Chapter 1
'What do you think of the sign?'
Clare set down a box of desk supplies and a bouquet of fresh cut flowers, and frowned. 'Well, to be honest, Sam, I wasn't going to say anything about it, but I don't think the crow landing on your head this morning is a good omen. It means your life is about to go crisis central. But I'm here to help, and you know I'll do what I can to keep you from going outright insane.'
'No… I meant the sign on the door.' I nodded to where a local sign painter was putting away her stencils and paints.
'Oh. Mmm.' Clare tipped her head and considered the freshly painted words on the upper half of the open office door, 'EYE SCRY, SAMANTHA COSSE AND CLARE BENNET, DISCREET PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS. It's nice, but I Still think it's a bit too strange. People are going to think we're not normal private investigators.'
'We aren't normal, Clare.'
'Speak for yourself. I'm as normal as they come.' She plucked a tulip from the bouquet and went to the window, using her elbow to wipe a small clean patch on the grimy glass. 'Isn't it a lovely morning?'
I glanced out the window at the grey, sodden-looking sky, and shrugged as I arranged paper in my new printer/copier/fax machine. 'It's a typical Scottish May: grey, cold, and wet.'
'When I woke up this morning,' Clare said dreamily, unconsciously striking an elegant pose that made her a star on the fashion runways, 'the dew had kissed all the sweet little flowers just as if faeries had danced upon them with damp little slippers. Don't you think that's lovely? I thought that up all by myself.'
'Very, um…' Clare blinked silver-tipped lashes at me. I relented under her hopeful expression. 'Very poetic. But not terribly accurate, is it?'
She blinked again, her large blue eyes clouded with confusion. 'What do you mean?'
'Well… just look at you.' I waved a hand toward her torso. 'You're the opposite of short, sturdy, dark-haired me—you're tall, lovely, elegant, and have that silver blond hair that everyone seems to rave about, but you're hardly in a dancing-on-the-dew-kissed-flowers sort of form, are you? You'd squash the little buggers flat were you to try it in your human form.'
She rolled her expressive eyes and bopped me on the arm with her tulip. Clare always had flowers with her—she couldn't help it any more than my mother could. It was just part of their genetic makeup. 'You're going to start that silly business again, and I won't listen to it, I simply won't listen to it.'
I took her by both arms and shook her gently. 'You're a faery, Clare. It's time you face up to that fact. You're a faery, your real name is Glimmerharp, and you were left with my aunt and uncle because your faery parents wanted you to have a better life than running around in wet shoes, stamping dew onto flowers. I doubt if they would have done so had they known that your idea of a better life is to parade up and down in scanty lingerie in front of strangers with cameras, but that's neither here nor there. You are a faery, and the sooner you admit that, the happier everyone around you will be.'
'I am not a faery; I am an underwear model.'
'You're both.'
'Oh!' She plucked a piece of the smooth red tulip's flower and popped it in her mouth. 'You take that back!'
'I won't,' I said calmly, releasing her to hook the printer up to the laptop that sat on the scarred and battered oak desk I'd claimed as my own. 'It's the truth, and you know it, even if you are in denial.'
'You're a fine one to talk about denial!' she said, marching over to her desk, a trail of tulip petals gently drifting to the floor behind her. 'You deny your heritage every chance you get.'
I laughed. I couldn't help it—the mere thought of me being able to ignore who I was, was beyond ridiculous. 'There's no way I could deny my parentage—not after growing up the only kid in my neighborhood whose mother is a bona fida poetry-spouting, pointy-eared, gonna-live-forever elf. Years of Keebler jokes made sure I knew just how different I was, and we won't even go into what a mention of
'I refuse to talk to you when you get in that mood,' Clare said, and picked up an empty milk jug she'd brought to serve as a vase. 'I won't let you ruin the excitement of the day with all that nonsense.'
'Excitement?' I looked around the small office as Clare left to fill the vase with water. The painter had toddled off, leaving the faint odor of acrylic paints behind her. Through the open door I could see a dark, dingy hallway that led to a couple of flats and a shared bathroom.
'That's not quite the word that comes to mind,' I said loud enough that Clare could hear me down the hall. 'But never fear! A little elbow grease and some creative decorating courtesy of that thrift store you saw on the way in should do much to wipe out the years of neglect. I just wish Mila would come and get her boxes of sex toys.'
Clare's muffled voice drifted into the room as I crawled under the desk to plug in the computer equipment. 'You shouldn't have told her she could keep her stock here.'
'I had a hard enough time persuading her to rent this office to me—ow!' I rubbed the back of my head where I cracked it on the underside of the desk. 'Evidently her sex store is doing a tremendous amount of business and she needs all the storage space she can get. Besides, she knocked a hundred pounds off the rent just for us putting up with a few extra boxes.'
Clare's answer was drowned out by the sound of running water. I scooted backward under the desk, dragging with me the phone cord to plug in the new set of phones I'd purchased. 'Regardless of the naughty toys, I don't know how exciting this job is going to be to someone who spends time in Milan and Paris and Berlin being paid thousands of pounds to stand around and pout in her panties.'
'It's not nearly as exciting as you might think,' Clare said, coming back into the room. 'That's why I decided to go on hiatus for a year. My modeling batteries need to be recharged, and this job should do wonders for that.'
'Eh… OK.' I plugged the cord into the appropriate wall socket, and jumped violently when the phone above me rang loudly, causing me to whack my head on the desk a second time.
'Phone,' Clare said helpfully.
'Oh, thank you. I might have thought it was my umbrella ringing, otherwise.' I hunkered down under the desk rubbing my abused head.
'I'll get it,' Clare said, hurrying over to her desk. 'Your umbrella is ringing. Honestly, Sam! Your imagination! Good morning, Eye Scry, discreet private enquiries, this is Clare. How can I help?'
I crawled out from under my desk, wondering as I brushed off the dusty knees of my pants who was calling us. I'd only set up the phone lines the day before, and had given the number out to just one person other than Clare. It was probably just the phone company checking to see if the line worked. I turned on my laptop and sat down at my desk while Clare made little murmurs of encouragement to whoever was on the phone.
'I see. Well, I don't believe that will be a problem, Mr. Race. My partner has a particular talent with finding lost objects. Oh, you did?' Clare looked at me, her eyes round. 'Then perhaps it would be best if you talked to her yourself. Can you hold? Thank you.'
'Lost items?' I asked. 'That's not a client, is it?'
'Yes, it is. It's a Mr. Owen Race. He's a medieval specialist of some sort, and he wants us to find some sort of an antique book for him. But Sam—he says that Brother Jacob recommended you to him. I thought you were kicked out of the Order of Diviners?'
'I was, but Jake said he'd keep an ear out for me for anyone who might be able to use the services of a failed Diviner. Sounds like he found someone. Hello, this is Samantha Cosse. I understand you need some help locating an object?'
Like Clare's, the man's voice was English, very upper-class, positively reeking of places like Eton and Cambridge and of the BBC. It made me all the more aware of my flat, accentless (to my ears) Canadian speech. 'Good morning, Miss Cosse. Yes, as I told your associate, I am seeking to locate a very rare medieval manuscript that was stolen from me recently—the
