Alexander MacTire stepped smoothly to the side. ‘Of course.’ He dipped his head in a tiny bow. ‘Have a good day, Ms Nash.’
‘It can only improve from here on in,’ she said honestly.
He laughed then turned on his heel and walked away whistling triumphantly to himself.
Boris was watching her with an odd expression. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘You’re usually better at saying no to people like that.’
She felt an uncharacteristic flush rise to her cheeks. He was right; so much for her titanium core. ‘He needs my help.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I needed to get him out of my way as quickly as possible.’
Boris smirked. ‘Sure thing. You also need to get going as quickly as possible.’
Mallory nodded jerkily before she darted inside and rushed upstairs to change.
Forget Alexander MacTire. He wasn’t a stupid man but he had certainly made a stupid request. She’d worry about it later.Much later. Right now, she had a Council witch to meet and an antsy vampire to satisfy.
Chapter
Four
Fetch Nicola Sturgess was highly distracted. On the few previous occasions when they’d met, she’d taken the time to escort Mallory inside the grand Council headquarters and they’d sat in one of the sunny drawing rooms sipping perfectly brewed coffee and nibbling on little cupcakes decorated with delicate sugar work fashioned with the help of some specialised witchery. This time Sturgess insisted they stay in the garden. Doubtless there was enough chaos within the Council’s sturdy walls to preclude a welcome for strangers.
‘My deepest condolences for Fetch Jackson’s passing,’ Mallory said.
Sturgess widened her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised that you already know what’s happened to him and yet I am. One day I’d love to find out who your sources are.’
The Fetch would likely be disappointed to learn that Mallory’s knowledge resulted simply from eavesdropping. She smiled vaguely and took a calculated gamble based on the information she’d learned on Kit McCafferty’s behalf. ‘Did he have any silphium on him when he was killed?’
This time Sturgess paled dramatically. ‘Mallory,’ she said, her voice strained, ‘ask that question of anyone else and you’relikely to find yourself in a freshly dug grave right next to him. If that’s why you’re here then I can’t help you, regardless of my blood contract with you.’
Silphium was Kit’s problem, not Mallory’s, and the terms of her contract with Nicola Sturgess forbade asking anything that would be detrimental to the witches. It appeared that anything to do with Fetch Jackson and the matter of silphium fell into that category.
Even so, Mallory was smart enough to use the situation to her advantage. ‘Well,’ she demurred, allowing the corners of her mouth to turn down as if she were disappointed, ‘if we can’t discuss silphium, perhaps we can chat about another matter instead.’
‘Anything,’ Sturgess said, her kitten heels sinking into the soft earth as they paused beside a blush-pink rosebush. ‘As long as it’s not that damned plant.’
Mallory made a show of reconsidering the topic of discussion. ‘Instead of silphium, why don’t you tell me about the Clouded Map?’
The Fetch couldn’t mask her relief. ‘Okay.’ She nodded vigorously. ‘That is something Icantalk about.’ She gestured towards a narrow bench and extracted her heels from the ground to walk over and sit down. Mallory followed suit.
‘As I’m sure you already know,’ Sturgess said, once they were both as comfortable as they could ever be on a cold bench made out of unforgiving marble, ‘the Clouded Map is part of our Alexandria Collection.’
‘The five hundred or so papyrus scrolls and books that were rescued when the Great Library was burned?’
‘Indeed.’ Sturgess waved at the building in front of them. ‘There’s a warded, temperature-controlled room with highly restricted access inside the headquarters. The Clouded Map and the other rescued texts are housed there. As a Fetch, I'm allowedaccess although I've only been inside on a handful of occasions. Some of the texts are deadly dull. Some are simply deadly.’
Interesting. ‘Which category does the Clouded Map fall into?’
Sturgess pursed her lips. ‘Neither. Although it’s an interesting object, it isn’t lethal and it’s practically obsolete in these modern times. It shouldn’t even be called the Clouded Map – that’s something of a misnomer because it doesn’t obscure anything. Instead it provides clarity.’
Mallory tilted her head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s imbued with old magic and designed to illuminate any unknown area. It was useful two thousand years ago when much of the world hadn’t been officially discovered. With the right incantation, the Clouded Map reveals an outline of anywhere you want it to –the complex maze of an unmapped souk, for example, or an unknown country and its coastline and rivers. The Clouded Map does what Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo and Ferdinand Magellan could only dream of.’
