“Smug is not a good look on you.”
Drink your coffee.
Spencer snorted and did just that. He kept an eye on the crowd, watching as the fishmongers tried to figure out what had happened. A few wards discreetly glimmered along the market stalls, but whatever magic was embedded in the area hadn’t registered Fatima’s passing. Eventually, one of the fishmongers hollered out, “Old Arthur Goodwin must have been hungry today.”
It helped people to laugh off the incident, though it took a little longer before the fishmongers started slinging fish about again.
“Goodwin must be a local legend,” Spencer mused. “Anything we need to worry about?”
A quiet spirit. He does not want to move on.
“All right.”
Spencer watched the fishmongers work for a bit longer before he let his gaze drift, sight slipping sideways. The world brightened with the onslaught of auras that haloed everyone in the vicinity.
Mundane humans had the dimmest souls and were the most prolific ones about, though Spencer caught sight of at least one werecreature amidst the crowd. Their aura was brighter, flickering at the edges in streaks of light that stretched out and shrank back like it was looking to shift into a different form. Spencer blinked, watching them for a few seconds before moving on to the brightest auras.
Magic users of any rank, be they a lowly hedge witch or a mage, all had souls brighter than anyone else whose background was—mostly—human. Gradients existed in that brightness, allowing Spencer to know what someone was in a glance of second sight. Mages had what amounted to a tiny star where their souls resided and mundane humans had the dimmest souls. Most people would never see people’s auras like this with the ease that Spencer did, but that was the result of his kind of magic. One had to be able to see a soul in order to break it apart and send it or an unwanted passenger on its way.
It’s how his magic differed from a true necromancer. He put the dead to rest while necromancers called the dead back to the living. They both needed bodies and souls to work with, and most had psychopomps to guide them. Spencer had never seen a psychopomp following Ilya, and he’d always wondered if that necromancer had ever had one or lost one. Psychopomps chose to stay, and they could just as easily walk away.
If Spencer ever woke up one day and Fatima was justgone, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Hopefully never what Ilya had done—make a cult, worship a god, help try to take over the world.
“Are you almost finished?” Spencer asked when he reached the dregs of his coffee.
Fatima had stripped the entire salmon of its flesh; the spine, some bones, and flared tail were all that remained. She’d eaten the head last, crunching her way through the collar with a blissful look in her eyes.
Yes.She took a few minutes to clean her paws and face, giving particular attention to her whiskers. When she was satisfied, she stretched out happily, pawing at his sneaker.Ready.
Spencer tossed his empty to-go coffee cup in the nearest trash bin before leaving Pike Place Market. Their destination was only three blocks away: a museum that had been around for over a century.
The Seattle Museum of Coven History had started out as a discreet occult shop during frontier times. Back then, it had catered to western magic more than the sort used by the surrounding Native American tribes or the Chinese workers coming off the boats. Founded by the Cascade Coven, still owned and overseen by the Adler family, the shop had turned itself into a museum that depicted a particular slant of Seattle’s magical history in its early days.
It had expanded during the Civil Rights era decades ago, tempering its collection and mission outlook with a more inclusive theme to keep up with the times and keep making money. These days, the museum was one of the city’s historical jewels, providing a glimpse into how Seattle’s covens and other magic users had existed since the city’s founding and how they thrived today.
It was also the location of a fundraising gala set to be held Friday night for the upper echelons of Seattle’s well-to-do society and magic users, hosted by one Caitlin Adler—socialite, sorceress, and federal target. The SOA investigative team working up the case had a whole personal history of the woman in the local file, and Spencer had read through it three times yesterday. Out of all the covens on the list, the Cascade Coven seemed the likeliest one to have the means to buy the Ouroboros Mirror.
The thing about infiltrating a group or organization was to knowpeople, and Spencer was excellent at reading people. His magic helped in that regard when it came to seeing a person’s aura. Being able to tailor his reactions to please someone else enabled him to earn trust that would later be misplaced but would ultimately help complete his missions. He’d done it many times while with the Mage Corps and PIA, and he wondered if it would work with the Cascade Coven. He supposed it would depend on how insular that group was.
Spencer doubted the director wanted him to spend years in deep cover trying to take back the Ouroboros Mirror. Caitlin Adler was a thirty-five-year-old woman who had cultivated a reclusive, mysterious life that made knowing her motivations and political stance difficult. Infiltration of her inner circle wouldn’t be easy, if not outright impossible. In Spencer’s experience, when a target’s public life was minimal and their private life tough to unearth, the best bet was to follow the money. The field team had already made inroads in that area but were hitting a wall with offshore accounts and shell companies.
The museum opened at eight in the morning, earlier than most others, but it offered a working space to the covens in Seattle, allowing for spellcasting on the premises. Spencer pushed open the door, feeling a tingle of foreign magic run from the top of his head down to his feet. The searching spell embedded in the doorframe was better than a metal detector. Fatima was unbothered by it, and the spell didn’t catch her presence.
Spencer had his shields up, wanting to pass as mundane human to anyone present who was a magic user. The museum worker at the ticketing desk gave him a welcoming smile as he approached. “Good morning. Just one general admission ticket?”
Spencer scanned the screen on the wall behind her that listed out the ticket prices for admission and separate costs for special exhibits. A corner of the screen was blocked out, the banner there announcing the 50th Seattle Covens Gala. “Yeah, just one.”
“Are you a local? If you are, you get a small discount.”
“Nah, I’m here on vacation.”
“Welcome to Seattle, then. We have a special exhibition running right now focused on the Seattle Underground and the spells involved in elevating the city if you’re interested.”
“Sure, why not.” Spencer dug out his wallet, slipping free his bank card. “What’s the gala about?”
Playing dumb usually got people talking, and the woman was more than happy to gush about the museum’s fundraising efforts. “It’s a great night for the museum, but tickets have been sold out for weeks now.”
“Sounds fun. Bet the food is great.”
