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“Izar Pelayo, this is Dr. Mason Manning, our resident witch.”
Izar, to her credit, simply stood and smiled, offering her hand to Doc as they went through the customary introductions.
I handed him the file with the rough drawing of the pendant.
“She says this thing can collect souls,” I told him.
Doc’s dark eyebrows shot up.
“It’s a soul reliquary?” he asked, directing the question to Izar.
She shrugged. “Yes, but also no, if what I was told is correct. According to my grandmother, it holds souls, but it doesn’t… keep them. At least not long. It allows the wearer to…usethem.”
It took me a second to process what that meant. This thing that Izar had fuckinglost—or, more likely, had stolen—let people put souls inside it to use as goddamn magical batteries. Well, fuck that noise. Now I didn’t know that I actually wanted to find it.
Doc was looking at Izar with about the same sentiment that I felt. Small wonder, given our too-recent experience with people using ghosts as goddamn batteries.
“That’s what… That’s what my grandmother told me.” Izar lifted both hands. “I’ve never... I’m not a witch, just a faun. I was… I was supposed to have children who might someday carry the ability.”
“Supposed to?” Doc echoed.
“My husband died before we were able to conceive.”
She didn’t sound terribly broken up about that, but it was probably rather rude to point that out. For once, I let decorum stop me.
And then I had a thought. “Izar, is there magic in both your family and your husband’s?”
Her expression quickly turned sour-sad, and she nodded.
“So you—” I didn’t know how to say it without, well, saying it.
“Married the man my parents wanted so that I could become a breeding sow for future generations of magical children? Yes. At least I’d known him for years and we got along well enough.”
Doc sucked in a breath.
“You said your brother knew about it. Does he have magical abilities?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“So that seems pretty likely.”
But she was shaking her head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like that... He knows—”
I shot a look in Doc’s direction and found that his face was carefully trying to hide the same incredulity mine was.
“He wouldn’t,” Izar repeated.
“Who would?” I asked her.
Her face told me that she really didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t blame her. Nobody wants to think about their family being not only assholes enough to reject them for being a Nid, but also dick enough to steal from them. And steal something pretty fucking valuable and important. Something dangerous and vile.
Izar swallowed. “My mother-in-law,” she half-whispered. “Or my sister-in-law. Or they’d hire someone to do it, I suppose.” Then she shook her head. “Honestly—it could be either of them.”
I heard the defeat in her voice.
“And they are also—”
“Witches, yes.”
