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Brody snorted. “I’m concerned for the squad.”
I traced the boar’s path that someone had marked on a satellite image map of Magiford with red marker.Looks like it was dumped off on a corner of Goldstein. That’s not exactly where the mantasps were but it’s too close to be a coincidence.
“Have we considered the possibility that this case might be linked with the mantasps?” I asked.
Brody and Grove stopped their bickering and turned simultaneously to stare at me. If Brody had been in his werewolf form, his ears would have been high and his tail up with the intensity he was staring at me.
I didn’t know how to interpret that—or Grove’s extra round eyes.
“Sorry—I haven’t had time to look over the debriefing about the boars yet. Did someone already point that out?” I asked, starting to regret I’d said anything.
“No, no one had connected that,” Brody said. “It makes sense—they were dumped in similar locations.”
Grove traipsed off and grabbed the whiteboard for the mantasp case, wheeling it across the office.
“Yes,” I agreed. “And both situations involve fae animals—not constructs or spells like we’ve seen more often.”
“She’s right,” Grove meticulously lined the mantasp whiteboard up with the boar’s whiteboard. “Last summer up through the beginning of this year Magiford saw a lot of weird, unidentifiable magic.”
“The attacks on Queen Leila of the Night Court? Yeah,” Brody folded his arms across his chest making his defined biceps pop. “We’ve seen lots of fae magic involved as the Seelie and Unseelie Courts keep swallowing each other but they haven’t been busting out fae animals as part of it. Now with two similar cases, it’s time to drop the assumption that it might be related to the succession wars. Hey, Binx!” Brody called.
The cat shifter bristled at her desk. “What.”
“Blood pointed out that the mantasp and boar cases might be related. Since you’re on point with us for the mantasp case, do you want to join the conversation?” Brody asked.
Binx slowly stood up—a feline grace marking her movements—and prowled towards us. “Related? How so?”
Brody recounted our realizations to Binx as I studied the two whiteboards.
Grove stood at my side—I assumed he was listening to Binx and Brody, but he surprised me when he abruptly asked me a question. “Hey, Blood. You took pictures that night with the mantasps, right?”
“Yes.” I swiped my phone open and brought up my photo gallery. “I uploaded them all. Evidence processed them.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want photos of the mantasps,” Grove said. “I’m more interested in the damage.”
I paused in the middle of bringing one of the photos I’d taken of the dead mantasps up. “Didn’t we already process the damage? We had to record it for the humans so they could give us the bill.”
Binx growled low in her throat. “We processed any damage that would need to be fixed—potholes, that kind of thing.”
“Yes,” Grove patiently said. “But I want to look for any proof of fae presence and see if the more cosmetic damage—like overturned trash cans—was in any particular pattern.”
I paused, trying to sift through the underlayers of what Grove was saying. “Since we have two crime scenes to compare, you mean we might be able to see a pattern that would give us a better idea of who is doing this—or why?”
Grove beamed at me. “Exactly! We’ve got to widen the scope.”
“I was able to smell fae magic here, which is where we believe the fae gate was created to drop the mantasps.” Brody pointed to the satellite view of the street someone had printed off the internet for the mantasp board, pointing to a gold blob marked on the sidewalk. “That’s the only spot where I could smell fae magic. There were scents from earlier in the day, but that spot was the only area that matched the strength of the scent I’d associate with the timeline. Oh—except for the dragon seal magic that came from Tutu’s.”
“That spot is the only place I sensed fae magic, too,” Grove volunteered as he rubbed the tiny glass vial that hung from his necklace. “I did pick up on additional magic—a faint glimmer of foreign powers—but I assumed it was magic from Tutu’s. Unless it’s the weird magic Brody sniffed out at the scene of the mantasp crime?”
“Maybe?” Brody said.
I tilted my head as I thought. “If this was part of a battle between two Courts, there would have been more fae present. That place should have reeked of fae magic.”
“Yeah.” Brody agreed. “And the boars were a similar case. Their appearance spot was farther up Goldstein, but I only smelled fae magic directly where their scent suddenly appeared.”
“Again, it was the only spot I sensed fae magic, too,” Grove said. “So that’s another point to Blood’s theory that it’s the same person.”
“Okay, who can control mantasps and fae boars besides a fae?” Binx asked.
