“And it’s the same damn bird in every recording.”
“You’re certain?” A chill ran down my spine.
“Positive.” He pulled up five more hunting sequences side by side, highlighting the raven in each one. “Same construct, different locations. Always watching, always recording. Always focused on you three and whatever you’re hunting.”
I pinched my lips together, connecting dots that should have been obvious.
“The raven Zane shot when he found you—”
“Same model, if not the exact same construct,” he confirmed.
I was right. Arabesquehadbeen using our hunts to gather information. The realization sent a surge of anger through me. Not just at the witch, but at myself for not being more vigilant. How could I have missed something so fundamental to our security?
“She’s collecting data on our fighting patterns,” I said, thinking out loud. “Our strengths, weaknesses, how we coordinate—”
“Not just you three,” Foster interrupted. “I think she’s primarily interested in Seri.”
“Explain.”
“Think about it.” He pulled up footage of Seri during training sessions at Evermere. “Arabesque was so busy siphoning from Seri that she never bothered to learn what talents your mate actually had. Now Seri’s safely behind your wards, protected by three dhampir husbands, and Arabesque is playing catch-up, trying to determine the full extent of her skills and how strongly developed they are.”
“The Pine Barrens,” I said, connecting more dots. “When we captured Ondine Filcher’s ghost—”
“Arabesque might have realized that Seri possessed Spectral Sight,” he finished.
“And at the summer camp with the corrupted shadows—”
“She might have discovered Seri’s shadow traveling.”
“What else has she seen?” I ran a hand through my hair, disturbed by how much Arabesque might already know. “What else might she know about Seri’s capabilities?”
“Hard to say without knowing exactly how long these ravens have been watching, but from what I can tell reviewing these recordings, the bird always appears after you’ve engaged with whatever you’re hunting. It’s never present during the planning or approach. My guess is she’s only seeing the combat phase, which limits what she can deduce.”
“At this point, the only one of Seri’s abilities I can say for sure that Arabesque doesn’t know about is Gravitational Pull. Seri only figured it out last month.”
“Well, now that Zane’s blown up her spy bird, Arabesque’s information gathering has hit a roadblock. At least until she develops a new method or device.”
“In the meantime, I’ll tell Cas to go through our job offers and turn down anything that might link back to Arabesque in any way.”
I was specifically thinking of three: A haunted mirror in Rochester, a suspected skinwalker in the Adirondacks, and anabandoned mine with reports of strange gravitational anomalies near Lake Placid. That last one would definitely be declined. Too risky, too specific to a lunar witch’s skill set.
“Smart,” Foster agreed. “I can help develop some counter-surveillance measures, too. Maybe even find a way to feed her misinformation if shedoesmanage to spy on you again. Make her think Seri has powers she doesn’t actually possess. Could be fun to mess with her head.”
Arabesque was intelligent, but her arrogance often blinded her to subtler deceptions. If we could control what information she received about Seri’s abilities, we might be able to lead her into underestimating our beloved. Or better yet, planning for capabilities Seri didn’t actually possess.
“Good work on this, Foster. Not many would have caught it. I sure as hell didn’t.”
He shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise.
“When you’ve spent as much time watching your back as I have, you develop an eye for this sort of thing.”
“You good working with Z on those counter-surveillance measures? He loves getting creative with that sort of thing.”
“I know,” he snorted. “Yesterday he was trying to convince me to help him build what he called decoy daughters, and I quote, ‘just to fuck with the Dark bitch.’ ”
That was Zane. Always finding a way to turn even our most dangerous problems into opportunities for creative chaos.
“Let him run with it,” I advised. “Just review whatever he comes up with before it actually gets deployed. Last time he built a decoy without supervision, it ended up exploding in the garage.”
