Sylvia shut the door behind him, rolling her eyes before going back to her seat. Katherine moved back into her rightful seat, which, she noted happily, did not reek of the ordinary’s tobacco.
Sylvia handed Katherine a piece of gauze as well. She wrapped it around her fresh cut, pulling tightly as she bit her lip.
“Are you sure you should be doing that so close to Noctis’ visit?” Katherine asked. “You know what’ll happen if you get caught.”
Sylvia waved off the idea of permanently losing her magic like it was nothing. “It’s fine. Divakar is useless,” she said, referencing Divakar Sen, the rep from Noctis who had visited every October for the last ten years. “The one thing he’ll do is check that the main wards are still being maintained. I can now do that.”
Katherine nodded, yanking at the gauze again, savoring the burst of pain. It was her fault Sylvia had to make these sacrifices. If she was smarter, better at intricate magic instead of brute force, she’d be able tostrengthen the wards herself. But she wasn’t, and so Sylvia was forced to find another solution. Forced to take risks she shouldn’t have to take.
“Hey,” Sylvia said, reaching for Katherine’s hand and taking it in hers. There was no magic running through them now, but it still felt like there was. Soul-level understanding was a magic of its own, Katherine supposed. “Don’t beat yourself up because you can’t do ward work. I know focus is tough for you. Hell, even I couldn’t manage spells that complicated until I was in my thirties.”
Katherine let out a wry chuckle. “Yeah. Because you had to learn how to do them all by yourself. I have the best teacher in the biz and I’m still useless.”
“You flatter me. Try flattering yourself sometimes too.” Sylvia gave Katherine’s hand another squeeze before letting go. Katherine felt lighter, some of her guilt clearing.
“So,” Sylvia said. “Give me the case against Joe for the meeting tonight.”
Katherine ran through the list of evidence she’d gathered against Joe—from fingering him with a spell to track altum residue at their last coven meeting to following the mysterious payments she’d found when she hacked Joe’s bank records (not exactly aboveboard, but witch courts were less stringent than ordinary ones). All culminating in the eyewitness account of him selling the drugs that morning.
“All very good,” Sylvia said. “Thank you. That’ll be a great case for us. Divakar will be elated at how well we’re following procedure.”
Katherine laughed. “You know how much he loves procedure.”
“Indeed.”
Katherine paused. Selling altum was a serious crime for any witch, but Aestas took it with an extra degree of solemnity. Both Katherine and Sylvia had personal experience with how devastating the consequences of the drug could be to the people they worked so hard to protect.
Still, though, it was nerve-racking to voice her suspicions to Sylvia out loud. Considering that the consequences of what she was about to say could be devastating as well.
“I don’t think Joe did this alone,” she said. Creating the magicaldrug was a dangerous and difficult process based on an old spell that had never been bound to a Noctis rune, given that it was… well, illegal. It also required the use of an honest-to-god cauldron, and those were nearly impossible to come by nowadays. Artifact magic was one of the many kinds of old magic that had gone by the wayside when Noctis’ safer, more efficient runes came along. She couldn’t picture Joe doing all that planning when his brain was already so preoccupied with his fantasy football team.
“He wouldn’t give up any accomplices, but he’s gotta have one,” she continued. “Joe couldn’t manage even the most basic old magic without blowing his head off.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
Katherine sucked in a breath. “Byron Chambers.”
Sylvia tapped a manicured nail against the wood of her desk. “I see.”
Byron Chambers was one of the coven’s most powerful members. His family had been in LA for generations, making a name for themselves in Hollywood as actors, writers, directors, studio execs, and all of the other positions that nepotism could hand someone. They were influential with ordinaries and witches alike, and they’d been instrumental in keeping Aestas in the good graces of the local government and Noctis. They also donated a significant amount of money to keeping Aestas afloat. Katherine was fairly certain her salary came entirely from donations from the Chambers family.
Katherine had suspected Byron’s involvement in making the magic drug for weeks now. He was friends with Joe. He was, she hated to admit, smart. His family’s wealth and history would make it easy for him to get the rare cauldron needed to create it.
But she didn’t actually have any proof. Even if she managed to find other dealers like Joe, she wouldn’t be able to get any of them to give up their supplier—not if it was Byron. Not with what he’d be able to afford in order to pay them off. The only way she could prove it was him would be to catch him in the act, and that required legwork. Byron’s family didn’t make him untouchable, but if Katherine was wrong about him being involved and she managed to ruffle any feathers in the process of looking for evidence against him, Aestas would be inbig trouble. The fact that his position protected him from even being investigated for his potential wrongdoings ate at Katherine like an ant on a crumb.
“I want to question him.”
Sylvia shook her head. “No.” Katherine’s heart fell. “Not now, at least. Not with Noctis coming. We need to get through this visit without incident.”
“And after?”
“We’ll see.”
Katherine knew from Sylvia’s tone that they would not, in fact, see. Sylvia took big risks with the coven, but she was also deeply careful. This, apparently, was not a risk she was willing to take.
“What if—”
“No,” Sylvia said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “I have something else for you to do.”
