Page 20 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

Niece, Saga Trygg (witch), great investigator, very smart & uncommonly pretty. Possesses a rare gift of True Sight—figure that out. Nearly murdered last month—avoid repeating those events at all costs.

Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard, Charing Cross Station.

Honorable, kind, protector. Tragically loyal to Winter Council.

Lahiri’s mouth pulled into a grimace. It was unnatural on his face. “I hope you didn’t eat yet.”

Ah. It was going to be that kind of morning. “Your message implied there was little time for such pleasures.”

Lahiri offered her the cup he wasn’t drinking out of and lifted the police tape for her to step under. “I didn’t know how you take it.”

“Drinkable.” Avery choked on the first mouthful. She looked betrayed, first at the cup and then to Lahiri. “Was that such an impossible ask?”

At last Lahiri flashed the grin she was more accustomed to seeing. Cheerful. Warm. Irritating. “It’s precinct coffee. I didn’t have time to stop anywhere.”

Avery hesitantly took another sip of the bitter liquid. It was both weak and burnt. “Do you use it to force confessions?”

Lahiri tsked at her, shaking his head. “Two hundred years in Blackthorn and you’re still this persnickety?”

“Even an immortal life is too short to endure this, Inspector.” She brought the cup up again to drink and thought better of it. “How is Sa—your family doing?”

Lahiri took a slow, unimpressed swig of the swill he’d claimed was coffee. “Come with me.” He led her inside, the bell above the door ringing ominously into an otherwise deathly still store.

Avery cleared her throat. The air inside was hazy with the smell of incense so thick she could taste it. Some had been burned within the last hour, but this was perhaps only to cover the stale scent of incenses that had baked themselves into the walls and furniture. She voluntarily took a drink of her “coffee.” “So this is…”

“An occult shop. Mundane magick—that’s magick with a k.16 Our victim, Luna Ravenwood, was a bit of a celebrity in the community, wrote a few books.”

“What kind of books?” Avery picked up a box containing a spirit board that allegedly “glowed in the dark.” What did that even…?

“Instructional.” He consulted the notes the officer on scene had gathered. “The Ravenwood Guide to Basic Spellwork, Chaos, and Creation; Awaking the Divine; and Marvelous Malificarum.”

“Marvelous Malificarum,” Avery mused. “And a store named Bell, Book, and Candle…”

“What are you thinking?”

“Too early for theories, Inspector. I am merely meditating on the pattern of behavior our victim chose to show the world.” She set the spirit board back on the shelf.

“Which is?”

“Specifically, witches reclaiming tools used against heretics in a fashion that would make their originators burst into flame. Are we certain she’s Mundane?”

“No real witch makes her living doing this.”

“Unless she’s hiding in plain sight,” Avery offered. She peered at the windows, looking for anything that may appear to be a disturbance in their natural order. “Did the victim have any children?”

“No family on record.”

“Who is the boy?”

“Blake Hingley. Employee. He found the body this morning when he came in to open the store. According to his initial statement, the door was locked as usual when he arrived, no sign of forced entry. Do you want to talk to him now?”

The hard soles of Avery’s shoes clicked across the tile as she wandered farther in. The floor was dark and shining and integrated some kind of sparkling mineral throughout that gave the illusion that she was walking on the night sky. Some kind of tile. “What kind of stone is this?”

“Just a kind of glass, I believe.”

Avery frowned. Completely non-magical? “And the…” Her fingers wiggled over the shimmer, attempting to mimic twinkling. “Glittering things?”

“Glitter.”