by Jayne Hawke
Gideon put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple.
“She’s playing with you,” he whispered.
I breathed again. My heart settled into a normal calmer beat. The idea of wearing a tartan wedding dress was far more horrifying than some creature from the between.
36
Everyone paused and checked their phone when a text came through. I opened up my phone to find news that an artifact had been stolen from a witch museum. Opening up the article, I saw that it was a little sculpture that old myths said could transmute magic. The problem was it required the gods’ blessing, which they’d never give. It was viewed as a kind of ugly piece of art and not much more. The value was social and historical, not monetary.
“Why on Earth would they steal that?” Ella asked.
“To prove they could?” Ryan said.
“A mistake? Perhaps they thought it was something of value,” Greyson said.
“Payback. To get back at someone high up in the museum system,” Gideon said.
“I’m with Greyson. I bet they got it home and were really confused when they realised it was just some ugly little grey thing that didn’t do anything and no one will buy,” I said.
“No. No, that museum was far too difficult to break into. They’ll have done their research,” Gideon said.
His phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call.
“Gideon’s theory does make some sense. There are plenty of quarrels in the witch world,” Ryan said.
“Why that piece, though? Surely if you wanted to prove a point or get back at someone you’d steal something of real value? That place has some gorgeous artifacts, and things that can wield real power. Why choose the ugly thing that no one cares about? It’s only there because people think it’s quaint that the people of the past thought they could talk the gods into allowing them to transmute magic,” I said.
Ella leaned back pushing her chair up onto its back legs. She balanced there.
“Maybe they could talk the gods around back then. Maybe the gods have gotten more stubborn and grumpy,” she said.
“Sadistic, you mean,” Greyson said.
“I thought you and Nyx got on well?” Ryan asked.
Greyson shrugged.
“We do well enough. A god is a god,” he said, shutting down the conversation.
Ryan looked him up and down, clearly looking for some clue that would give him more information.
“I don’t know. The gods don’t strike me as the type of beings who could ever be talked around into giving witches more power than suited them,” I said.
Set remained quiet. Of course he didn’t want to give any solid answers to this, no god would give away information like that.
“Say Gideon’s right, that still doesn’t explain the choice in artifact. They have gemstones that the humans would pay millions for. Then there are the ancient weapons, the spell sheets, and that’s not even getting into the really powerful stuff. Personally, I think they should have destroyed the dangerous stuff. Haven’t we learnt anything from Hollywood? Everyone knows someone’s going to use it for evil and we’ll have to swoop in and save the world,” Ella said.
“Sounds like a good day to me,” Ryan said with a grin.
“That was the museum owner. Warrior Security is being called in to look into the theft and add security to the building,” Gideon said a little smugly.
“What if it was a rival security company?” I asked.
Gideon shrugged.
“Everyone knows we’re the best.”
“And what if they’re trying to frame you and your company?” I pushed.
Maybe I was getting a bit too wrapped up in conspiracy theories, but witches got up to all sorts of political games if they thought it would help them further their own businesses.
Gideon frowned.
“We’ll keep that in mind when we investigate. Thank you, Sky. Given the attack last night, I’d feel better keeping you close. Would you accompany me to the museum?”
At least he’d asked. I was tempted to say no just to push back, but there was genuine concern in his eyes. And I was curious to see what the museum showed up. We weren’t going to make any progress on the possessed witches front until we had more information. That was coming from the witches analysing all of the evidence.
“I’d like that,” I said.
Gideon beamed at me.
“Want me along?” Greyson asked.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Gideon said.
“On the more suspicious jobs, I slip through the shadows and look for the hidden things,” Greyson explained.
“Sometimes the shadows talk,” Ella said.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Greyson said softly.
Ella reached over and squeezed his arm.
“I’m just saving a bit of time, as they should be going,” Ella said.
Greyson gave her a sad smile.
We left and headed out to Gideon’s car. Greyson jumped into his own car, which was for the best. The backseat of Gideon’s car were not made for people taller than three feet to sit on.
37
I was aware of the museum and its contents, but I hadn’t stepped foot in it before. It was a space for those of much higher social standing than me. The leaders of the Morrigan coven had received an invite, but the rest of us lowly beings had been snubbed. Of course, the type of people who ran the museum didn’t think all that highly of Morrigan witches to begin with. They were viewed as thugs and essential mercenaries, nothing more.
A suspiciously elvish-looking man with white-blond hair falling down the back of his very expensive silver suit stood at the front of the building waiting for us. Gideon plastered a big polite smile on his face and held out his hand for the man to shake.
“Quinn, how good to see you again,” Gideon said.
“It has been too long. You missed our last gala,” Quinn chided.
“You know how it is, business requires long hours and a lot of sacrifice,” Gideon said.
Quinn finally turned his attention to me. His disdain was palpable. His pale brown eyes narrowed as he looked me up and down in my beautiful jeans, amazingly comfy knee-high boots, and leather jacket complete with magical warding. I felt like a million bucks, but I still looked like a low life to his type.
I held out my hand, and he looked as it as though it were covered in filth. That only made me widen my smile.
“Skylar Hackett, Mr. Shepherd’s fiancée.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow and very delicately took my hand, barely shaking it. I gripped his hand tight and gave it a good hard shake, just to further drive my point home. I wasn’t going to be put off by his kind.
“I wasn’t aware that you had formed contact with your fiancée,” Quinn said.
“Yes, she’ll be moving into my coven house very soon,” Gideon said.
Gideon put his arm around my waist with his hand barely touching my hip. His war-drum magic subdued my irritation. It was likely just politics, no different to my handshake. We’d discuss when we had a moment in private.
Greyson walked behind us as silent as a wraith as we entered the museum. I caught Quinn looking at the Nyx witch out of the corner of his eye. There was something a little inhuman about him as he walked through the broad daylight. His skin held a starlight glow, and his hair seemed to swallow the light around him, acting as a reverse halo. He walked with a blank expression, stepping almost exactly in Gideon’s footprints.
Once we had entered through the heavy glass doors and slipped into the darker entryway, Greyson disappeared. I wasn’t sure if he’s headed into the shadows or just wandered away into the depths of the museum. On the outside, the building looked like a business centre. The same brick and glass as the real, human-run business centres used. The interior, however, revealed glass cases with beautiful artifacts and delicate white plaques talking about what exactly they were.
There were supposedly glamours for the humans that did st
umble in there. The rumours said that the museum appeared to be a tedious button museum to the humans, something so boring they quickly turned and walked back out again. I couldn’t feel any magic, but glamours were a fae thing. My feel for magic wasn’t great at the best of times and was strictly limited to witch magic. If they were using glamours, it would tie into the elvish appearance of Quinn, though. The fae didn’t allow witches to use their magic, but if Quinn was wielding glamours, then he clearly had very strong fae ties. That further suggested he had at least some fae blood.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I wondered how the witches had allowed the fae to gather so many witch artifacts. No good came from that. Shaking my head, I pushed that thought aside for later consideration. We were supposed to be investigating the missing statuette.
Quinn led us past the glass cases in the large lobby with double-height ceiling, through a broad archway into a darker room where delicate pale-yellow lights hung from the ceiling. Each glass case was lit from beneath to better highlight the colours and fine details.
There were a number of blades in the first room. The centrepiece was a large curved sword with a blood-red hilt that looked to have been made from pure garnet. I skimmed the plaque and saw that it was tied into sun magic. Each life ended by the sword was turned into pure magic for the wielder of the sword to use as they saw fit. The caveat was that the magic faded when the sun set.
A pair of delicate knives that were barely bigger than butter knives had a grizzly story about consuming the soul of those wielders that they deemed unworthy. No one was quite sure which god they were tied to, but some thought Nemesis, as it fit in with her particular brand of sadism. Still we moved deeper into the museum. The place was setting my teeth on edge, and I couldn’t quite place why.
The next room was focused on vases, boxes, and other vessels. Some of them were supposedly innocent enough and simply held more items than they should have been able to. Others required regular pain to keep them sated. A rather pretty white vase with a single red rose painted on the side was said to need three teeth dropped into it every full moon. If that was fulfilled, then the owner would receive good fortune the coming month. If it wasn’t, then they would suffer great misfortune. I wondered who the owner was and where they got the teeth from.
Each artifact only served to further ingrain the understanding that the gods were frequently sadistic with truly dark and twisted senses of humour.
We went through three more large rooms before we finally entered the far smaller room where the statuette had been. The artifacts in this room were contained in far smaller glass cases with plaques that gave no more than two sentences of information versus the veritable essay the rest of them got. This was clearly the room for those pieces that no one was all that interested in.
“As you can see, it was a clumsy theft,” Quinn said, gesturing at the broken glass.
“Was that not bespelled?” I asked.
“Of course. We’re not amateurs,” Quinn hissed.
I smiled politely at him and looked at the broken display.
As much as I was tempted to goad him, I knew better. Quinn and Gideon clearly had a working relationship, and it wasn’t fair to Gideon to upset that just because I wanted to poke at the museum owner.
The glass shards sat in a clear pattern, revealing that the thief had punched through the glass and stolen the artifact. The hole in the remaining case was mostly round, but I didn’t see any traces of blood. They’d at least had the good sense to wear gloves, then.
There were no footprints due to the floors being marble, and I didn’t see any sign of cameras. Witches and fae preferred to lean on magic over technology, something I really wished they wouldn’t. It was a tradition and arrogance thing, I thought. Magic was all they had known, and it was what held them above humans, at least in their mind. A camera would make this entire investigation far easier, though.
Quinn was watching me very closely. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was going to sully the place or find something I shouldn’t.
38
“Could you give us a moment alone, please?” Gideon asked Quinn.
The museum owner tensed but smiled.
“Of course. When will your people be here to tidy everything up?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Quinn nodded, apparently satisfied, before he left the room.
“He really wishes you hadn’t brought my kind into his precious museum,” I said.
Gideon shrugged.
“It’s all money and politics. I grew up going to balls, galas, and business meetings. You learn how to control your expressions and pluck at the right strings to get what you want.”
That was the moment when it really struck me that I was marrying a coven prince. He’d existed in high society his entire life, and he was comfortable there. The expensive suits were his uniform. My stomach twisted. That wasn’t where I belonged. Was he going to be ashamed of me, or pull me into that world?
Gideon reached out and cupped my cheek tenderly with his hand.
“We do what we must, Sky. You’ll have freedom to be yourself within my coven and business once we’re married. Don’t worry about my pushing you into a mould you’ll never fit,” he said softly in a thick accent.
Stroking my cheek with his thumb, he smiled warmly.
“You’ll fit in beautifully. We all need a little fire to keep us on our toes and stop us from falling into mediocrity,” he said.
I leaned into his touch and allowed myself to relax. The gods had seen something in us that they felt made us two halves of a whole. It was difficult to entrust my future to them, but it was necessary as a witch.
“The shadows believe Quinn was involved in the theft. They said the thief went straight to this artifact and intentionally made it look messy,” Greyson said from behind me.
I mentally patted myself on the back for not jumping.
“Speaking of Quinn, why have the witches allowed a fae to collect so many witch artifacts?” I asked.
“Quinn isn’t fae,” Gideon said, confusion filling his face.
“He looks very elvish to me.”
Gideon looked between me and Greyson.
“He’s a Hermes witch, a knowledge-gathering witch,” Gideon said.
“I’m with Sky. There’s something distinctly non-witchy about him,” Greyson said.
Gideon frowned and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I’ll keep that in mind. We can talk about it later. Anything else we need to know about this theft?” Gideon said.
“There’s absolutely no trace of the thief. The shadows didn’t get an imprint of their image, they couldn’t even tell me what kind of supernatural they are. As far as I can see, there’s no blood, no footprints, nothing,” Greyson said.
“I have to ask; the shadows talk to you?” I asked.
It was inappropriate, but I was dying to know.
Greyson’s mouth twisted into a smile, much to my relief.
“We’ll discuss it when we’re back home,” he said.
His tone was light, but I caught the way he was looking over my shoulder. We weren’t able to talk freely.
“We’ll leave the rest to the team and head back to the office,” Gideon said.
“I’ll meet you there,” Greyson said.
Gideon put his arm around my waist, and we walked back through the museum. Some of the artifacts in the cases made goosebumps form and raised the hair on the back of my neck. There were death magic, blood magic, and other truly dangerous artifacts in the next room. I still felt like we should have destroyed the really dangerous artifacts rather than putting them in a museum.
A pair of black cars full of serious-looking supernaturals pulled up when we stepped into the lobby. Quinn looked over to Gideon expectantly.
“That’s my team. They’ll answer any further questions you had. Don’t worry, we’ll catch the thief and return the artifact,” Gideon said with his brightest business smile.
Quinn ret
urned the smile, but I noticed the tension in his hands. Something was bothering the supposed Hermes witch. I was still convinced he was part fae. His appearance wasn’t human enough to be a full-blooded witch. The Aphrodite witches tended to have an eerie look to them, but it was very different to the fae. They were beautiful, but in a truly human way. Quinn had that elf sharpness and almost achieved the beauty that my eye slid over.
Gideon opened my door for me when we got to his car. I was getting used to ducking down into the low seats. Maybe I’d get myself a nice little sportscar when I had the money.
“I’ve known Quinn for years,” Gideon said as he turned the engine on.
“And you’ve met his coven? You’re entirely sure he’s a full witch?” I pushed.
Gideon gripped the steering wheel a little too tight before he sighed and pulled out of the car park.
“I admit, something was off about him. I’m not sure what it was, but I don’t believe it was a fae influence.”
“He didn’t look possessed. He was talking fine and didn’t have any creepy black ooze,” I said.
Gideon snorted and smiled.
“That’s true enough.”
“He’s a knowledge witch, right? Could he be screwing around with illegal magic to increase his business, improve his looks, other things?”
Gideon nodded and pressed the gas, slipping through the traffic lights as they began to turn.
“Aye, he could be. It would be true to form. I haven’t heard much from his coven in a while. Maybe I should touch base and see if they need any security after the museum break in.”
“You mean you’re going to snoop and check if they’re up to something dark and illegal?” I said with a grin.
“Isn’t that what I said?” Gideon said returning the grin.
I was sure he was going to find something. Quinn didn’t seem like the type to get involved in something as uncouth as truly dark magic, but dabbling in the grey areas sounded like his kind of fun.
