“Gotcha. No problem. As long as you’re sure they’re safe.”
“They are. Go ahead and get started. We need to hurry.”
“Okay. I promise I won’t do anything inappropriate.”
“I trust you.” Our eyes met for a breath before she glanced away.
First, I ran my fingers around the waistband of her pants, probing the seams and folds of fabric before tucking them inside the thin leather belt, moving slowly as I walked around her. She sucked in a small breath as I checked the spot around the pants button.
Glancing up, I said, “Do you want to check the zipper? I don’t want to touch?—”
“It’s fine,” she said, her voice obviously tight. “I wouldn’t know what I was looking for anyway.”
“You sure?”
She nodded once—a quick bounce of her head—and her throat moved as she swallowed. “All good. Be quick.”
“All right.”
Quickly, I tucked my fingers inside the small flap of fabric that covered the zipper, and slid it down and back up, doing my best to keep away from her body. Then, because I had to be surenothing was attached to it, I ran my index fingertip along the serrated metal zipper. Veronica trembled slightly, and I winced inwardly. Despite my attempt at professionalism, I couldn’t help but think of what was only a few millimeters away from my hand. A tiny bit of metal and cotton separating my finger from?—
“Nothing there,” I said, kneeling to check the pant cuffs and attempting to throw off the thoughts that had been trying to pry their way into my mind.
The pants had nothing that I could find, nor did her shoes and socks. I rose after checking and ran my hands over her shirt. I didnotgo over her chest. This was already degrading enough for both of us. I’d save that for the very last thing if I had to check.
Her sleeve cuffs, hem, shoulders, and back were fine. It wasn’t until I slid my fingers beneath the folded collar that I found something strange. At the very back, tucked up inside the fold, behind where the tag would be, I found what felt like a round piece of leather.
“What is this?” I said, flipping the collar up.
“Uh, I think it’s the Freedman Coven sigil,” she said. “Kinda like an ownership tag. All the robes and shirts have them.”
“Right.” I leaned down to look.
Sewn into the shirt was a round patch of leather etched with an emblem of an upside-down hammer with tiny knotwork along the handle, and a half-moon on the head. Obviously, the sigil of the Freedman Coven. Digging my fingertip into the thin threads running around it, I tugged and pulled until, with a quickpop,the sigil tore off and fell into my other hand.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
Veronica spun in place to face me. “What?”
The leather patch had landed face down on my palm. A tiny piece of metal was embedded in the leather. As small as it was, I could still make out the line of numbers engraved along the bottom edge. Nine or ten numerals that looked like a serial number.
“A tracker,” I said. “Or something like one. Can’t tell if it’s simple human tech or magical without inspecting it better, but this has to be how they found you.
“I don’t understand,” she said slowly, shaking her head, her curls swishing across her cheeks. “Why would I have had a tracker put on me?”
Pointing to the line of numbers, I said, “I don’t think it was just you. I think each student at Freedman Academy has a specific number. You said everyone’s robes and shirts had these leather patches?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, if I had to guess, every student has one on them at all times when they aren’t in bed.”
“That’s crazy,” Veronica said. “Why, though?”
“It might be totally innocuous,” I said. “Maybe Balthazar Freedman wanted to make sure his students were safe. Could be he wanted to make sure none of them were going to forbidden areas or something. Or,” I added, “the other option is he was a control freak and just wanted to keep tabs on everyone under his care.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “They never told me about those, if that’s the case.”
I stepped over and knelt down beside the changeling’s corpse. Now that it was dead, its gray skin sagged on the sharp, angular bones. The mouth hung open, revealing jagged brown half-rotten sharp nubs, the black tongue hanging out with slimy drool dripping from the tip onto the floor. I wrinkled my nose in disgust at the stench that came off the thing: a combination of ammonia, freshly turned earth, and excrement.
