‘If Harper’s in trouble, we need to help,’ she says. ‘Sarah, please tell her I’m sorry for everything I said. I was just so sad about my dad, and that she didn’t – couldn’t – save him.’
I could hug her for that self-correction. Abigail, Julia, and I, back when we were all still a coven, thought Izzy a little naïve.Childish, Abigail would say in her sharply pitying way. But there’s real maturity in her now. It breaks my heart to know grief has put it there.
‘Harper would have given anything to save him, if she could,’ I tell her.
Pierre – who died getting Harper away from those who would have registered her, and filed her into their databases, and given her wild, unruly Gift the leaden label ofwitch. Ofmalef. His death is for nothing while she’s still in danger.
‘Ortiz didn’t bring her son herself,’ Maggie says. ‘So I’d bet my tiny and heavily-mortgaged house she’s still with Harper. Could something of Luka’s help you track his mother, Sarah?’
It’s a good idea, but I shake my head. ‘Not unless she gave it to him. It’s something belonging to Ortiz herself I need. Did he turn up with anything like that, Bridget?’
‘Sarah, I can’t …’ my friend says. But her daughter has already poured the cat onto the floor and darted away upstairs. When she returns, it’s with a chic and not-at-all Izzy-ish silk scarf in her hand.
‘She was here for dinner last week,’ Izzy says. I remember what I saw through the window, and avoid glancing at Bridget with all the hurt in my eyes that I couldn’t showthen. ‘I told her it was really pretty, and she just took it off and gave it to me.’
She edges gently past her mom and holds it out. I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do with a scrap that Ortiz has wrapped around her neck a few times for show. Generally, there needs to be a real emotional attachment. But I’ll make do with what I’ve got. A few resources from my workroom might help.
‘Thank you,’ I mouth at Izzy, and her half-smile in return is so like Pierre’s I flee to my car, Maggie at my back. On my passenger seat, my phone is spasming. It did that several times on the drive here, but I ignored it to get to Bridget’s faster. Throwing down Ortiz’s scarf like it turned into a snake, I snatch up the phone. Naomi, halfway through leaving a voicemail.
‘… keep calling you but … Oh, Sarah?’
‘I really can’t right now.’
‘No, you need to hear this.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Ortiz has Harper. They had Luka, too, but he’s been released into a family friend’s care.’
‘How did he seem?’
There’s a weird urgency to Naomi’s voice. She’s profoundly rattled. But whatever’s eating her is less important than me getting to work tracing Ortiz.
‘I didn’t see him. Apparently, he’s in bed, overwrought and stuffed with sleeping pills. Sorry, Naomi, but he’s not my priority right now.’
There’s an appalled hiss from the Moot investigator at the other end of the line.
‘The Moot Ledger updated an hour ago. He’s showing asnull.’
‘Null?’
My throat closes right up after that one hollow syllable.Null. Magical divestment.They’ve torn away Luka’s Gift.
‘But Harper was with him.’ I force each narrow word out, and it hurts as bad as vomiting nails.
‘There’ve been no other updates other than a death registering itself,’ Naomi says, adding quickly. ‘Some ancient witch down in Texas.’
‘That could simply be because the Moot never recorded her as having magic, so she’s not on the Ledger,’ I say. ‘Luka was Determined and added to it after his arrest, right?’
‘Look, Sarah, I need to see you urgently,’ she persists. ‘A lot has happened here at HQ. I’ll come to you if necessary. I can drive it in just over three hours.’
‘I’m going to my workroom,’ I tell her. ‘But as soon I’ve discovered where Ortiz is, I’ll be gone.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ she says. ‘This is important. It’s about Charles Okoye and Simeon Barr. And you.’
40
SARAH
Everything I can think of has been pulled from the shelves of my workroom, and my bench is a jumble of glass bottles, gleaming vials, silken threads, and copper tokens. I’ve tried one spell after another to enhance any resonance I can read off Ortiz’s scarf. I’ve rinsed it in tincture of clary sage, and eyedrops of the same have made my pupils round as the moon, but no shimmering haze clears to show me my child. I’ve used the slippery silk square to parcel up an oiled sunstone with red thread, desperately trying to coax clarity from it, but no insight descends.
