“I think …” Her voice wavered. She cleared it and tried again. “I think it might have been a good idea to recruit more help. Or go to the CIA.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to put more people at risk. And I’ve no hope of persuading the authorities that magic even exists.”
“I found you very convincing on that point,” she said, unable to resist.
He rolled his eyes at the pun, leaning his elbows on the thighs she was very aware she was not touching. “Yes, because that’s what you desperately wanted. Most everyone else—particularly people in officialgovernment positions—would see a rip-roaring magician. Law enforcers are not, as a rule, inclined to believe outlandish things. And even if they were,” he muttered, “Kincaid would outmaneuver them.”
Kincaid? Oh, right—both wizards had mentioned that name. “The evil overlord?”
She thought she might get another round of rolled eyes—if not a full-blown snort—but he gave no sign he thought this description was at all overstated.
“Yes,” he said heavily.
Now she had a thousandmorequestions.
“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “Microchips. Explain the part about microchips.”
He sighed. Perhaps he’d spent so much time keeping secrets that he was loath to tell them, even now.
After a moment, he said, “Early microchips had a few thousand transistors apiece, and there was nothing magical about them. Now it’s hundreds of millions, and here’s the rub: Transistors that small won’t work. Not without fifth-force manipulation, I mean. At some point, a magic-user intervened in the process.”
“Kincaid?”
“No. I don’t know who, but it wasn’t Kincaid. He’s not an innovator. Perhaps he learned how to do it from the inventor and then killed them.”
She shuddered.
“Exactly,” he said. “Now he’s got a stable of wizards who handle that critical step for all the microchip producers—for a fee. A substantial one.”
Oh man. “How many people in the companiesknow?”
“Very, very few. Kincaid’s people come in under the guise of ‘quality assurance’ prior to testing. It’s fast work. One wizard can handle multiple production facilities.”
“How did you find all this out?”
He hesitated again, staring at his hands. She cast back to his work experience, fleetingly online, and grasped at the answer before he gave it.
“That California company you worked for,” she said. “It’s a microchip manufacturer, isn’t it?”
He looked up, eyes and mouth wide open. No doubt he never expected she would make the connection. “Yes.”
“And you can see auras.”
She couldn’t help but be abitpleased with herself for working it out on her own, though the expression on his face and the slump of his shoulders persuaded her to move on. Uncovering the truth couldn’t have been pleasant for him.
“All right,” she said. “So ... so this Kincaid runs a profitable business. But I don’t see why he should have to kill anyone outside the Organization who figures out how to do magic. He’s awizard. He could make billions in fake cash if he wanted.”
Hartgrave leaned a little closer. “Illusions are good enough for some things—I’m sure Crawford and Shaw worked one into the spell they cast around us, to keep anyone outside it from seeing anything—but they aren’t fine-detail enough for counterfeiting. Besides, manipulated magic dissipates eventually, illusions quickest of all.”
“Still—wait, all spells dissipate? What about this room?”
“An exception.”
She again wondered who had constructed it—who, how, when and why. But this was no time for digressions. “Fine, I’ll accept that Kincaid can’t manufacture his own money. But that couldn’t be the only reason he’s murdering people, could it?”
“Only his psychiatrist could say—if he has one, which I doubt.” Hartgrave rose from the bed, making for the wardrobe. “But hehasgot a highly lucrative monopoly with a service most anyone could be trained to provide. Some would go to extreme lengths to maintain such a lovely status quo. Would you like the clean sheets?”
She’d had a point she was going to make, but his question derailed her. “Um ... No. No, all yours.”
