AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Samuel’s in his late thirties, isn’t he?” At my nod, Ashworth continued, “that makes him a rookie at the time and eliminates any prospect of him playing any part in such an important case.”
“But surely he’d have still heard rumors. If there’s one thing the royal lines like, it’s gossip.”
“That depends entirely on the situation,” Eli said. “In a case where the most promising elites are being murdered, there’d be a gag order well and truly placed on it.”
Ashworth sat next to me and reached for several ham and cheese toasties. “I also think you’ll find a carefully orchestrated erasure happened over the following few months. The council wouldn’t want anyone believing a dark sorcerer had gotten the better of them.”
“Especially when it was an unappreciated, underpowered witch who did stop him,” Belle said. “With a little help from her underrated familiar, of course.”
“Here’s to being underrated.” I picked up my mug and clicked it against hers. “May it win us the war in the end.”
“Amen to that, sister.”
I took a drink, then glanced at Ashworth. “Samuel said there was a missing person report out for a Celia Ashworth—I hope she’s not one of your family.”
“Not immediate family, as far as I’m aware, but I’ll check with Sophie.”
I nodded. All the witch lines were actually connected if you traced them back far enough; it was hard to be otherwise when there were only six branches overall. It was one of the reasons a close watch was kept on marriages, and why so many of them now involved overseas bloodlines. Like “real” royalty, witches had learned the hard way that interbreeding led to major physical—and in our case, magical—problems.
“Did Samuel give any indication that Celia might be our dead woman?”
“No. In fact, he said she was too old.” I reached for another sandwich. My stomach, it seemed, had gotten over its tetchiness and was now rumbling hungrily. “But if the high council locks down information about these sorts of kills, how can we be sure this is actually the first of them?”
“We can’t, but it is likely to be given what you’ve already said about Samuel’s reactions.”
“True.” I thoughtfully munched on my sandwich for several seconds. “If this is the same killer, and he follows the same pattern, then it’s likely he’ll take his next victim tomorrow night.”
“And there’s little we can do about that, because it’s not our problem. Not this time,” Eli said.
I hoped that was true. I feared it was not.
“Do you think they’ll at least put out an alert?” Belle asked.
“The high council is averse to causing undue stress to the upper echelons.”
“They don’t have to,” I said. “Given he attacked the top half dozen university candidates last time, why can’t they just discreetly warn next year’s lot that they need to be cautious for the next week or so?”
Eli snorted. “Do young adults ever take any notice of such warnings? Do you?”
I grinned. “I’m hardly a young adult.”
“By comparison to me, you certainly are, but the point remains. I mean, here we are discussing a murder, when for all intents and purposes, we should be concentrating on this afternoon’s trial.”
“I’ve been thinking about the trial for entirely too long now, and I just want it over and done with.” I hesitated. “I am worried about my father using my ability with the wild magic against me if things don’t go his way, though.”
“If it’s not confirmed by the tests, he won’t,” Ashworth said.
“I love the certainty in your tone, but you don’t know my father.”
“I know his type, and they never like being considered a fool.”
Which would be a risk if he mentioned the wild magic only to have the null result of my initial test repeated. I just had to hope it was repeated and that the now activated inner wild magic didn’t change my levels on the capacity indicator.
“All he has to do is direct them to the café,” I said. “The proof is woven into the fabric of its protections.”
“Which can be explained away by the fact that the wellspring was left unprotected for so long.”
“They won’t believe that.” Neither my father nor Clayton had.
