“Oh, so you already know about that?” I asked, finishing off the cookie.
Garalina shrugged. “I took a quick peek into your memories. It is much easier than asking you for an update.”
“Ugh.” I shuddered. I really hated that Garalina had free access to my mind. Of course, I could also poke into her memories whenever I wanted—the bargain we’d struck went both ways—but the thing was, I had no desire to. And, truthfully, Garalina’s ability to read my thoughts and memories made her integration into human society—such as it was—a lot easier, since I didn’t have to explain every little thing to her.
“Oh, don’t look so put out,” Garalina said. “It’s not like I linger and examine every detail. Now are we going to stand around here or can we get started on these wards?”
“Fine, fine.” I dusted off my sugar-coated fingers. “What do we need to do?”
“Fetch a bowl and some herbs. Sage, thyme, salt…”
Garalina listed off the ingredients, and I rummaged through my mother’s kitchen cupboards. Thankfully, we had everything she needed, and I quickly mixed them up in a bright yellow ceramic bowl. Garalina instructed me to wrap the bottom of the bowl in thick cloth for insulation, then had me raise my right hand and hold it over the top.
“Now let go,” she murmured, inside my head now. “Relax, and allow me to guide you.”
I stood still, taking slow, deep breaths to calm my beating heart. After a few minutes, I became aware of a pulsing core of energy within me: Garalina’s magic. My heartbeat sped up again as the magic began to trickle through me, and I forced myself to focus on my breathing again.
In, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.
“There you go,” she said encouragingly as the magic began to flow more freely through my veins. It felt like warm sunlight coursing through my body, energizing me and bringing a divine glow to my skin. Was this how mages felt when they cast spells? But their skin didn’t glow like this, did it? I’d have to ask Sunaya later. “Now direct that energy to the bowl and set the contents aflame.”
I did as she said, and a lick of flame shot from the center of my palm into the bowl. The herbal concoction began to burn immediately, and I coughed a little as the thick, savory smoke enveloped me.
“Good. Now conjure a light breeze. We are going to use it to spread the smoke through the room.”
I did as she asked, but the magic was jumping in my veins now, and the resulting burst of magic knocked several dishes from the drying rack onto the floor, shattering the plates. “Dammit!” I cried.
“Don’t worry about it.” Garalina’s warm laughter echoed in my head, and I felt her tug some of the magic back. The pieces flew back into the rack as though she’d reversed time, sealing themselves back together so perfectly I couldn’t spot a single crack. “This is your first time controlling the magic on your own. You are doing quite well for a beginner.”
Garalina guided me through the process, and together, we set the wards. Using the breeze to spread the smoke along the walls and corners of the house was only part of the spell. The other half involved Garalina chanting some strange incantation as we walked. Her words invoked something in the smoke, changing the dark grey wisps into shimmering gold that sank into the walls, windows, and doorways. With each step we took, I felt safer, as though a comforting blanket had settled around the house, cocooning everyone and everything inside it.
“There,” Garalina said when we’d walked the entire perimeter. “That should do it.”
“What exactly do these wards do?” I asked. These weren’t like the wards mages used. Though they used incantations, they were in Loranian, and they also painted runes into the walls and floors using a magical ink that rendered the symbols invisible to the untrained eye.
“They will render immobile any person who tries to enter the premises without your express permission,” Garalina said. “It is a bit like trapping a fly in amber—they will hang, suspended, until you return and deal with them.”
“Great.” I flopped on the couch, relief coursing through me. I was exhausted from the effort of performing the spell, but it was a satisfied sort of exhaustion that filled me with a sense of accomplishment. I’d just cast magic for the first time! True, it was unnatural, and the idea still unnerved me, but this was a lot different from letting Garalina cast the wards through me. For once, I actually felt like I was in control.
“We can do this again, if you like,” Garalina said, a sly note entering her voice as she read my emotions. “The more you practice, the easier my magic will be to control.”
“Practice?” an ethereal voice asked, and I shot to my feet, knife already in hand. A second later, Nalan and Arala manifested by the fireplace, staring at me with twin expressions of curiosity and amusement. “I thought you would have mastered magic already, for as long as you have had it,” Nalan said.
“You two!” I sheathed my knife so I could jab an accusatory finger at them. “How did you get past the wards?” Hadn’t Garalina said they would keep anyone out that I hadn’t invited?
Arala’s silvery laugh rippled through the room like wind chimes dancing on air. Like her twin, she was inhumanly beautiful, with long, silvery-blonde hair and skin like starlight. Both wore long, tunic-like garments woven with some otherworldly fabric with constantly shifting colors. “Your silly human wards cannot keep us out,” she said, her iridescent eyes sparkling with amusement. “We are Tua.”
We are Tua. Yes, that was the explanation they gave for everything, wasn’t it?
“My magic only works on beings from the human realm,” Garalina reminded me. “Nalan, Arala, and Broghan would remain unaffected. You can’t blame me for this.”
“If you would like, we can knock next time,” Arala said hastily, correctly interpreting the scowl on my face. “We have learned much about human customs, so we understand why you are upset at the intrusion.”
“It’s just that we are so excited to share our discoveries with you,” Nalan said earnestly, “Besides, you weren’t at your apartment, so we had our magic take us directly to you.” He spread his hands wide, looking around the room. “Which leads me to ask you, why are you here instead of in your own dwelling? You don’t seem to be visiting anyone—no one else is in the house.”
“This is my mother’s house. She’s away for a few weeks, and she asked me to water her plants while she was gone.”
“Ah, yes, the flora.” Nalan’s eyes brightened with interest as they fixed on the flower pots sitting on the windowsill. “You have much more variety in Recca than we expected, though of course your blossoms pale in comparison to the ones in our realm.”
“How rude!” Garalina huffed, crossing her arms beneath her ample chest. “Back in your own realm, is it customary for you to come into someone’s territory and insult the plants and animals in their environment?”
The Tua twins exchanged alarmed glances. “I suppose we’ve never thought about it that way,” Arala admitted. “We didn’t realize humans would have emotional attachments to things that didn’t belong to them.”
“This entire world belongs to us,” Garalina snapped. “Why would we not take pride in it?”
“So you said you discovered some new information about the First Mage?” I said, changing the subject before this could devolve into a true argument. Though Nalan and Arala were much more sophisticated than Broghan, they still saw the world very differently than we did. Arguing with them about something they considered insignificant would get us nowhere.
“Oh! Yes.” Arala’s face brightened. “We found an ancient text that gave us some clues about her origin. As we suspected, she was born in Manuc, in a small village that we plan to investigate. Unfortunately, we did have a nasty run-in with some mages in Gremaria,” she said, referring to one of the countries on the Central Continent. “They didn’t like that we’d entered their secret library without permission, and for some reason they set fire to the entire place. A very strange reacti
on, if you ask me.”
By the Ur-God. “Do you think,” I said carefully, “there might be any chance they were trying to kill you, and accidentally set the place on fire in the process?”
“Well, I suppose so,” Nalan said, looking perplexed. “But I don’t understand why they would want to do that, either. It’s not as if we’d stolen anything.”
I groaned.
“Humans generally do not like it when they discover trespassers on their property,” Garalina said, “and they especially don’t like them looking through their valuables, which a secret library would definitely qualify as. It is hardly a wonder that they retaliated.”
“Well, that’s just silly,” Arala said. “Though I suppose we should go back there and try to restore the library. It would be a shame if they lost all those texts because of a misunderstanding.”
“Or maybe you should stay away before you cause more damage,” I said sternly. “In case you haven’t noticed, humans don’t exactly react well to you guys.”
Nalan frowned. “Perhaps we should begin using disguises, like Broghan does,” he said to his twin. “He seems to have an awful lot of fun transforming into animals.”
“Where is Broghan anyway?” I demanded. “I’ve been meaning to talk to him.”
Arala shrugged. “Last I heard he was off cataloguing all the different Reccan animals. Why? Is there something we can help you with?”
“Not unless you two were the ones who hid a giant emerald in my apartment.”
The twins gave me quizzical looks, so I explained what had happened.
“I don’t know why Broghan would hide a gemstone in your dwelling,” Nalan said, “but if it’s emeralds you want, Arala and I can easily create them. We’ve seen enough at this point to know how to recreate them.”
The last thing I needed was for the Tua to start filling my mother’s house with gemstones, though I’m certain she’d be delighted. “Thanks, but I have all the jewelry I need.” My hand moved to the torque around my neck.
“I see.” Arala glided closer, brushing her fingertips along the designs welded into the torque’s rectangular gold pieces. “This torque…it connects the two of you, doesn’t it?” She looked at Garalina.
“It does,” Garalina confirmed with a nod.
Arala closed her eyes, and a strange hum filled the air. “Powerful magic,” she murmured. “And yet not the same magic the mages here use.” Her eyes popped open. “Your powers are not affiliated with the Tua or the First Mage.”
“Of course not.” Garalina tossed her feathered head. “My powers come from the goddess Syris.”
“Interesting.” Arala and Nalan exchanged another glance, but this one was unreadable. “We will have to ponder this. Good night, Annia.”
“Wait!” I cried, but the twins had already vanished. “Dammit,” I grumbled, pounding my fist against the wall. I’d hoped they’d be able to call Broghan here so I could question him about the emerald, but now I’d just have to wait until he turned up again…
12
The next morning, I forced myself out of bed bright and early, determined not to let depression get to me. Just because I couldn’t go to the Enforcer’s Guild didn’t mean I was going to shut myself away—there was more to life than work, after all.
I had a few hours left until my meeting with Rylan, so I went back to my apartment to set the wards. A scrap of paper peeked out from beneath my welcome mat, and when I fished it out, I found it was a note from Yolian, the shopkeeper’s assistant from the paper store.
Please come by the shop. I think I’ve found the gang’s hideout.
“Shit,” I muttered, stuffing the note into my pocket. Had he been sniffing around? I’d told him to keep his ears open, not to risk his life by poking his nose into gang business! The wards could wait until later; right now I needed to make sure Yolian was all right. Without bothering to go into my apartment, I turned and rushed back to my bike.
I fought my way through several miles of snarled traffic only to find that Yolian wasn’t at the shop. “I don’t know where he is,” the recalcitrant shop owner said, “and I’m not giving you his address. That’s an invasion of privacy. Now get out before I report you for trespassing.”
“Can’t you see I’m trying to help?” I snapped. “Aren’t you even a little concerned about what happened to him?”
The man looked away. “If Yolian wanted to stay out of trouble, he should have kept his head down and his mouth shut. Now get out of my shop!”
Furious, I stalked out, then proceeded to question the other shop owners again. None of them knew Yolian well, and they flat out refused to answer my questions about the gang activity, some even going so far as to pretend they didn’t understand Northian.
If Terpan and his squad were actually doing their jobs, maybe they’d spoken to Yolian yesterday and might have an idea of what had happened to him. The kid clearly thought he’d be at work today—why hadn’t he showed?
“Did any enforcers come here yesterday?” I asked the tea shop owner, desperate for any information.
“Yes, they did,” the woman said in a clipped voice, her nostrils flaring with disapproval. “They barreled through the door asking all kinds of rude questions and scared away half my customers! Everyone is afraid of what will happen next,” she added, lowering her voice to a whisper, “and your kind are only making things worse for the rest of us.”
Shaking my head, I stepped outside and nearly ran into a pair of enforcers. “Dali and Callor,” I said, recognizing them as members of Terpan’s squad. “Is Terpan here with you?”
“No, actually,” Dali said, perplexed. “He didn’t show up for the morning briefing, which is pretty unusual. Last place we saw him was here. We went to Dove Street to do some interviews, but since a lot of the shops were already closed we agreed to finish up today. We were hoping he’d just gotten an early start and came here before us, but we haven’t seen him yet.”
“Well, I’ve just been in and out of half the shops, and I haven’t seen him.” I propped my hands on my hips. Of all the times for Terpan to go MIA! “There’s a boy who works at the paper shop named Yolian—the one who tipped me off about the gang activity in the first place. He left me a note asking me to meet him to talk about a potential lead, but he didn’t show up for work. Can you keep an eye out and send word to me if he makes an appearance?”
Callor gave me a dubious look. “Aren’t you supposed to be suspended?”
“I am, thanks to your acting foreman, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be a concerned citizen.” I glared at him. “Yolian wanted to speak to me personally. Are you going to tell me when he shows, or are you going to let office politics get in the way of saving lives?”
“Of course not,” Dali said quickly, grabbing Callor’s arm in warning. “We’ll let you know if he turns up.”
As I walked away, I wondered if Dali had said that because she was truly interested in cooperating or because she was worried that I might take the foreman position after all. The thought of having to manage all those people gave me a headache, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to alleviate the tension. If I agreed to take over as foreman, would the captain lift my suspension? Maybe, but then I’d have to deal with Terpan’s jealousy and likely outright insubordination for the rest of my career. Not even remotely worth it.
“You’re late,” Rylan said when I walked into Mimi’s half an hour after our appointed meeting time. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry. Just had to deal with some bullshit this morning.” I slid into the booth and eyed the giant donut platter in front of us. “You know, if we keep working together, we’re going to have to find a better place to meet. Otherwise I’m going to get fat.”
“Oh?” Rylan’s eyebrows shot up. “Does that mean you’re considering this partnership thing?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted, “but going toe to toe with Terpan has made me realize I’m at a distinct disadvantage. It would be nice to have a shifter cons
ultant.”
“A consultant?” Rylan seemed taken aback. “What, you mean like you’d call me whenever you needed help with a case?”
“Yeah, basically. Not for muscle or anything,” I added hastily. “You can’t use force against a perp—not legally, since you don’t have an enforcer’s license—but your shifter nose is awfully handy for interviews and interrogations.”
“So you want me to be your lie detector.” Rylan rolled his eyes. “You do know they make special lie detector wands, right?”
“I’ve never seen one of those for sale to the public, and using something like that would make people feel way more uncomfortable than just having you tag along.”
He glared at me, and I winced.
“I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not just ‘tagging along.’ Your skills are valuable, Rylan, and you seem to have a good head for this kind of work.”
“Which is why I wanted to start a private firm. Not consult for the Guild.” He sighed. “But I can tell that you have something specific in mind, and it’s probably the reason you were late. What do you want my help with?”
I pulled Yolian’s note out of my pocket. “The kid who asked me to look into the gang activity on Dove Street left me this.” I slid it across the table to him. “I went over there this morning to get the details, but he didn’t show up for work, and the shop owner wouldn’t tell me where he lived. Do you think you can help me track him?”
Rylan carefully sniffed the paper. “There are a couple of different scents on here, which is what happens when you leave something on the ground where people are walking back and forth all day.” He made a face. “Why don’t you take me to the shop where he works? I’ll confirm the scent and track him from there.”
“Sure. You wanna follow me on your bike?”
He shook his head. “Easier to just take one.”
“Mine or yours?”
He smirked, holding out a hand. “Wanna play for it?”
Tempted by Magic: Mischief and Magic: Book One Page 13
