spell-enhanced hands to pull herself down the wall. Good plan. I attached my hands to the drainpipe and did the same, but the stickiness began to fade. Then the house trembled, and my Hemlock witch senses shrieked a warning.
Biting my lip to avoid screaming, I fell, pain screaming through my hands, and crashed face-first into a bush.
“Ow.” I groaned, blood dripping from my nose. My wrists burned, and when I yanked off the sticking spells, the skin was burned red. “What was that?”
“Anti-magic spell,” said Isabel, pulling herself out of another bush. “Ready to run?”
I held a hand to my bleeding nose as we ran for the fence, climbing into the neighbouring garden. Three gardens later and we found an alley leading back to the main road. Hoping I wasn’t leaving a trail of blood behind me, I sprinted alongside Isabel back to the witches’ place.
Once inside, Isabel made for the spot where she’d put her healing spells, and I applied one to my smarting wrists and bleeding nose. The owner of that shop had some seriously nasty defences.
“I think I dripped blood all over someone’s garden.” I groaned when the pain vanished from my hands. “This is why I’ll never be a professional spy.”
“You weren’t that bad at breaking in,” said Isabel.
“If you forget the bit where I hugged the wall.”
She gave me a grin. “Okay, there is that. What did you find?”
I pulled the metal device out of my pocket. “It looks like a spirit sensor, but I don’t think it has ectoplasm inside it. I knew it was there because it kind of… glowed, in the spirit realm.”
“Definitely not a witch spell,” said Isabel leaning to examine the device. “Hmm. Man-made, I’d say for sure. Best get the mages to look at it.”
“Are you sure bringing them into this is a good idea?” I asked. “Vance is already suspicious that I’m hiding something.”
“It’s worth checking out what that thing is for,” Isabel said. “Does it have a switch?”
“Apparently not.” I checked every angle, but it didn’t seem to come with any way to activate it. Or an instruction manual. “All right. Let’s go and see what the Mage Lord has to say.”
Once we’d cleaned up some of the mess on the floor, the two of us walked to the mages’ headquarters again. Neither of us had been able to pry the device open to see how it worked, and like it or not, the mages were the ones who had the expertise when it came to most types of magic. I was more inclined to think it was a new necromancy creation—the weird flicker I’d seen around it in the spirit realm proved that—but despite its competency, the guild wasn’t what I’d call modern.
Isabel knocked on the door while I examined the glyphs on the walls, their swirling lines ever-flickering. Security wards, anti-faerie wards, several more I couldn’t identify. My Hemlock magic itched to unravel them to see how they worked, and I couldn’t tell how much of the fascination was mine, and how much was the remains of Evelyn’s influence when her emotions trickled through to me. Even though most of the time we’d been separate people, when we’d used magic, I’d felt some of what she did. Or I thought I had.
Vance answered the door. “You’re back.”
“Yep.” I nodded to Isabel. “We didn’t get any conclusive answers, and the person who owned the shop showed up so we had to run. But we do have something to show you.”
We went into the living room, where Erwin flew at me again. After swatting at my face and hissing at me, he sat on top of Isabel’s head, playing with a strand of hair.
“What’s his issue with me?” I muttered to her.
“I think it’s the piercing,” she said.
“Ah.” Being faeries, piskies hated and avoided all iron, and I had a thin band attached to my lower lip. I’d been lucky not to damage it when I’d fallen headfirst into the bush.
Ivy waved at us from the table, where she’d moved her stack of papers. “Hey. Word of advice: never save all your paperwork until the weekend before a major council meeting. Also, Vance, your handwriting is awful. What does this even say?”
“Let me look.” He lifted the paper from her hand. “You need to sign here.”
“Again?” Ivy groaned. “Bloody mages… What did you find, anyway?”
I put the device on the table. Vance picked it up carefully, turning it over in his hands.
“Isabel already tested a spell sensor on it,” I said. “I think it’s necromancy-related, but I can’t get it open, and it doesn’t seem to have any switches or buttons.”
Vance looked up. “This is made of the same material as a spirit sensor.”
“Yeah.” I’d thought so. Of supernaturals, only witches and necromancers used handmade props. “If I took it with me to the guild, I’d be able to get a definite answer, but the Ley Hunters’ meeting’s in less than two hours.”
“I’ll ask for a necromancer’s confirmation to see if they’ve lost any of their props lately,” said Vance.
Ivy made a sceptical noise. “Half of them can’t even make a candle circle the right way. I don’t see them playing at being scientists and inventing a new device. Maybe it’s an import from somewhere else. But it’s weird that it has no switch or anything.”
“It did give off this sort of flicker, when I looked at it in the spirit realm,” I admitted.
“Flicker?” asked Ivy. “Maybe you need to be in the spirit realm to use it.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” I reached for the device, and Vance handed it to me.
As I tapped into the spirit realm, grey light filled the room. Ivy, Isabel and Vance shone within, and Ivy’s spirit had the same slightly blue-tinted glowing sheen that Ilsa’s did. Weird. Her sword glowed, too. That was unusual.
As for the device in my hand… nothing.
I shook my head, switching off the spirit sight. “I can’t tell anything from here. Might be the wards.”
“Maybe it’ll work if you check outside,” said Isabel, getting it. “Ivy, Jas managed to invent a spell I hadn’t come up with yet. Want to see it?”
As she moved in to demonstrate the sticking spell, I left the living room and made my way down the corridor to the front door again. Slipping outside, I checked nobody was on the street before pulling out the device. It wasn’t impossible for ghosts to bypass wards, but they tended to avoid heavily protected areas, and the spirit realm was usually quiet in places like this. The poltergeist who’d haunted Lord Bentley had been an exception.
When I tapped into the spirit realm this time, it was to see the faint shapes of ghosts floating towards the distant gates. I looked around for a moment, and I gave myself a mental slap for half-expecting to see the shadowy form of Keir waiting there. A ghost floated close by, watching the faintly glowing device with curious eyes.
“Don’t stop,” I said to him. “Go on, float to the gates.”
The glow brightened, and I stared as it spread wider. The ghost’s hand reached out—
And it vanished.
The dev
ice continued to pulse, brighter. I shut off my spirit sight, my heartbeat kicking up. The device’s glow remained, fainter in the waking world. My skin crawled, and I ran for the manor’s partly open gate.
When I reached the living room, flushed and breathless, the others turned to stare at me.
“Jas, what is it?” asked Isabel.
“I think,” I said, “it sucks in spiritual energy.”
“And does what with it?” asked Isabel.
The light pulsed. “Very good question. It sucked a ghost inside it. Reduced it to nothing.”
Ivy’s mouth fell open. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. If you see it through the spirit realm, it’s brighter. But I didn’t even activate it.”
“Don’t do it in here,” Ivy said. “If it stores spiritual energy, unleashing it would be like sending a poltergeist through a china shop.”
“Spiritual energy,” I repeated. “What if… what if it doesn’t just draw on energy from ghosts?”
Like a key point.
Ivy’s expression told me the same had occurred to her. “Shit. Okay, that thing definitely isn’t a guild creation. Even they have more sense.”
“So it’s what, a necromancer rogue’s?” I asked.
How had it ended up here? Were these Ley Hunters harnessing spiritual energy up and down the country, and for what ends? Necromancy was widely regarded as the weakest and least useful form of magic to everyone except for the highest ranked among us, and more to the point, the spirit energy from the other key point couldn’t have gone nowhere. Which meant there must be another, similar device somewhere in Edinburgh. Unless they’d used up the energy killing those people…
“Uh, how do I get it out?” I asked, turning the device over. “Does the energy just… stay in there?”
“I don’t know,” Ivy said. “Not an expert.”
“All right,” I said. “How about this? I take it to the meeting and if they catch us there, use it as leverage to get answers from them. It’s valuable enough that they probably want it back.”
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