by Jasmine Walt
“As needed,” Garrett said, his voice still chilly. “Lord Iannis has assigned Miss Baine as my liaison, and since she is a licensed enforcer, I assume that is sufficient for now. If we need more resources, she will contact you to arrange it.”
A muscle twitched in Skonel’s jaw. “This agency is not at your beck and call—”
Garrett stood up, bracing his palms on the edge of the desk. The air in the room was suddenly suffocating, charged with power, and Skonel leaned back, his eyes wide. “We do not have time to sit around here having a pissing contest about jurisdiction,” Garrett hissed, his eyes blazing with cold anger. “The Minister of the Federation personally sent me to Canalo to apprehend Thorgana Mills. He is the highest authority in this nation. Do you wish to take it up with him?”
A lesser man would have started babbling apologies, but Skonel simply held Garrett’s gaze for a long moment. “I do not wish to supersede the Minister’s orders,” he finally said. “I just wish to be kept informed. Thorgana Mills is a dangerous criminal who, from what we’ve seen in the past, is not afraid to maim or kill large numbers of innocent people to get what she wants. I need to be kept abreast of her activities so I can ensure the safety of our citizens.”
“Of course,” Garrett said smoothly. He sat back down in his chair, his expression placid once more. “I will endeavor to keep you informed. But so far, we know very little, only that she is likely hiding out here.” He gave Skonel a quick rundown of what we did know—that she’d broken out of the prison on purpose, and that she was supposedly heading to Solantha for revenge.
Captain Skonel was stroking his jaw when Garrett finished, his strong features tight with concern. “Revenge could mean any number of things,” he said. “Obviously, Miss Baine and Lord Iannis will be prime targets, but so is the Enforcers Guild, as well as any of the Shiftertown inhabitants who turned on her in the end.”
“Have you heard any rumors about secret weapons or viruses?” Garrett asked. “Presumably, Thorgana will want to make a big splash when she makes her move. We have reason to believe she may have a few tricks up her sleeve—something her tame scientists might have been working on before they were captured.”
“I’m afraid not,” Skonel said. “I’ll make sure the crew foremen keep their eyes peeled for anything like that though.”
“Make sure they report any mysterious illnesses, or strange magical phenomena,” I said. “Anything that could seem like a symptom of a virus, or a malicious spell. Thorgana is not above fighting fire with fire—she’s still allied with Argon Chartis, as far as we know.”
“An excellent point,” Garrett said, his lips thinning. “I will never understand why such a brilliant mage chose to ally himself with that deranged woman. She will try to kill him at the first opportunity.”
“I agree,” I said. Thorgana’s hatred of mages was all-inclusive—there was no way she would be content to share power with Chartis. She probably already had a plan in place for how to get rid of him once she didn’t need him anymore.
“There was one strange phenomenon recently,” Skonel said thoughtfully, drawing our attention back to him. “There have been several reports of fires started here and there, mostly in the Rowanville and Port areas. Nothing serious, and all small, isolated incidents.”
“Interesting. A street vendor came up to me the other day and told me someone had set his cart on fire.” I briefly recounted the story to them. “Could there be an arsonist on the loose?”
“If there is,” Garrett said, “that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re using magic. And I doubt Thorgana would bother herself with such petty mischief. Setting small fires is too low key for her.”
“That doesn’t sound like Thorgana,” I agreed, “but if someone is going around setting fires, it should be looked into immediately. The last thing we need is an arsonist wreaking havoc while we’re preparing for an earthquake.”
“Of course. I already have a crew on it,” Skonel said tersely, and it occurred to me that he probably thought I was stepping on his toes. Who was I, a low-ranking enforcer, to give him orders? “You should pass the details from the market vendor to them, so they can investigate it with all the rest.”
“Yes, Captain,” I said, and he looked slightly mollified by my response. “By the way, I heard an interesting rumor at Captain Galling’s farewell reception that I’ve been meaning to take up with you.”
“I don’t have time to discuss rumors, Enforcer Baine,” Skonel said irritably, his back up once more.
“You’ll discuss this one,” I said firmly. “It’s been brought to my attention that the Enforcers Guild has been paying higher bounties to mages, and selectively giving out end-of-year bonuses to the foremen and their cronies. Is this all true?” I demanded.
“Well, yes,” Skonel said, sounding flustered. “The system has been in place for decades, maybe even more than a century. I’ve only held this office for a handful of days, and the bonus system is hardly top of my priority list.”
“It should be,” I said evenly, holding back the temper simmering in my chest. “It wasn’t a big deal for Captain Galling when everyone was in the dark about it, but now that word is getting out, tensions in the Guild are rising. We need to be a unified front, Captain, and that’s not going to happen if the establishment keeps showing everyone that inequality is acceptable.”
“If you come up with a better system, I would be happy to discuss it,” Skonel said stiffly, his cheeks coloring. “But to take the bonuses away now would lead to even more discontent and morale issues. We can’t just rip the current system out from underneath them without replacing it with another.”
“An excellent point,” Garrett said before I could argue with Skonel that it wasn’t my job to come up with another system—that was his responsibility! “We appreciate your time, Captain, but we really must be going now.” He gave me a warning look, his eyes brimming with impatience.
“Of course,” Skonel said, standing. “Let me show you out.”
“Thanks for the support,” I muttered as we got into the elevator.
“I’m sure the issue is important, Miss Baine,” Garrett said in a tone that suggested the exact opposite, “but it has nothing to do with finding Thorgana, and I didn’t come all this way to sit in his office while the two of you come up with a new bonus system. We must move on.”
“Fine.” I clenched my jaw and stared straight ahead at the elevator doors, refusing to look at him. I knew part of the reason his words rankled was because he was right, but I still didn’t like the way he’d undermined me.
On our way out, I stopped by the sergeant’s desk again. “Hey. Has Annia Melcott reported back in for duty yet?”
The trainee shook his head. “Sorry, Enforcer Baine. She’s still in Southia, as far as I know.”
“Thanks,” I said, swallowing my disappointment. I really hoped Annia would come back soon. I’d expected her to return at the same time I came back from Garai, but even her mother hadn’t heard from her in a few weeks. I told the trainee to send word to me at the Palace the moment she returned, then headed out the doors after Garrett. Hopefully, she’d be back in the next few days—she would be a real asset to the investigation. And it would be nice to have a true friend around, instead of being forced to chauffeur a man who might very well be the death of my fiancé and one of my closest friends.
11
By the time we stopped outside Boon Lakin’s house in Shiftertown, most of my grumpiness had melted away. Riding on my steambike always lifted my spirits a little, but it was the thought of seeing Lakin again that did the trick. Unlike Skonel and Garrett, Lakin would actually be happy to see me.
“Sunaya,” Lakin exclaimed when he threw open the door. His smile dimmed slightly when he caught sight of Garrett, but he didn’t shirk away from the strange mage. “What brings you here?”
“Official business, I’m afraid,” I said with a rueful smile. “Mind if we come in a minute?”
“Sure, sure.�
� Lakin stepped back, letting us enter his small but cozy house. I hadn’t been here since before I’d left for Garai, and was pleased to note he’d added some family photographs to the walls and side tables, from the Jaguar Clan he’d left back in Parabas. Included in those pictures was the smiling face of the little girl I’d rescued from the lab in Osero, and I felt a pang in my chest. I hoped she was doing okay. Those children had been through a terrible ordeal—they’d been lucky to make it out alive, since the scientists were experimenting on them with the deadly diseases they’d intended to unleash on the shifter and mage populations.
Before I could allow myself to sink further into the past, my nose caught the scent of a female jaguar shifter—one who came around often, I noted. As the Shiftertown Inspector, Lakin had regular visitors, but none with quite as strong a scent marker as this one.
Flopping onto the couch, I looked up at Lakin with a grin. “New girlfriend?”
He blushed. “It’s not official,” he said, scratching the back of his sandy hair.
I waggled my eyebrows. “Smells pretty official to me. You have to have been seeing her a few months.”
“As fascinating as this sounds,” Garrett said dryly as he lowered himself on the couch next to me, “I don’t believe we came here to interrogate Inspector Lakin on his love life.”
“Which I am incredibly grateful for,” Lakin said sincerely as he sank into his arm chair. “What are you here for? When I heard you outside the door, I thought maybe you’d come to volunteer as you’d mentioned before, but since you’ve got a mage with you, I figure that’s not the case.”
I flinched at that. “Shit. I’m sorry, Lakin.” I’d completely forgotten about my promise. “I was absolutely intending on doing that, but Director Toring’s unexpected visit kind of threw a wrench in my schedule.” The two of us got Lakin up to speed about Thorgana’s escape and alleged plans, as well as our progress—or lack thereof—on finding her. We discussed various theories as to where she might be hiding and what plans she might be cooking up, but didn’t come up with anything new. We were just circling over the same ground, much to my frustration.
“I wish I could be of more help,” Lakin said, his blond brows drawn into a scowl. “It’s possible that Thorgana only just arrived, and that’s why we haven’t heard or seen anything unusual yet. I will definitely forward any rumors or info about the Benefactor straight to you—you know that none of us harbor any love for her,” he added darkly.
We thanked Lakin for his time, leaving him with a promise I would get in touch with him as soon as I had a spare moment to volunteer. We hit up the Shifter Courier next, followed by the Herald. Everyone we talked to was very helpful, but nobody had any leads, to our mutual disappointment. I’d expected to get something out of the Herald at least—they were still suspect, even though they were under new management, and I wouldn’t have put it past Thorgana to leverage contacts in her former media company in some way. But clearly that was too obvious an angle—if she was here at all, she was being careful to fly under the radar.
By the time we finished with the Herald, it was well past two o’clock. Starving, I dragged Garrett to the diner in Maintown where Annia and I had once shared a meal during our very first case together. As we settled into a booth with a street view window and ordered bowls of hot soup and sandwiches, I couldn’t help but wish that it was Annia sitting across from me, instead of Garrett. The director was clever and intelligent, but he didn’t know Solantha very well. Annia, like me, had grown up here, and her contacts with the city’s underbelly were much better than mine. I often consulted with her when I was working on a tough case, and she usually spotted things I didn’t.
“There is another place I would like to check out,” Garrett said after he’d finished polishing off a grilled cheese sandwich. “Firegate Federal Credit Union.”
My brow furrowed. “A bank? Why?”
“Thorgana was using several banks around the country to funnel money through, and Firegate was one of two banks she used here in Solantha,” Garrett explained. “The other—”
“Was Sandin Federal,” I said, then scooped a huge spoonful of clam chowder into my mouth. It was my third bowl, and I’d already polished off four grilled cheeses, much to Garrett’s astonishment. I guessed he hadn’t been paying attention to my eating habits in Garai.
“Ah, yes,” Garrett said, a small smile playing on his lips. “I’d forgotten you were the one who shut them down.”
“Along with Lakin, Iannis, and Secretary Garidano,” I reminded him sharply. I didn’t like the admiring way he was gazing at me—I strongly suspected Garrett had a little crush on me. I had saved his life, risking my own neck to dive into the stormy sea after he’d been thrown overboard, so I guess it wasn’t totally weird. But I was engaged to Iannis, and the fact that Garrett, a mage fully capable of controlling his emotions, was letting me see his interest at all was pissing me off. Just because he was getting the chance to enjoy time away from the office, riding around on a steambike with the exotic shifter girl, didn’t give him license to be anything less than professional.
“Of course,” Garrett said smoothly, as if he didn’t notice my warning tone. “I understand that Fenris has also been of help to you during past investigations and missions?”
“His knowledge comes in handy,” I said, turning my attention back to my chowder. Garrett had been subtly tossing questions about Fenris to me all afternoon, and I’d deflected them as best I could, refusing to betray that I knew his game. I wasn’t going to hand Fenris over to him on a silver platter.
“I imagine it does,” Garrett said. “He has decades of it, if that is to be believed. Has he been studying magical lore all his life?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said airily, flagging down the waitress to get the bill. “I’ve known him less than a year.”
“Surely, he’s told you about his past, though?” Garrett pressed. “The two of you must be well-acquainted, considering you’re both shifters living among mages, and so close to Lord Iannis.”
“You got any coin on you?” I asked, sliding the bill over to Garrett after the waitress handed it to me. “I figure we’re splitting this.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Garrett said irritably, pulling a hefty purse from the magical pocket in his sleeve. “Are you avoiding my question?”
“No,” I said simply as I rose from the table. “I just think that if you want to learn about Fenris’s past, the best person to ask would be Fenris. I’m not his biographer, you know.” Garrett pressed his lips together. “I’m going to the restroom. Meet you outside.”
And with that, I sauntered off before I could give in to the urge to grab Garrett by the collar and punch him in his too-shrewd face.
12
After visiting the bank, which turned out to be just as fruitless as the other leads, Garrett and I returned to the Palace. Our dinner meeting was in just a few hours, and he wanted to consult with his assistant to see if he’d found anything useful in the magazine archives. Garrett invited me to come with him, but I begged off, claiming I had another matter that needed my attention.
In reality, I just needed a break from him.
“That good, huh?” Rylan asked as I stormed into my suite. I drew up short, surprised to see him sitting on my sofa, reading a book.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, closing the door behind me with less force than I’d intended. “I thought you’d be on guard rotation or something.”
“I was,” Rylan said, closing the book and setting it aside, “but Lord Iannis sensed you were returning, so he told me to come meet you. I figured this would be the best place to catch you.”
“Huh.” My hand drifted up to the serapha charm around my neck, and I focused on it. Iannis was downstairs in his Guild office. I rarely thought about the charm that bound the two of us, but I wondered now how often he used it to check on me. He must have done so as I was traveling toward the Mages Quarter, and sensed that I was heading back her
e. “Well, you can go hang out in your own room until dinner if you want.”
“Wait a minute,” Rylan said. He stood up and snagged my arm as I tried to brush past him. “What are you going to do, lie on your bed and sulk?”
“Do you have a better idea?” I snarled, twisting out of his grip.
“Yes, actually.”
His fist swung toward my face with lightning speed, and I barely managed to duck out of the way. “Slow,” he accused, sidestepping my return blow with ease.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted as he assaulted me with a barrage of blows—blows I was hard-pressed to deflect as a few landed in my midsection.
“Giving you what you really need,” Rylan said, tapping the pin on his chest. His tiger-shifter illusion dropped away, revealing his true face, and his yellow-orange jaguar eyes gleamed with challenge. “When was the last time you sparred, Naya? For shame, you’re getting soft!”
I was getting soft, I realized as Rylan forced me back across the room. Gritting my teeth, I drove my churning thoughts out of my head, and focused my attention on beating back my pompous cousin. As we exchanged blows, attempted leg sweeps, and went for takedowns, a kind of serenity swept over me. I was no longer worrying about Thorgana or Garrett, trying to predict the next assassination attempt, or to steer prying eyes away from Fenris’s secret. I was only in the moment, ducking and weaving, punching and kicking, sweat sliding down my skin as adrenaline scorched my veins.
By the time we were done sparring—one win, three losses—there were a few broken knickknacks and a hole in the wall, but overall, I felt a lot better. Panting, I sank down to the carpeted floor and leaned my sweaty head against the wall.
“Much better,” Rylan said across from me, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.