Page 59 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

Again, Merrill answered with the affability of a hostess about to give them a tour. “Would you like to?” She gestured for them to follow her back into the examination room. “Got her all cleaned up. Still got her on the slab.”

Avery led the way in. “What have you found?”

“Well, I cleaned out everything from beneath her nails—and let me tell you there was a lot. Blood, tissue, even cellular remnants of the aqueous humor, but they’re all hers.” Merrill moved to the body and gently puppeted the body’s hand toward the face. “See this?” She gently lined the fingers up with marks down the cheeks, pinkies farthest in, thumbs farthest out. “This could, in theory, still be done by an attacker, possibly from behind, but given the DNA match and the finger placement… Short of witnessing it, I think that’s as definitive as you’re going to get that Luna did this to herself.”

“I’d suspected as much,” Avery confirmed. “And the bludgeoning?”

Saga pressed her hand over her heart. It ached, painfully. There was so much anguish in the wounds and body. How could have Luna done this to herself? The body had protections.

Merrill gently pulled the hand from the face and showed that the fingers (which were now clean) appeared bruised and the nails worse for wear at the very tips. “You’ll notice the bruising, but if someone forced her hand, you’d see more of it here, near the metacarpals. It would have caused a pressure that would have forcibly trapped her hand between her attacker’s and the crystal ball. I think, given the location of where the bludgeon hit her, this was also self-inflicted, and the bruising is from where her fingers also slammed against her skull.” She squinted knowingly at Avery. “But you suspected that much as well, didn’t you?”

Saga was crestfallen as she examined the damage done to Luna Ravenwood. “How does a person bludgeon themselves to death?”

“Well, the way I figure”—Merrill gently set Luna’s hand back on the slab and attempted to demonstrate—“she took the ball in her right hand and supported it with the left to get the proper force and sort of just…” She pantomimed the crystal ball knocking into the frontal lobe.

Saga flinched. “I meant more how did her body allow it? There are multiple safeguards in the body that usually would inhibit the force and control needed to accomplish it. Was she drugged?”

“Ah, finally something you don’t already know.” Merrill circled around to one of the counters where a file was waiting. “I took the liberty of making a copy for you—Detective Lahiri said you like copies.” She handed it to Avery. “Alchemical tests on blood, stomach contents, and brain all came back clear. So, whatever caused her violent psychosis was neither ingested nor absorbed into the body, Mundane or magical.” She remembered something and interrupted herself. “Oh, and on top of no defensive wounds of any kind, she also seemed devoid of runes or markings indicative of a poppet—searched her head and mouth—no recent clippings or tooth extractions that I could see.”

“What about nails?” asked Avery.

“To get this level of a sympathetic response? No. Even with the hair, you’d need to take a lot of it—fresh and from the root. No, for something this nasty, you’d need blood or bone—possibly both.”

Saga had been examining the skull of the victim carefully. “You said you did some tests on her brain—does that include the amygdala?” When both Avery and Merrill looked to her she explained, “Recent research has indicated while it’s the emotion center of the brain, it plays a strong role in pain modulation and can even send out inhibitory signals to pain-processing areas of the brain. Maybe if there was damage or an excess of cortisol or adrenaline—or even a deficiency?”

Merrill joined Saga as if she could see also what the witch was peering at. “So you’re looking for a Mundane reason this happened?”

“It would be unwise to completely eliminate the possibility,” offered Avery.

“Oh…” Merrill smiled wide, ear to ear. “I like you two. Yeah, I can run some more practical tests.”

“In the meantime, where does that leave us with magical possibilities? If it’s not something that left a noticeable mark on the body? Could something precious to the victim have been enough for a connection? Something taken from her home?” asked Avery.

“As a focus?” Merrill pondered. “Perhaps. If it was an object with an intense amount of sentimental value. Beyond that, there’s always possession—either by enthralling or perhaps some sort of ghost or creature reaching out through the Never-Never, as it were.”

“The Twilight,”29 Avery explained. “Possible, but without signs of summoning, hard to prove.”

Merrill conceded this point with a thoughtful nod. “If that’s the alley you find yourself walking down, there are a few magical relics that could also be responsible. You may want to talk with Fáfnir next door in the vault. I doubt anything has gone missing, but if a relic is involved, I’d be surprised if he didn’t know about it. Are you working with Sentinel Enforcement or is it just the two of you?”

“Just the two of us,” Avery said quickly.

“Oof. Then I suggest you brush up on your hexes, babes. Sounds like you got a nasty one on your hands. If I were you, I’d start with the revenge-based ones.”

27Leinster Gardens, for those unaware, is the architectural equivalent of moving a piece of furniture to hide a large stain on your carpet.

From the front, it appears to be two separate houses in the long row of houses, tall and white and connected all five stories up. However, to make way for the railway, 23 and 24 were demolished and rebuilt only to preserve the aesthetic of the street.

If one were to circle round to the next block and view it from Porchester Terrace, they would realize that 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens were no more than a five-foot-thick facade propped up by steel supports and hiding the old metropolitan railway tunnel from pedestrians.

Apparently Porchester Terrace’s facade was less of a concern to the city planner.

28This is true for many things, not simply those under magical protections. This is why the invention of shame is, to this day, one of humanity’s worst creations. So long as it isn’t hurting anyone, just be yourself. No one is looking anyway.

29Twilight: The Never-Never, the Shadowlands—the outermost ring of Faerie. The most common place for mortals to roam—just on the other side of the In-Between from the mortal world. It’s said this is where dreams are made, but less in a “glitzy movie” way and more in a “your teeth may fall out and you’ll have a conversation with your dead grandmother” way.

Chapter 14 Avery

It didn’t have to be her. Surely there was someone else in London she could consult about revenge curses. There was always someone better qualified, or at least someone who would not pose danger to Avery’s person in seeking answers. Yet why, despite knowing it would be a cataclysmically bad idea, did part of her still dance at the thought of seeing Iona?