“There were some notes regarding deceased members. The only ones of note involved the Circle Feuds of 1212. I have memorized—”
“Not necessary right now,” Welling said. “Write the salient points down and deliver it to Miss Pyle on the inspectors’ floor for my attention. Dismissed.”
Henterly gave a sharp salute and went back inside the stationhouse.
“That was useless,” Satrine said. “Except we have the address now.”
“Which is perfectly useful,” Welling said. “But the rest, not entirely useless. They have invoked full rights of privacy, for one.”
“Most Mage Circles do.” Though she had only tangential experience—a few Red Wolf associates, mostly.
“To some degree, but even to the extent of charter and roster is, I believe, uncommon. And they have maintained a clean face, at least as far as our stationhouse is concerned. Given that their chapterhouse is in our district, it is unlikely they could maintain a clandestine, illegal agenda without us getting wind of it.” He signaled for them to start walking.
“What about the Feuds?” Satrine had read some news of the Circle Feuds when it happened three years ago, but as it had stayed confined to the south side of Maradaine, she didn’t pay it much mind. A handful of Circles were involved in some sort of feud that boiled into the streets.
“I did not investigate any specific aspect of that at the time. I know that mages of several Circles—I presume the smaller ones—were killed in it. That Firewings had members involved is not distinctive, nor does it give us much insight.”
“Unless this is connected to the Feuds somehow.”
Welling shrugged, as if considering it. “It’s not a theory I’ve dismissed.”
“That sounds dismissive.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Are you trying to be deliberately ignorant of Circles and mage matters?”
Welling was taken aback. “Absolutely not. However, I’ve reached the conclusion that our killer—or killers—is most likely not a mage of any sort.”
“And how did you decide that?”
“Consider the nature of the spike used in the murder.”
“It seems magical in nature.”
Welling’s eyes lit up as he snapped a finger. “Not so. Just the opposite, in truth. It is anti-magical.”
“Is that a real word?”
“If not, it needs to be. Consider the fact that the most brushing contact with it left me weak and dizzy. The prolonged contact necessary to subdue and bind our victim would be intolerable. Therefore, our killer cannot be a mage. The Firewings are therefore not going to prove a useful avenue of investigation.”
“You don’t want to do this, do you?” she asked.
Welling stopped walking and chewing, and gave Satrine a strange regard. “Why do you think that, Inspector Rainey?”
“You’ve been noticeably out of sorts since we first decided to come here.”
“We have only been in acquaintance for three hours, Inspector Rainey. I would be surprised if you could determine that in so short a time.”
“Aren’t we supposed to make quick assessments of people, Inspector?” she asked.
“And what is your assessment?”
“Would you agree that the most logical action right now is to go to the Firewings chapterhouse? If for no other reason than to help identify our victim?”
Welling made a face that reminded Satrine of pulling out her daughter’s tooth years ago. “Granted.”
“Yet you seem to be deliberately delaying going.”
Welling nodded in acquiescence, taking another bite of his wrap. “Another block to Jewel, and then we turn west.”
“You don’t want to see any Circled mages, do you?”
His voice dropped low. “It’s me they won’t see.” He quickened his pace, eating the last of the wrap.
“Of course they’ll be uncooperative, Welling. Most Circles want nothing to do with Constabulary.” Since protecting member mages from spurious legal action was a primary function of Circles, not cooperating with law enforcement was standard business.
“Me, especially.” He pressed his lead, and Satrine hurried up to catch him.
“Trust me, Welling,” Satrine said. “They won’t be any nicer to me. I’m sure—” She crashed into a man carrying a pile of books. The man hit the ground, books scattered all over the walkway. “Sweet saints, I’m so sorry, sir.”
The man, a narrow-faced young man with short hair and spectacles, stood up quickly, brushing himself off. “Not at all, lady, not at all. I was carrying far too much, as you can see.” He started collecting the books on the ground.
“Let me help you.” Satrine started picking up the books closest to her. The title of one of them caught her eye. “My goodness. Lost Poems of the Sarani?”
“You know it?” the man asked.
“Know it?” Satrine smiled warmly. “This book saved my life.”
The man’s eyes went wide with surprise. He looked delighted to hear that. “Really? Tell me!”
“This book—it’s a long story, you don’t—”
“No, I do!” The man was breathing heavily with excitement. Welling had slowly returned to the vicinity, but he kept a wary distance.
“Well, I—I was a street girl, just a few blocks from here. And I was sitting on the corner when Old Man Plum threw it at me—I mean that, he threw it at me.”
“Old Man—that was my grandfather!” He shuffled the books in his hands to be able to offer one to her. “Nerrish Plum.”
“Satrine Rainey. So do you still run his bookshop down there?”
“I’ve just recently taken it over. But tell me, then what happened?”
“He yelled at me. He said, ‘You stop wasting your time sitting and causing a nuisance. You read that instead!’”
Plum laughed. “Sounds like him. But it saved you?”
“Well, I had the book, then. I couldn’t read it at first, of course. But I kept it, and used it to teach myself to read.”
Plum nodded, his tone now more muted. “Of course. That would have saved your life.”
“I still have the book.”
“That’s excellent.” He took the books from her, completing his pile. “He would have been very pleased to know he had that effect on someone’s life.”
Welling edged closer. “Inspector Rainey? We really should continue.”
“Of course, Inspector,” she said. “A real pleasure, Mister Plum.” She shook his hand again, and continued down the street with Welling.
“You’re smiling quite broadly, Inspector,” Welling said. “It’s a bit disturbing.”
“A rare happy memory of this neighborhood, Welling,” she told him. “Don’t worry, they’re unlikely to come up often.”
“It is odd, though,” Welling said. “He seemed to be excited to hear your story about the book, but almost disappointed in the actual story.”
She shrugged. “An old man throwing books at a child is more or less the climax.”
Welling nodded. “So correct me if I make any mistakes.”
“All right,” Satrine said, not sure where he was going with this.
“You grew up in this neighborhood, but haven’t been here since adolescence. Self-taught street girl, and this was in the 1190s, so at the height of wartime scarcity. A fair amount of scrapping and scraping to stay alive. Probably more than one altercation with Miss Hoffer.”
“You’ve been paying attention,” Satrine said.
He took this as a sign to continue. “At around the age of fifteen, you left Inemar, in an atypical way. I couldn’t possibly ascertain the specifics at this point, but I’m willing to wager that it was some form of recruitment into Druth Intelligence.”
“Fourteen,” Satrine said, trying to keep a straight face. She wondered ho
w much else he had figured out.
“Of course, that is not the secret you are keeping from Captain Cinellan,” Welling said. “But it does explain your skillset, and his interest in taking you on at this rank without previous Constabulary experience.”
“If it concerns you so much, Welling—”
“It doesn’t,” Welling said. “I am reasonably certain that your secret does not present a danger to the Constabulary or myself, and I’ve already observed sufficient competence on your part that I have no desire to root it out.”
Satrine took that as a cue to let the subject drop and walk in silence.
Jewel 817 was an unremarkable brick row house, nearly identical to the rest of the ones along the block: three stories high, iron-grated windows, gabled roof. The only thing making it stand out was the small flaming hawk painted onto the front stoop—easy enough to notice, so someone looking to hire one of their mages could find it easily, but not so ostentatious that the locals on the block would get too riled.
Satrine couldn’t remember if there had been any Mage Circle chapterhouses around her blocks when she was a child. If there had been, it simply wasn’t part of her world at the time.
“This is the place,” Satrine said.
“So it is,” Welling said. He stood still at the bottom of the steps. Satrine gave him a moment, but realized he wasn’t going to move without action on her part. She went up to the door and pounded on it.
Silence from within.
Welling pulled his pipe out from his pocket, not moving from his spot on the street.
Satrine pounded on the door again. “Constabulary!”
“Now they’ll never answer,” Welling said. He pinched some tobacco from his pouch and put it into the bowl.
A small panel in the door opened up, just enough for Satrine to see a hint of a man’s face.
“What?” the man asked.
“We’re inspectors from the Constabulary House, investigating the death of—”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“No, we just have—”
“Go away.” The panel slammed shut.
Satrine pounded on the door. “We just have a few questions for you!”
No answer.
“If you just talk to us—”
“They don’t want to talk to us,” Welling said.
“You have a better idea?”
“I do,” Welling said. “But I don’t like it.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Leaning against the wall, Welling put the pipe in his mouth and held his finger over the bowl. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then a burst of flame came out of his finger. He took a slow toke from the pipe, and blew it out in rings.
“That’s your idea?”
“Wait,” Welling said.
The door flew open, and three people—two men and one woman—came out onto the front steps, nearly barreling into Satrine. They barely glanced at her, then pounded down the stairs to Welling.
“What the blazes do you think you’re doing?” one of the men said. He was much older than the other two, and was definitely not the one who answered the door before.
“Getting your attention,” Welling said. He took another puff of smoke. “We need to speak with you about a Constabulary matter.”
“We will do no such thing,” the old man said. “And why are you—”
“He’s in a constab uniform!” the woman said. Her eyes were wide, but Satrine couldn’t read her face beyond that. Dark eyes, dark hair, long and elaborately braided. She wore a blue corset, and a sheer shawl over her bare shoulders—typical for the southern archduchies, matching her accent, but near scandalous in the streets of Maradaine—so her Firewing tattoo was boldly visible over her heart.
Satrine came down the steps. “I’m Inspector Satrine Rainey, this is my partner, Inspector Minox Welling. We’re investigating.”
“Partner? Inspector?” The old man’s face filled with rage, his teeth grinding. He turned back to Welling, almost spitting in the inspector’s face. “How could you be one of them? Who would allow that?”
“No one tells me what I can’t do,” Welling said calmly, but there was a stern undercurrent of anger that Satrine heard in his voice.
“He’s Uncircled!” the young man said with a laugh. He wore just a vest and cotton pants, also showing off his Firewing tattoo. “That’s why he made such a messy noise.”
Welling’s face twitched, and Satrine also saw her partner’s hand inch toward his handstick. She moved closer to the group of mages. “We just have a few questions for you. This morning a man was—”
“Questions?” the old man said. He spun to face Satrine, and she swore the light around him dimmed as he did so. “Why should we help you with anything?”
Several people on the street were marking them all now, some coming out of shops to see what the commotion was.
“A man was murdered,” Satrine said flatly.
“And?” the young man said. “You have no arrest warrant, so why are you bothering us about it?”
“Because the dead man may be one of your Circle,” Welling said.
All three mages turned back to Welling. “What do you mean?” asked the woman.
“The body was found this morning, over at the corner of Jent and Tannen. We believe he may have been a member of your Circle.”
The old man lowered his voice, a growling whisper. “Why do you think that?”
“A partial tattoo over his chest,” Satrine said.
“Why partial?” The woman asked the question, her voice quavering. As much as Satrine hated to acknowledge it, she could read this woman was the weak link of the three, the one most likely to be of any help to them.
“Because his heart was cut out,” Satrine said. She pulled the charcoal sketch out of her pocket and handed it to the woman. The woman needed only a glance at the picture before her face melted in grief and rage, a guttural scream releasing from her throat. A wave of force came with her voice, knocking Satrine off her feet, shattering glass down the street.
“Jaelia!” the old man shouted. He grabbed her, holding her tightly. Her scream dampened to muffled tears.
“So you know the victim,” Satrine said, getting back on her feet. She felt like she had just been hit by a horse. A glance around the street showed her that most of the rest of the crowd around them were similarly affected, some of them further injured by falling or broken glass.
“His name is Hessen Tomar,” the young man said. “He was her husband.”
“Is that all you needed?” the old man asked harshly.
“No, that’s not all—” Welling started.
“Well, that’s all there will be,” the young man said.
“We need to know more about Mister Tomar,” Welling said. “Enemies he had. Who might have wanted to—”
“No!” the woman—Jaelia—shouted. “Don’t you dare talk of him.”
“Missus Tomar,” Satrine said, “I know what you must be feeling, so . . .”
“You tell me my husband’s heart has been cut out and you think you know what I’m feeling?” she shouted. “Both of you get out of here.” She sneered at Welling. “Especially that one.”
Jaelia Tomar went up the steps of the house, the other two behind her.
“Oy!” someone shouted from across the street. “You sticks gonna let her walk away?”
People were forming a crowd around the house. Some of them were holding brooms or other heavy items.
“She just wrecked the street!”
“Who’s gonna pay for my window?”
“She’s not going anywhere!”
This was getting ugly quickly. Satrine saw out the corner of her eye that the other Firewings were about to react with anger. If they did more magic on the street, the whole situation would explo
de into a riot.
“Back off!” she shouted. “This is a Constabulary matter.”
“Then do your blasted jobs!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Arrest her!”
Welling was at Satrine’s shoulder, his handstick out. “We’ll do our duty, people. Go about your own.”
The mages continued to go into the house, ignoring the situation behind them. Something flew out from the crowd—a rock, a beet, Satrine couldn’t tell—striking Jaelia Tomar in the head. She spun around, her hands splayed out. Green light formed around her hands, burning in a hot flash.
Satrine sprung up the steps, her handstick out, charging at the woman. Before she was able to close the distance, the light burst out of the mage’s hands.
Satrine was hit, full in the chest. It didn’t hurt her, didn’t slow her down. Two more steps and she was on Jaelia, handstick pressed against the woman’s neck. She pushed Jaelia up against the doorframe. The other two mages stood in shocked silence, staring at Satrine in amazement.
“Rainey?” Welling asked from the bottom of the steps. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said. She turned back to Jaelia, stick hard at her throat. The woman’s face was a shifting mix of fear, shock, grief, and anger.
The crowd all cheered. They wanted to exact vengeance on Jaelia, and they were getting that through Satrine. She wasn’t happy about giving an angry mob what they wanted, but she had no other choice. “Get rid of them, Inspector.”
“You heard her, people,” Welling said to the crowd. “Disperse and be about your business.”
The crowd grumbled. Satrine heard some disturbing snippets. “Blazing mages.” “Nothing but trouble.” “Should burn the lot of them out.”
“What are you?” Jaelia asked Satrine.
Satrine didn’t know what to make of that question. “I’m arresting you, Missus Tomar. Consider yourself bound by law as of this moment,” Satrine said. “I’m very sorry for your loss, but that’s no excuse for your actions.”
Jaelia shook her head. “No, no . . . you . . . you should have been . . . you just kept coming. How?”
Satrine realized there was a warm sensation in her pocket. The spike. It must have protected her from Jaelia’s magic. She lowered her handstick and stepped away from the woman. “That’s none of your concern. Inspector, if you would be so kind as to call the lockwagon.” Welling took out his whistle and gave a series of sharp blows.
A Murder of Mages: A Novel of the Maradaine Constabulary Page 7