by Tess Adair
“I’m not trying to put you on the spot,” Logan continued. “I’m just not sure how you expect to learn if you won’t try anything out that you haven’t already mastered.”
“Oh. Well, when you put it like that…uh…”
Jude’s eyes drifted back toward the girl, but of course she was looking somewhere else now. Jude chastised herself immediately and dropped her gaze.
“Actually, it’s…it’s not just that,” she said. “It’s partly that, but…well, technically, I’m…I’m not sure if Amy and I have broken up or not.”
Her last few words came out in a rush, as if she thought that by saying them faster, she might avoid incriminating herself.
“I see,” said Logan, looking contemplative. Jude noticed that she hadn’t gotten herself a second drink. “I don’t really have much advice to give you on that front, honestly. Never really dealt with the high school dating scene. Do you want to break up with her?”
“No,” said Jude automatically. Then she paused. “Well…I don’t know. It seems kinda silly to keep going when we’re this far apart, I guess.”
Across from her, Logan shrugged.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Jude felt a smile form on her face.
“Wow, you really don’t have any advice for this, do you?”
“Nope.” Another shrug. “Well, look, my first piece of advice is that I don’t think it matters what I think. Your relationship with Amy is between you and Amy. I don’t know enough about it to comment, even if I wanted to.”
Jude took a drink from her second mojito. Mojitos are good, she thought. Over the rim of her glass, she spied the contemplative look on Logan’s face.
“Is there a second?” she asked.
“The second is that you’re young,” said Logan. “You’re at the beginning of a long journey. And in my experience, journeys are often easier to take when unencumbered.” She rapped her short nails against the table. “I hope that doesn’t sound too callous.”
Jude remained quiet for a moment, drinking her mojito while she contemplated. She and Amy had certainly chosen different paths, with Amy headed off to college in the fall. And Jude hadn’t told her about magic when they spoke, and at this moment, she had no real plans to. After all, Amy seemed to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the cover-up explanation for what had happened to both Violet and Kurt. To her, they were both equally innocent victims, and unless Jude told her differently, that’s all they would ever be.
And the further along this path Jude went, the less and less Amy would know about it.
“No,” she said finally, “I don’t think it’s callous. I think you have a point.”
Logan grinned broadly at her.
“See, what you will eventually learn about me is…I’m always right.”
Jude chuckled and shook her head.
“Hey,” said Logan, “wasn’t I talking about something before?”
“Before you went to the bar?” Jude considered this, then remembered Logan’s mischievous look. “Oh yeah—mind control.”
“Right,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Letha influence casting. Incredibly unreliable, which, of course, is a very good thing. It’d be pretty terrible for most people if mind control was easy.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure.”
“Its effects are pretty limited, too. Generally, the most you can hope to do is influence a decision or two, hence the name. It can also be used to get someone to act on something they already wanted to do, whether they knew it or not, but of course, the logistics of using that to your advantage would be fairly complicated.”
“Because you would have to know what they wanted, right?”
“Yep. And either hope what they want lines up well for you, or figure out how to manipulate what they want some other way. And at that point, do you even need casting anymore?”
“Huh. Maybe not.”
“There’s an obvious dark side to this, of course.”
“There is?”
“Sure. Imagine how many people have passing negative impulses, maybe even violent ones, that they keep hidden beneath the surface, never acting on them?” She shrugged. “In the right environment, a talented influence caster could cause a lot of chaos fairly quickly.”
Jude nodded slowly, wondering about the implications of what Logan was saying.
“And that’s why it would be incredibly difficult to use an influence cast on a demon to any significant degree,” said Logan. “Most demons already act on their violent impulses. And they follow instinct, not concrete decision-making.”
Thinking about her own limited encounters with demons so far, Jude had to agree that this appeared to be the case.
“There’s a story you should probably know,” said Logan, leaning into the table. “About influence casting, and how it came about. It’s a very old story. Over a thousand years old, as a matter of fact.”
“What is it?”
“Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, there lived a powerful eira student.” Logan smiled and leaned back, settling into a more comfortable storyteller position. “He took to eira easily, but he grew restless living under the pacifism and discipline enforced by the eira Masters. So, he left the eira temple behind, and he ventured out into the world, and he began to experiment with the limits of letha instead. He was the one who discovered influence casting in the first place, and as far as anybody knows, he was its greatest practitioner. Right up until he met his downfall, that is.”
Jude slid forward in her chair, coming right to the edge. “How did he meet his downfall?”
“One of his former peers, a fellow eira student. She also left the temple behind, but not because she wanted to. She did it so she could fight him. See, even when it seemed like this powerful influence caster might completely overrun the world, the eira masters of the temple refused to give up their pacifism. Refused to fight him. So, because she wanted to fight him, she had to leave. She took up letha, too, in order to defeat him. As a matter of fact, one could argue that she became the most important letha caster of all time.”
“Who was she?”
“Her full name was al-Farisa al-Tayyib Marajil, although these days most English-speaking people call her Morgana. And she founded the Order of Shadows.”
By the time they left the bar that night, Jude was sloppy and ecstatic, and fairly certain that she was experiencing being drunk for the very first time. She tried the climb over the railing several times on the ferry back, until eventually Logan forcibly pulled her back inside and made her sit out the rest of the journey behind the window glass. Even so, she couldn’t contain how buoyant and exuberant she felt.
“You might not feel that way in the morning,” Logan informed her from the other bench. “You’ve heard of a hangover, right?”
“Of course I have,” said Jude. “But I don’t care! It’s so worth it.” She pressed her face closer to the glass and used her breath to fog it up. Her finger traced the image of an infinity symbol. “I wanna feel like this all the time. Hey, can we go outside again?”
“No.”
Eventually, the ferry ride came to an end, much to Jude’s disappointment. They made the short drive back to Logan’s apartment, and before too long they were on the elevator again, riding up to the top. When Logan unlocked the door, Jude burst inside, impatient to take in her view of the skyline once more. She ran right over to the floor-to-ceiling window and practically collapsed in front of it.
“I can’t believe you live here,” she sighed. “I can’t believe I am here…”
While Jude refused to peel herself away from the view, Logan made her way into the kitchen for a few minutes. She came back out bearing a sandwich, and she ordered Jude to eat it.
“If we’re lucky, this’ll soak up some of the alcohol in your stomach,” she said.
“This is the greatest sandwich I’ve ever had,” said Jude with pure gratitude. “This is the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me.”
&nbs
p; “The nicest thing anyone’s ever done for you is get you drunk and make you a sandwich?” asked Logan lightly.
“Yes, it is,” said Jude sincerely, nodding. She wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about anymore, but she still felt so content that it didn’t seem to matter.
Logan insisted that Jude finish off a glass of water with her sandwich; once both were done, she informed Jude that it was time to get her back to the estate. Jude pressed her hand against the window glass one last time to say goodbye to the view, then she followed Logan back to the magic coat closet in the hall.
The door swung open to reveal the majestic, impressively domed traveling room. Jude leapt through the door like she was avoiding a puddle and gasped out loud, even though she’d known exactly what she was about to see. She couldn’t help it: somehow, the room, along with its special properties, had become even more astonishing with the passage of time.
Unable to control herself, Jude walked out into the center of the room and spun around in a circle, keeping her eyes trained toward the round ceiling, covered as it was in indecipherable runes and symbols.
“I wish I could do magic like this,” she said. For a moment, she was surprised to hear her own voice speak the words, so certain she’d been that she would only think them. “I don’t think I could ever…”
“No one can,” said Logan in a matter-of-fact tone. “Knatt and I only know enough to do upkeep. Now, come on, the sooner you go to bed, the sooner you’ll process all that rum.”
“Rum, rum, rum,” muttered Jude in reply. “It’s kind of a pretty word.”
“You know, you might have mentioned you were a lightweight somewhere around the third round. Or well before that.”
Logan took hold of Jude by the shoulders and forcibly steered her out of the room, making sure to close and lock it up behind them.
They made their way down the long hallway and through the gigantic main room, then came to a stop in the kitchen, where Logan ordered Jude to sit on a tall stool near the counter while she poured her a new glass of water.
She had just handed it across when Knatt entered the room. He looked as stern as Jude has ever seen him.
“Good, you’re finally home,” he said in a decidedly measured tone. “The engagement must have gone well: Mr. Armstrong has already wired us the money.”
“Demon’s dead, so it went well enough,” said Logan. She studied him quietly for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “You seem more tightly wound than usual. What’s up?”
Slowly, he rotated to face her, his expression sour. “I just received a phone call from the Brooklyn branch of the Order of Shadows.”
“At this hour?” said Jude automatically, incredulously.
“And what did they want?” asked Logan. Somehow, her expression had turned even darker than Knatt’s.
“To announce the impending arrival of one of their top agents.”
Right at that moment, the doorbell rang.
Chapter Five
Ghosts
Logan cleared her throat to give herself some time to think. She could feel her entire body grow taut, every nerve and muscle immediately on alert. Beside her, Jude put her glass down too hard on the counter. Logan took a breath.
“They’re here a bit faster than I’d like,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “This isn’t great.”
“Wait,” said Jude, turning toward her, “but in the bar, you said the Order are basically, like, magical law enforcement, right? So why would it be bad for them to be here? Aren’t you basically a magic P.I.?”
“You took her to a bar?” Knatt turned to Logan and fixed her with a glower. “Did you think that was a good idea?”
“Psh,” said Jude beside her, waving her hand vaguely. “It’s cool, I wasn’t driving. And Logan kept me from jumping off the boat, so we’re good.” She picked up the glass again and downed about half the liquid inside.
Knatt’s expression didn’t change.
“I didn’t know she’d never had alcohol before,” Logan admitted, shame-faced.
The doorbell rang again. The Order’s representative was impatient.
Knatt rolled his eyes and turned to Jude, touching her gently on the shoulder to make sure she was paying attention. “It may be best if you stay out of sight as much as possible. Perhaps you should head up to your room, or—”
“I’ll make tea,” said Jude brightly. She turned on her heel and began searching the cabinets for the necessary items.
Logan watched her uncertainly for a moment, then she turned back to Knatt, grimly setting her jaw.
“I’m guessing they won’t go away on their own,” she said.
“Doubtful.”
He took a deep breath and straightened his vest unnecessarily, then marched out of the kitchen and into the hallway beyond. With resignation, Logan followed behind him. Once he stood before the heavy front door, he flipped on the light switch that illuminated the front hallway. Despite herself, Logan glanced around quickly to make sure the entryway looked as tidy as possible, as if the Order were a disapproving parent come to inspect her room.
She had a feeling she would be on her guard every second they were there.
Knatt unbolted the door and pulled it wide, revealing the relatively small front stoop, illuminated by the dim yellow porch light. A woman stood on the steps before them, large eyes peering out from a pale white face, dark hair falling in perfect ringlet cascades down her black uniform jacket to her waist. Her uniform was, in fact, entirely black, except for three gold bands on each cuff of her jacket, signifying her rank within the Order of Shadows.
Logan didn’t recognize her immediately, but she knew what those bands meant: this was one of the Twelve Seers—the governing council of the Order. One look at Knatt told her that he understood the significance, too.
Why would they send a Seer?
“Good evening,” said Knatt, stepping back and motioning for her to follow. “Please, come inside. I hope you haven’t had to travel too far.”
Leave it to Knatt to turn an information grab into politeness.
“Not at all.” The woman gave a tight smile, most of her face barely moving. “I was in the area.”
She stepped inside, and Knatt closed the door behind her. In the entryway light, Logan could make out a little more of her face: heavy eyebrows, dark eye makeup, sharp cheekbones and thin lips. Her eyes darted everywhere in the room, taking in every piece of information she could.
“I’ll take you to the sitting room,” said Logan, putting on the same voice she used for clients: polite and respectful, but commanding. The woman’s roving eyes landed on her, and her thick eyebrows shot up with interest.
“You must be the young Miss Logan,” she said, her head tilting to one side as she studied her. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“That must have been a really boring time for you,” said Logan.
“On the contrary. It was fascinating.” She made the word fascinating sound like a threat. As that tight smile encroached on her face once more, she extended one skinny hand outward. “My name is Zilla Ulric. I’m with the Order.”
Doing her best to show none of the reluctance she felt, Logan reached out and shook her offered hand. Zilla Ulric’s touch was surprisingly cold.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” said Zilla. “Why, I almost feel like I’m meeting a celebrity.”
Logan kept her face and posture impassive, but inside she tensed, her stomach roiling. “Surely not,” she said out loud, as lightly as she could. “There’s nothing special about me.”
“Of course there is,” Zilla said, smiling ever more broadly. She flipped some of her hair over her shoulder, but Logan found the gesture neither lighthearted nor particularly flirty. “I mean, your name comes up in so many of our cases. You’re a regular hero, don’t you know?”
The urge to sneak a glance at Knatt was overwhelming. She could hear the veiled threat in every syllable out of this woman’s mouth, and s
he wanted to know that he did, too.
Right on cue, Knatt chose that moment to respond.
“We just go where we’re paid to go,” he said, taking a step forward and diverting some of the attention off Logan. “Come, let’s make our way to the sitting room. I think we’ll all be a little more comfortable in there.”
Logan let the other two walk ahead of her, hoping to spend as much time out of Zilla’s sight as possible. Every time that woman’s lamp-like eyes landed on her, she felt like someone had stuck her on a pin for study.
When she joined them in the main room, Knatt had seated Zilla on one of their antique couches, claiming a nearby armchair for himself. Logan slid down on the divan a few feet away, but she kept herself perched on the edge, as if she might need to spring into action any minute.
“Curious,” said Zilla, leaning into the backrest of the couch as she spoke. “Who exactly was paying you to go deal with that minor demon summoning in Wolf Creek a few weeks ago?”
“Nobody,” said Logan easily. “I was driving back from a paid gig when I saw an item in a local newspaper.”
“Fascinating. And…how often do you read these local newspapers?” Zilla now bore an expression of delight so obnoxious, Logan felt the urge to punch it off her. “I mean, weren’t you also involved in that incident a few towns over, in Drummond—?”
“You worried I might put you out of business?” Logan crossed her arms over her chest but kept her breathing even.
“I think what my partner is trying to say,” said Knatt, calm as a thoroughly British cucumber, “is that she doesn’t quite understand the purpose of this line of questioning. Frankly, neither do I. I’ve long been under the impression that the Order appreciates our help, whenever we can give it. Am I to surmise that this is no longer the case?”
Zilla tilted her head back to give a false-sounding laugh, waving her hand airily in dismissal. “Not at all, not at all. If anything, the Order wishes to extend its heartfelt gratitude to Miss Logan, for all her gracious pro bono work these past few weeks. Years, you might argue. You took care of quite the little nuisance in Wolf Creek for us. To be frank, before you came along, we weren’t sure how we were going to handle it.”
