I stopped beside her and scanned the pile. I couldn’t see anything that suggested magic had been used, but given none of the boxes had been opened, our thief had obviously just used his vaporous state to reach in and draw out whatever lay inside. “I’m just as surprised to see you here, Marjorlaine, given your talent leans towards weather manipulation.”
“That’s my primary ability, certainly, but I am also sensitive to the detritus that remains after the casting of a spell.”
“Did you find anything here?”
“I didn’t expect to, given we are dealing with a godly relic, but surprisingly, there are lingering remnants of a leash spell around each of these.” She motioned to the boxes. “Our thief presumably created it to drag them from their positions at the same time rather than retrieve each one separately.”
“It would certainly have saved him a whole lot of time and effort.” I scanned the rows of boxes for a second. The boxes had come from all over the place, high and low, so it did make sense that they’d all been ripped free at the same time. “Will you be able to trace the practitioner through the remnants of magic he or she left behind?”
She wrinkled her nose. “That would normally be our next step, but in all honesty, a leash spell is simple enough and can be formed by anyone with the barest minimum of magical talent. There’s a good chance he is not even registered.”
“So we are dealing with a male?”
She glanced up. “The detritus feels male. I take it from the questions you are not sensing anything?”
“Haven’t tried yet.”
“Then perhaps you should do so.” Ruadhán’s voice held a colder, sharper edge that hinted at deepening impatience. “We do have a crime scene to finish documenting.”
I bit back the instinctive need to make a tart comment, squatted beside Marjorlaine, and lightly touched the tip of the knife to the nearest box. Purple lightning flared down its fuller and danced briefly across the pile before fading. There was something here, but its pulse or presence was neither dangerous nor traceable. At least, that was what instinct was telling me. It wasn’t like I had a how-to book when it came to using the knives or indeed the triune as a whole.
“Does that flash mean the kniveshavedetected something?” Marjorlaine asked, in unsuppressed surprise.
But then, she’d never actually seen the knives in action; the only other time I’d drawn them in her presence was when the witch controlling the Horn for my aunt had been icing over the Fae Museum, but she’d retreated before I had a chance to use them.
“Seems like it.” I rose and scanned the vault again. Instinct twitched as my gaze fell on the privacy booths at the far end. I turned and pointed. “Am I okay to approach those? I won’t mess with any evidence collecting, will I?”
“If there is information down there to be gathered, then probably. Daniel, go with her and record everything.”
Daniel was a thin stick of a fellow, with grayish, scaly-looking skin, red eyes, and pupils that had a distinctly oval shape. He moved toward me, and I had to stop the instinctive need to step back. While it was extremely rare for snakes to be seen around these parts—they were generally found in the warmer south coast areas—it was even rarer to see a snakeshifter. This was certainly the first time I’d come across either, and to be honest,I hoped it was the last. There was something about the way he walked that was decidedly... unnerving.
I spun and went down to the end of the room and the three privacy booths. Each one was three sided, with the vault’s rear wall providing the fourth, with a small walkway separating them. They were constructed and paneled with oak which was so darkly stained with usage it was almost black, and the doors were worn with age.
A faint pulse of lightning once again ran down the edge of the blade I was holding, but this time it echoed through the Eye—which was not only the second part of the triune, but was in fact the actual eye of the goddess Ethine, who’d been turned to stone long ago and who’d gifted her eyes in the form of black seeing stones to both an ancestor of mine and the hags. Mom had used it to amplify her second sight when relic hunting, and to keep in contact with Beira and the other hags when she was undertaking tasks for them. The triune had supposedly been designed to gift the women of my line with foresight, knowledge, and protection, thereby providing all the tools we needed to fight those seeking the rebirth of the dark gods in the tangible world, but by the time I’d come into possession of it, the triune’s true power had not been used or even remembered for centuries. Which meant that between the lack of directions and my own inexperience, my ability to use it to its full capacity was currently somewhat limited. However, the fact that the Eye had echoed the knife’s reaction meant that not only was there magic to be found here, but quite possibly a vision to chase.
I glanced back at snake man. “I need to touch the external wood with the knife—is that okay?”
“Yes, but please keep your contact to a minimum. We’ve not dusted the outside, only the inside and doors.” His voice was soft and whispery, and while not unpleasant, it still had those goose bumps running again.
I moved over to the left booth. The song emanating from the oak was slightly stronger here than on the banister, but it still ran with loneliness. These booths had been constructedafterthe main vault area, and as such, had no physical connection to the building’s greater network. To both Aodhán and Tàileachs pixies, that network was something of a superhighway—living, breathing rivers of golden energy that allowed us to follow the various connections throughout a building, seeing the locations of rooms, furniture, and even people without ever having to physically enter. In the very distant past, many pixies had a secondary line in thievery—and indeed, it was a light-fingered distant ancestor that had gotten us kicked out of the relic guarding business—but the invention of metal door and window furnishings had ended all that.
This booth, however, couldn’t really tell me anything. Processed wood, unlike trees, didn’t hold much in the way of memories—not when it came to people, anyway. The oak here did whisper of the earth in which it had rooted, but its memories were growing ever distant as every year passed. I switched the knife to my left hand, then dug the Eye out from under my sweater and wrapped my hands around the lovely metal “cage” Lugh had made me so I could wear it as a pendant without having to risk it constantly hitting my skin. That tended to have unfortunate consequences, such as being hit by unwanted visions at inconvenient times.
I warily touched the knife’s tip to the edge of the wood. Light flickered faintly down its fuller, then died, indicating that whatever they were sensing, it wasn’t emanating from here. I turned to the next booth and again touched the knife tip to the wood. This time, lightning shot down the blade and danced across the wood toward the door, and the Eye pulsed in time to the movement.
I glanced at snake man, discovering he was recording what I was doing on his phone. “I need to step inside.”
He reached into his pocket with his free hand and dragged out a set of silicone gloves, handing them to me. “Put these on then.”
I tucked the knife under my armpit, pulled on the gloves, then stepped left and opened the door. Both the knife and the Eye flared to life again, spinning dark lightning through the room’s golden light. I moved inside warily. The booth was pretty basic in design, holding nothing more than a comfortable-looking chair, an oak table attached to the side walls, and a smaller shelf sitting above it. I took a step toward it, and the pulse of lightning immediately eased. I frowned and turned, pointing the knife at the rear wall. The pulse sharpened once again. Did that mean our thief had come into the bank from the building next door? If so, why? A vaporous form could move through walls unimpeded, so why wouldn’t he have simply slipped in from the street frontage and then come down into the basement? Why take such a roundabout route?
He wouldn’t have. Not when he’d given himself so little time to find what he needed. Leaving this way, however, was a different matter entirely.
He had, after all, called in a warning about his intentions, so it made sense for him to leave in the opposite direction from which the IIT was entering. A vaporous form wasn’t the same as an invisible form, and what could be seen could be caught.
I glanced at Daniel again; he was now filming my actions from the doorway. “My second sight is twitching, so I need to sit.”
“Did he use the chair?” Ruadhán asked before snake man could answer.
