Page 150 of Demon Touched

Leah blows air out through her teeth. “Yeah, it got messy. I can’t see one person dealing with all that.”

She looks drawn and pale, clearly reliving whatever awful mess she witnessed. Lingering in this place likely isn’t helpful.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” I suggest, and she quickly agrees.

“But now that I think about it,” I say as we climb back into the office, “if they’re used to working as a group, it’s strange that Roseingrave attacked you on her own during the party.”

“Well, she drugged me,” Leah points out, “so she knew I wouldn’t be able to fight back.”

“Still, if she wanted to move you without anyone noticing, she’d need help. So why would she—oh.”

I turn around to look at Leah. “Unless she wasn’t alone.”

Leah’s brow knits. “You think there were other Order members at the party? That makes a lot of sense. But there wasn’t anyone who helped her as far as I could see…” She trails off, obviously trying to remember the night in detail.

So much for trying to get her mind off bad memories. Clearly, I need to work on my distraction techniques.

I scan the office, looking over the various bookshelves and side tables. “Do you want to start in here or the other rooms?”

“I already looked in here once,” Leah says with a shrug. “Let’s start somewhere else.”

We search the house, room by room, and find an impressive load of nothing. Not so much as a single rune. What we do find is absence—empty spaces on shelves where it looks like books might’ve once sat, dust patterns that indicate a removed ornament, and boxes stowed away in armoires with nothing in them.

“Well, I’m sorry they tried to kill you, cousin,” I say as we trudge down the stairs after a fruitless few hours. “But if you can look past the murderous intent and the dark, twisted magic, you have to admit their thoroughness is pretty impressive.”

Leah shakes her head. “I should’ve expected this,” she huffs. “They had too much time to cover their tracks.”

We make our way back to the office, but it’s the same in here too. The desk holds several bundles of letters tied up with string or ribbon, but several bindings are too loose for their stack, suggesting that some have been removed from the pile.

We flick through them anyway. The letters all seem innocuous—some from Hathwell’s parents, some from acquaintances and business partners. There’s not a single gossipy note from a friend or flirty message from a lover—nothing incriminating in the slightest.

“Wait,” Leah gasps. “I think they missed one. Look,” She taps the end of a line on the parchment she’s holding.

…shouldn’t underestimate the value of commercial property, particularly your units in Sawton.

I take the paper, scanning what seems to be a discussion about anti-guild sentiment in the city before moving on to the mention of properties. I glance at the bottom of the page before handing it back to her. “There’s no signature,” I say.

“Weird, isn’t it?” she says with a grin.

“But what’s Sawton got to do with the Order?” I squint at the paper, trying to see where her excitement is coming from.

“Hathwell owns some old workshops that used to be part of Reed Mills—the lawyers mentioned them in passing. They said they were technically owned by a side company of his father’s and after the mill moved, they weren’t associated with the main business anymore.”

“So the link between them and Hathwell wouldn’t be obvious,” I supply. “I can see why that would be useful to the Order, but an off-the-books property could be useful to Hathwell for other things too. Maybe he kept his mistress there or ran a drug den or something. How can you know it’s tied to the sorcerers?”

“Because I’ve been there with Syrus. It’s an industrial area near the river. We found evidence of demons being killed there, and Hathwell admitted the Order was behind those murders.”

I turn this over in my mind. “Even if the Order were thorough with pulling anything incriminating from the house, it’s possible they were getting rid of stuff in a hurry. Maybe they missed this one because there’s nothing obviously Order related in it and no name to identify the writer.”

Leah studies the letter hard, like it might spill out its secrets if she stares long enough.

“Check the envelope,” I suggest. She snatches it up off the desk, turning it over, then opening the flap.

“There’s something written inside…” she murmurs. Then she goes very still.

“This is a letter from Strickland,” she says, her voice flat with astonishment.

“What? The assemblyman?” I blink at her. “What makes you say that?”