Lahiri had that well-meaning but annoying look about him. “Hemlock, I think—”
“That you should assist her? Good, so do I. Wonderful to be on the same page,” Avery chirped and left the room before he could attempt to protest further.
For a doctor of great means, Alistair Campbell was a creature of limitedtaste. Uncommon for the likes of an Archfey, let alone a unicorn. Without overgeneralizing, as a people, they had a reputation for an eye for beautiful things. Avery got the impression that someone else had chosen the trappings that filled this abode. There was very little in the way of personal paraphernalia. No photographs of family. Plants seemed to have been chosen based on their ability to survive neglect. What few decorations lined the walls were color coordinated with the room they occupied. Mundane andmundane.Suspiciouslyso.
Avery employed the hagstone only to find the banal surroundings were not the result of a glamour. They were not a veil of tedium thrown over trappings of the Otherworld, they werereal.
Simply put, it became plain to Avery that not only had Doctor Campbell hired someone else to decorate his home, but he personally spent very little time within it. It was perhaps expected of a medical professional whose life was driven by loyalty to his patients. Every inch from bath to boudoir was unremarkable and expertly cleaned if at all lived in. Avery counted twenty rooms devoid of use in the great house: bathrooms that were regularly cleaned but with a stale scent rising from the drains that indicated they were never used, bedrooms dusted though the maid had given up on regularly changing the linens as they were never slept in, and the library full of books with uncracked spines.
In such disbelief at the absurd unblemished mediocrity, Avery had wedged the hagstone between her eyebrow and cheek, hoping to find one ounce of hidden magic.
And at last, her search reaped results.
A door, simple in appearance, visible in one eye but not the other. As she approached it, she could feel the energy pulsing from it. It wasn’t just hidden from sight—it was warded. Rather clumsily too. Even without the hagstone, merely feeling the magic radiating from it would have given away its location to anyone sensitive to such energy.
While a remarkably talented healer, it was clear the man had no gift for hiding his other spell work.
Avery carefully reached down and drew a wand of rowan from her boot. Clumsily hidden wards did not mean clumsily made—those were two different skills. Using a wand reduced the likelihood of losing a hand if those wards were fierce enough. Rowan had been utilized for years for its protection properties, even carried around to ward off witchcraft. As a tool for dispelling magic, it was invaluable. She drew the wand along the doorway and saw through the hagstone a glimmer of fabric-like energy ripple as if in a breeze. She gently pressed the wand tip against it to test the resistance, and the fabric tightened into a more solid wall, illuminating the doorway entirely. She let up on the pressure and in turn, the ward returned to its more fabric-like state.
Force would not be the key here.
She examined the edges, gently prodding the wand along the seams of the doorway, scouring for any fault in the fabric: a snag, a tear, or a stray thread.
She found it in the bottom right corner—perhaps the doctor had been rushed, or the spell had simply begun to wear down now that he had passed on, but she found the hint of a fraying edge.
Avery focused the wand tip on the frayed thread with a scientist’s precision. She took a deep breath and moved the wand in small circles, the glowing thread wrapping around it as she did. She continued to pull on the thread, slowly and steadily unraveling the fabric of the ward. It was a careful process, where expediency would possibly snap the delicate fiber and trip any safety measures put in place. The thread danced back and forth across the doorway, a tapestry weaving in reverse, shortening the fabric centimeter by centimeter.
This was going to take a lot of patience and a lot of time.
When at last the unraveling reached the top, she realized her position still kneeling on the floor was creating unnecessary tension. Cautiously, she attempted to stand, but as she propped up her foot, she tilted a little too far to the side—and the thread snapped.
Damnation.
She stood quickly in time to see an enormous glowing spider crawl out from under the remaining fabric. It latched on to the fraying thread and immediately began to weave repairs.
Avery quickly flicked the wand at it. “Away!”
But the moment the wand made contact, the spider split, exploding into a hundred smaller spiders, all of whom set to even more rapid work of repairing the fabric of the ward.
Avery cursed under her breath and shoved the rowan wand beneath the edge of the fabric before pushing it upward.
The tiny illuminated spiders quickly began to weave around it.
Magic words, much like language itself, only held power because one gave them power. She was frustrated, both with herself and that even in death Alistair Campbell had managed to further obstruct the pursuit of justice. “VEX!”
The wand drew in the shadows from the hallway, and the tip erupted with moths made of shadow that quickly ate away the fabric in a circular motion outward from where the wand had been trapped in the ward. The umbra constructs ravenously consumed the magical fabric. A few of the spiders attempted to catch the moths, but while their smaller size had benefited them as a team, on their own they were too small and outnumbered to put up a proper fight. As the weave vanished, spiders fell to the floor and disappeared like cooling sparks falling off a fire.
Avery took a deep breath and peered closely at the threshold. No traps, no more wards, no magic. She reached forward and easily opened the now unprotected door, holding the wand defensively close to her chest.
This room, unlike any other,feltlike Alistair Campbell. It had the faint scent of tobacco and rosemary. Rich oak, unpainted and well oiled, made up the floorboards, and the walls had been lined with a fine jacquard paper. The office had no windows, but an enchanted painting opposite the desk mimicked one, autumnal trees moving in a gentle wind as if she were looking out at an orchard.
Avery first put the rowan switch through the doorway and nothinghappened. Feeling a little safer and emboldened, she leaned in to peer with the hagstone. Everything was as it appeared, nothing concealed by a glamour, and so she stepped fully into the room.
Unlike the library she’d seen before, the wall of books behind the desk was stuffed with volumes all with visible wear and tear. They weren’t just read, they were studied;scoured. She pulled a few from the shelves to find them dog-eared, bookmarked, and full of tiny slanted handwriting. They ranged from recent medical volumes to much older tomes in a variety of languages on various magical subjects: prestidigitation, transmutation, and necromancy. Each book contained notes and page markings.
Opening the desk drawers, she found a notebook. It was not the luxury of a journal—a daily documentation of his comings and goings would have been too much to hope for—but the book did seem to contain an abundance of research regarding fetches and resurrection. It would be incredibly incriminating evidence against him were the man not already dead. Had his killer not been able to find this room, or did they already have the information contained within it?
Alistair Campbell had pages upon pages of notes. It was clear his research went far back—likelywellbefore Eira Goff had passed. So had stealing the organs for resurrection always been the plan? Or merely a perfect opportunity to put his research into practice?
