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“You want me to use my locator potion to detect Dark Magic in Buckley’s blood?”
“Correct,” Dawson replied.
The implications were clear and chilled her to the bone. “You think someone killed him and then used something to make it disappear in all medical diagnostics?”
He gave a short nod, not volunteering more information. Neither Dawson nor the Highmage struck her as conspiratorial, but this idea seemed downright insane. There was another substantial problem.
“My locator potion doesn’t even work yet.”
“Unfortunate for the both of us,” Dawson agreed. “But Obryn has made some improvements to your potion.”
He fished her notebook out of his jacket and handed it to her. She searched through the pages and got to the part with Obryn’s suggestions, fascinated by his changes. A thought popped up in her mind, and before she forgot it, she took a pen out of her bag and made a note.
“Please don’t tell me you’re using regular ink,” he uttered in disgust.
People in the magic sphere only used magic ink, but she preferred to use her fountain pen from Yharvan. Aside from its lack of magic, she liked the weight of it in her palm.
He handed her a piece of paper. “Obryn has given me a list of ingredients. Anything else you need besides these?”
The list was extensive, covering even ingredients she hadn’t thought of. “No, that should be everything.” She tried to keep her voice even, pretending it wasn’t monumental to be able to get whatever ingredients she desired.
“Marvelous. I will get them for you tomorrow, and we will meet up at the same time.”
“We? Are you required to supervise me?”
“Let’s say it’s better to keep an eye on you. We wouldn’t want you destroying any more equipment.”
Of course, the Highmage had told him. She shot him a look.
The last thing she needed was Dawson staring over her shoulder the whole time she tried to work on her research. But she had agreed to the terms. Standing in the room of stark white lights with a dead body and Aidric Dawson, she was increasingly convinced the bargain had been a horrible idea.
Mira had barely slept. Nightmares woke her up again. It was always the same dream with just a few details changed. She knew it was a nightmare, but that didn’t make it any less painful to see the moment her parents died from Synth on repeat.
Synth was so powerful, it tainted the very essence of the victim’s magic.
Rakkley had been shunned from the magic community for most of his life. The Wielder had big ambitions, but his potions had always failed. That was until Synth. The invention catapulted him into Mercer’s inner circle, and Rakkley became his right-hand man overnight.
By the time Mira arrived at her parents’ clinic on that fateful day, Rakkley was long gone. She had never come face-to-face with him, but ever since that day, he haunted her nightmares.
In her dreams, he stood there, among the bodies in his tattered robes, and just stared at her. Knowingly. As if she would be next. A beak-like mask covered most of his face—to hide the horrible disfiguration he’d endured from experiments gone wrong, or so the stories went. The part of his face that was visible under the hood of his cape resembled more skull than living human. Eye sockets sunken in. Black dots marred his gray skin, which looked like cracked leather.
For the fourth time that night she woke up with a gasp and tried to slow her breathing when she heard the familiar whisper that always preceded a scroll’s arrival. It materialized in the air and gently settled on her desk like a feather gliding to the ground. It was clear who it was from, given the silver bow with Dawson’s initials etched on it in black.
She got up and unfurled the scroll.
Got the ingredients. Meet me at the same spot tonight at 10.
Dawson
PS: This was obviously written with magic ink. See how much better it is?
She grabbed a fountain pen from the holder on her desk, rolled it in a scroll, and with a quick spell, she made it disappear. Where was Dawson right now, when her pen hit him in the head?
Seconds later, another scroll arrived.
A rather aggressive response to an academic discussion, but I can see how you ran out of arguments and had to resort to violence.
Dawson
