Page 71 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

The cat blinked at her. How was he supposed to help her if he couldn’t watch?

“Fine,” Saga grumbled. “Don’t judge.”

His tail swished. He made no such promises.

To create a sigil, her grandmother had instructed distilling your intention to a small phrase, then constructing the symbol by combining, without repeating, all consonants of that short phrase into a design. Saga’s phrase had distilled into “Find the link.”

Taking the charcoal, without lifting the instrument from her skin, she drew a sigil of locating on her wrist. “Brigid, to this quest, I’m bound, the knowledge sought, the knowledge found.” She repeated this quietly, continuing to trace over the lines she’d already made until the charcoal began to rub a little too raw against the Palmaris longus tendon at the center of her wrist.

Was that it? Had it worked? She was accustomed to ceremony without visible results, but she’d assumed this was the case with Mundane magick only. Though what sort of result she was expecting, she wasn’t sure. Did it feel warmer? Did it look brighter?

Saga tilted her wrist back and forth in the glow of the government-funded bulbs above her, but she couldn’t tell any difference. “Did it work?”

Riddle trilled, and that was confirmation enough for her.

Saga clicked open the periodical database and started her search with the victim: Betsey Paris.

At least a hundred pages of results.

“Whoa, that was dumb.” Saga winced and opened the search filters.

Riddle chuffed in agreement.

“Like you’ve ever used a computer,” Saga muttered, limiting the parameters of her search to dates within the last forty—no, forty-five—years. “Just to be on the safe side.”

Betsey had a birth certificate, a 41 percent final mark at UCL that had just barely earned her an undergraduate diploma, and a private company that shared the name Luna Ravenwood, established two years after her graduation.

“Odd. Her apartment had almost nothing but photographs from her time in university. You’d think if that time was so important to her, she’d have a higher grade percentage.”

Riddle chittered.

“I know. A pass is still a pass… And she did incredibly well for herself after, thus proving that time of your life isn’t just about grades.” Saga sent it to print with a little more force than necessary. “Must be nice.”

Upon searching “Luna Ravenwood,” Saga found more entries.

The first line items concerned her publications, which were all a matter of public record, of course. Beyond that there was an ad dated yesterday, a few articles from various occult magazines, and a single article from the Somerset County Gazette.

The ad was short and made on behalf of Bell, Book, and Candle, reading:

It is with heavy hearts we must share with our community that our beloved Priestess, Luna Ravenwood, has been taken from us and passed on into the next realm. At this time we have closed our doors while the future of the store is decided. A ritual in Luna’s honor will be held to grant her safe passage through the veil at the Ephemeral Gallery in Soho on Saturday, October 16, 6:00 p.m.

“I wonder who is in charge of the store now that Luna is gone—or her coven for that matter. We’re gonna want to go to this.” Saga sent the ad to the printer.

Riddle’s ears flattened; he was obviously wary of attending such a ritual.

“Not ‘you and me’ we, ‘Avery and me’ we. It will be a very useful event to scope out suspects. Maybe get some real information on the victim and who she might have known within the magical world.”

If a cat could look relieved, he did, but also simultaneously envious that he wouldn’t be taken along after all. He was surprisingly expressive for a cat, and Saga couldn’t believe she’d never found that suspicious growing up.

Enchanted Weekly—which inexplicably was not a weekly publication but published sporadically and far closer to every other month than every week—had developed a habit of interviewing Luna as part of her book release campaigns. As such, there were four articles, and they grew progressively more sycophantic with each publication tour.

Psychic News featured an article where an anonymous source told the story of how Luna had connected them to their father, who had died mysteriously shortly after they were born. The article made a point to say that any names involved in the story other than Luna’s had been changed for the sake of privacy, but due to the overcomplimentary nature of the writing, Saga had to wonder not only if the article was fake but also if had been submitted by Luna herself.

Fates Beyond was the most objective of the magazine articles, because it primarily focused on the art of fortune telling and mentioned Luna in passing as an author of publications the journalist thought worth browsing if you wanted to pursue the study yourself.

The door opened.

Riddle dove for the tote, and Saga shot to her feet.