“Didn’t,” Nila corrected me.
“Look,” Brin, the other Enforcer, had interjected before I ripped Nila’s face off. “I’m not going to deny there have been other silver poisonings in Shiftertown recently.” He’d given me a stern glare, as if I were a whelp that needed to be put in her place rather than a fellow Enforcer. But then, Brin and Nila were part of the Main Crew, many of whose members routinely treated the other Enforcers like we were beneath them. “But we don’t have enough evidence to determine whether or not the murders were related. We’ll work to find your friend’s killer, but in the meantime you need to back off and stay out of our way.” He stepped forward and shoved his nose into my face, menace bleeding from every pore in his hulking body. “Have I made myself clear?”
I’d responded by flipping him off, and then I walked out with the case file Roanas had mentioned tucked beneath my leather jacket, which I’d torn the house apart to find while I was waiting for the Enforcer’s Guild to arrive. No way was I turning it over to them. Brin and Nila weren’t exactly known for being thorough – their work was half-assed at best, and more than likely they would end up pinning this on the wrong person just so they could collect their bounty and go home. Besides, they were both humans and didn’t give a rat’s ass about Roanas.
Roanas deserves better than them, I thought as I swung my leg over the seat of my steambike. A few people passing through the streets on foot glanced nervously at my bike and then scurried to the sidewalks as I turned the engine on – steam-powered vehicles were a rather new invention, less than fifty years old, and steambikes in particular were considered dangerous. It didn’t help that mages abhorred technology as a whole, sticking to either magical methods of transportation or the horse-drawn variety.
I took my rage out on the streets of Solantha, whipping around corners at breakneck speeds and leaning the bike so close to the ground my leather jacket scraped against the asphalt. I raced the bike up and down the hilly roads reserved specifically for steam-powered vehicles, zipping past clusters of townhouses huddled together and groupings of small shops where you could get anything from takeout to bridal gowns. My helmet shielded me from most of the scents, but I still caught a few of them – the briny air drifting in from Solantha Bay, freshly baked goods wafting from an open shop window, and the unique burnt-sugar smell that I recognized as magic.
Magic and I have a complicated relationship. I can’t survive without it, but it’s bound and determined to be the death of me. The mages in this country have a monopoly on magic, and use it to beat us into submission. Since they’re the most powerful race in this country, they rule us by default, which really sucks because they don’t care about anyone outside their own ranks.
However, magic isn’t all bad. It’s what gives us shifters the power to change forms and communicate via mindspeech – all useful talents to have, even if they were given to us by the mages experimenting on our human ancestors. And the various charms, amulets and spells for sale on both the black market and the regular one have their uses. Lots of people rely on them, convinced they can’t live without the mages who provide them.
I’m not one of those people. I may use the amulets, but I hate mages more than anyone else. My father was a mage, and he left me before I was even born with a talent I’ve had to hide for years in order to avoid execution. A talent that’s failed me more often than not, and has never worked when I needed it.
The crush of buildings began to thin out as I reached the bay, giving way to wider streets, fancier shops, and luxurious apartment complexes Solanthans paid a premium for so they could sit in their living rooms and enjoy the waterfront view. The scent of brine grew significantly stronger as I approached the shoreline, where the sun had broken over the horizon, painting the stone boathouses at each pier a pale pink and gold. The line of piers stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see, covering the coastline along the bay from end to end.
This section of town was known simply as the Port – but a lot more happened around here, than just ships coming and going to pick up and drop off cargo and passengers. While most of the piers lining the south end of the shore were exclusively devoted to shipping, the ones up north each had their own hubs of activity. I stopped at a corner to allow traffic from the perpendicular street to pass, glancing to the pier on my right that was known as The Fish Market. Even if you didn’t catch the stench from a mile away, you could spot it by the cawing seagulls constantly trying to swoop down and snatch bass or mussels from the vendors. I watched a particularly haggard-looking man waving his wide-brimmed straw hat at a gull who was circling his stall, only to get blindsided as another one swooped in from behind and snatched a silvery-looking fish right from the cart. It made me wonder whether the feathery bastards worked in tag-teams.
The traffic cleared and I sped off, blowing straight past a black steamcar as I headed towards Pier Eighteen – also known as Witches’ End. Here mages and other magic users set up shop, selling charms, amulets, potions and other magical bric-a-brac.
I parked my bike in a nearby lot, stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked briskly down the boardwalk. A bitter sense of irony filled me as I passed by most of the shops, which were owned by witches, seers, healers, psions and more. Very few mages actually operated shops out of the Port, as most of them preferred to work out of The Mages Quarter. The very existence of Witches’ End was proof the rules only exist for us humans and shifters to follow – they don’t apply to the magic wielders who consider themselves above us.
In Solantha, as well as the rest of the country, anyone who is born with the power to wield magic, aside from a mage’s acknowledged offspring, either has their magic stripped from them or is executed. It’s a brutal method of control that’s existed for hundreds of years to ensure the current regime stays firmly in place, and most citizens give in rather than try to circumvent the law because the older you are when you’re found out, the greater risk of mental damage when the mages strip the magic from you.
The law that hung above my neck like a guillotine, however, doesn’t apply to the magic users who run Witches’ End. The residents of Witches End are allowed to practice their craft because they are foreigners who paid a hefty fee in order to obtain a special license to come over here. And because they aren’t actually the local mages we all love to hate, and charge quite a bit less than the ones in the Mage’s Quarter offering the same services, they do a brisk business here at the Port.
My boot-clad feet finally took me near the end of the pier, where my friend’s shop, Over the Hedge, sat nestled in between an apothecary and a fortuneteller’s shack. It was a small brick building with a glass storefront, the company name frosted on the large glass window in simple but charming letters. A small bell tinkled as I opened the door and stepped inside, and something inside me relaxed as I inhaled the scent of herbs, wax, and burnt-sugar magic.
Every piece of furniture and decoration in the place was crafted out of natural materials – from the white cotton curtains hanging in the windows, to the driftwood tables and shelves scattered throughout the shop and laden with merchandise, to the hand-woven and colorfully dyed rugs covering the wooden floorboards. The only machinery in the entire shop was the clock on the wall and the register on the counter.
Behind said register stood my friend Comenius, the shop owner, muttering under his breath and tapping at the keys. At his shoulder was Noria Melcott, a human redhead dressed in denim overalls, a loud t-shirt, and an aviator’s cap. An annoyed scowl was stamped all over her freckled face as she watched Comenius try to ring up a purchase for the customer standing in front of the counter. She was the younger sister of an Enforcer friend of mine named Annia, and a college student who paid her way between a scholarship and the wages she made working at Comenius’s shop.
“Com,” Noria huffed as she rolled her eyes. “Would you please just let me do it?”
“No,” Comenius said, his crisp, throaty Pernian accent tinged with annoyance. He im
patiently brushed back his ash-blond bangs with one long-fingered hand that was stained with herb residue, drawing attention to the strong bones of his face. “I’ve been operating this register long before I hired you. I am perfectly capable of ringing up a sale.”
“Not when the machine’s broken, you’re not.”
“Look, can I just come back later and pay for this?” the customer whined. “I’m going to be late for my shift.”
Amused despite my dire mood, I leaned up against the counter and tapped the table to get Comenius’s attention. “Com, let the geeky girl have a go at it. You don’t want to lose a paying customer, do you?”
Comenius’s pale eyebrows shot up as he glanced over at me. “Naya? What are you doing here?” He took a step toward me, and Noria used the opportunity to dart in front of the register and open up the back end to unstick whatever little gears had jammed inside it. He hardly noticed though – his cornflower blue eyes were firmly fixed on mine. “You’re usually asleep this time of day… or did you get the night off?”
“Not exactly,” I muttered. All the dark emotion, which I’d pushed down somewhere behind my lower intestines, came bubbling up into my chest again. “It’s more like I took off.”
“Why would you do that?” Noria asked. The bell jingled as the customer left the shop with his purchase in hand. It had taken her about two seconds to fix the machine and ring him up – which was not surprising, as she had a real bent for machinery. Narrowing her coffee-colored eyes, she hopped up on the counter, placing herself directly between Comenius and me so she couldn’t be ignored – a tactic that was both endearing and annoying. “I can’t imagine that they’d be able to forgive you leaving in the middle of a Friday night crowd.”
“Yeah, well they’re just going to have to deal.” I shoved my hands into my hair, promptly tangling my fingers into the black ringlets. “Roanas was murdered.”
“What?” Comenius and Noria both gasped at the same time, their eyes huge.
“When?” Comenius asked.
“How?” Noria demanded.
I sighed, exhaustion dragging at the edges of my brain. I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours – it had been nearly midnight when I’d gotten Roanas’s cry for help – and on top of that, I was emotionally exhausted. Comenius, sensing my fatigue, had Noria lock the front door and flip the ‘OPEN’ sign around to ‘CLOSED’, then brought out a pot of his soothing tea and had us all settle into the small sitting area in a corner of the shop so I could tell them the story.
I told them everything between sips of tea, silently thanking Magorah, the All-Creator, as the herbal concoction soothed my ragged nerves and bolstered my flagging energy levels. Comenius was a hedge-witch; all of his spells, amulets, concoctions and devices were created using nature magic, and he made some of the most killer herbal remedies around, amongst other things. Hence why everything in the shop was made out of natural materials, and also the reason Comenius couldn’t operate the cash register to save his life. It was like he had an allergy to anything remotely made of machinery.
“By the Ur-God,” Noria whispered. Her dark eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m so sorry, Naya. That’s terrible.”
“Silver poisoning?” Comenius’s eyes were narrowed as he pondered the issue. “And you say he told you the silver was some kind of solution that was undetectable by scent or taste?”
I nodded. “Do you know any herbs that might be able to do that?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair. I’d hoped his vast knowledge of plant lore might point me in the right direction. And since I was currently an outcast at all my usual haunts, he was the only person I could turn to for help.
Comenius tapped his square chin as he thought. “I might,” he muttered, his gaze scanning a shelf filled with jars of dried leaves and roots. “But most of them wouldn’t meld with silver.” He paused, turning his narrowed gaze back to me. “Are you investigating this in an official capacity?”
“No.” My cheeks flushed, but I stubbornly held his gaze. “The Guild sent two goons from the Main Crew to handle it. You know they wouldn’t let me investigate my own mentor’s murder.”
“Shouldn’t you –”
“Com,” Noria interjected, her brows drawing together as she cut him off. “You don’t really expect Naya to sit back and let those half-assed jerks investigate Roanas’s death, do you?”
“Well, no.” Comenius hesitated, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “But I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable putting my shop on the line by aiding Naya in an unauthorized investigation either.” He leaned forward to pin me with a gimlet stare. “Haven’t you considered that this might be the reason your mentor was killed? Because he was sticking his nose where someone thought it didn’t belong?”
“Yes,” I said evenly before Noria exploded. While the kid’s outrage on my behalf was admirable, I didn’t need her losing her job over it. “But that isn’t going to stop me from flushing out the bastard who killed him, and bringing them to justice. Brin and Nila care more about getting their bounty than getting actual justice for Roanas, which means that whoever murdered him is going to keep on knocking off other shifters unchecked. This is a lot bigger than a revenge kick, Com. It’s about the safety of the shifter community in general.”
Comenius sighed, running a hand through his pale hair. “I wish that you could go to the Shifter Council about this. That would be much more appropriate, and possibly more effective too.”
I scowled. “You know why I can’t do that.” As a half-shifter, my word was worth significantly less than that of a full-blooded shifter, and on top of that my aunt Mafiela, the head of the Jaguar Clan, was on the Council. Normally that would be an advantage, except that she regarded the shit stains on her underwear more highly than she did me, especially after my mother passed away. There was no way the Council would allow me to participate in an investigation if I initiated one with them, not if she had anything to say about it.
“I know. And that’s why I’ll look into it.” He rose, and the loose fabric of his dark green tunic rippled with the motion. “I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you.” I sighed a little as Comenius disappeared into the back of the shop. This reticence to take action, this stickler attitude about following the rules was the reason Comenius and I hadn’t worked out as a couple a few years back when we’d tried dating. Sure, he had a pretty hot bod beneath those conservative clothes of his, and those long fingers were good for more than enchanting amulets and grinding herbs. But I preferred to live on the edge, whereas Comenius tended toward camping behind the lines. Sometimes it amazed me that a man who made his living by working with the forces of nature could be so rigid… but then again, it took all kinds.
“You know,” Noria interrupted my inner monologue. She leaned back in her wicker chair, a thoughtful expression on her elfin face. “I might have some ideas myself about how the silver could have been masked.”
“Oh yeah?” I leaned forward, hope sparking in my chest. Part of me knew that it was wrong for me to involve Annia’s little sister – she was a smart kid, not yet eighteen years old, with a bright future ahead of her, and I didn’t need to mess it up by dragging her into my bullshit. But I was also desperate and without leads, and I needed all the help I could get. “You think you might be able to track down who did it?”
Noria shrugged. “Sure, if I can figure out how it was done. I’ll jump on investigating how the silver could have been diluted. A couple of my friends at the Academy have done experiments with metals and electricity. It’s very likely that whoever did this was human.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. I couldn’t imagine it being one of our own.” Shifters didn’t use silver to kill other shifters – we preferred to settle things with our fangs and claws.
Comenius came back from around the counter, a bracelet clutched in his fist. “I couldn’t find anything in the books I have here,” he said. “But I’ll check the Mage Guild’s library and see what else I can find. In the m
eantime, you should wear this.” He held up the hemp bracelet to reveal a small, circular amulet dangling from the center. “It will help quiet the spirits around you and sharpen your focus, so you can concentrate on the investigation.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, touched by his concern, and held out my arm so he could fasten the bracelet around my wrist. Electricity buzzed up the nerve endings in my arm as his long fingers brushed against my skin, and from the way Comenius’s pupils dilated, I could tell the same thing had happened to him. Which wasn’t exactly strange, since we’d tumbled together in the sack before, but it was pretty awkward with Noria sitting right there watching us, so I settled quickly back into my chair, breaking the contact as soon as he was done.
“So,” Noria said. “What now?”
“Now we look at this.” I unzipped my jacket and pulled out the file. Com and Noria’s eyes widened, and they both leaned forward.
“Is… is this a case file?” Comenius said.
“Yep. From Roanas’s house.” It had taken me quite a while to find it, so I hadn’t had a chance to do more than stuff it down the front of my jacket before Brin and Nila arrived. “He told me to get it before he died.”
Comenius looked like he wanted to say something about stealing evidence, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. I flipped open the file, scanning the notes and various newspaper clippings. My eyes smarted at the sight of Roanas’s handwriting – it was a painful reminder that he would never write another word again. But I blinked away the tears, knowing I couldn’t afford them now – there would be time enough to grieve after the killer was caught.
“Naya? Isn’t this about one of your own?”
I glanced down at the article Noria was pointing at. My eyes widened as I took in the photo of the beautiful woman depicted at the top of the article, dressed in leathers and armed with a short sword. It was Sillara, one of the more competent Enforcers, and one I’d been quite fond of.
Burned by Magic: a New Adult Fantasy Novel (The Baine Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
