“Whereabouts are these cantrips manufactured?” I asked.
“Here in Arcadia,” she said. “Why?”
“The Death King,” said Ryan, “would like to know the names of the traders you work with, in Elysium in particular. You might have heard of the incident a couple of months ago where some of your cantrips were misplaced and used to create illegal spells, and we have reason to believe the same might be happening again.”
Her face paled at the mention of the Death King. “All our sources are legitimate, but we can’t control what people do with cantrips in their own homes. Despite that, we’re closely monitoring all our contacts.”
She might be telling the truth. Reusable cantrips might be used for any purpose and nobody would be able to trace them back to their source, but the cantrips on the table weren’t marked with the Family’s symbol. They wouldn’t do something like that so openly, though, in case the vampires swooped in and shut the place down.
“Where can we get a list of the people you supply cantrips to?” I asked.
She chewed on her lower lip. “You’ll have to ask the boss about that. He’s at the warehouse next door.”
“All right,” I said. “Thanks.”
As we turned to leave, a voice spoke from behind us. “Oh, hello, Ryan.”
I turned to see an elf, startlingly attractive with a tanned face and pointed ears, walking through the crowd as though oblivious to the attention he was drawing from the other patrons. He stopped in front of Ryan, a smile on his face.
“Friend of yours?” I said to the Air Element.
“We both know Liv,” Ryan replied.
Okay. Not an ally, then.
The elf turned to me with a curious stare. “Who are you?”
“Bria,” I said. “I’m the Death King’s new Fire Element.”
“I’m Trix,” he said. “Most humans can’t pronounce my full name, so I go by Trix.”
“Nice to meet you.” He couldn’t tell I was part elf—my cantrip hid my pointed ears—but it struck me that I didn’t necessarily need to hide them anymore. I’d originally tried to make myself look less distinctive for the sake of maintaining anonymity, but as the Death King’s Fire Element, I drew attention just by walking into a room anyway.
“We should go outside,” said Ryan. “We’re done in here.”
The three of us wove through the crowd and out of the market into the open air, at which point the elf turned back to face us.
“What’re you here for?” he asked.
“More trouble with illegal cantrips,” Ryan said. “Allegedly, someone else is using reusable cantrips from the COS to create illegal spells on the side, though since it’s Bria’s claim, I can’t verify its accuracy.”
Hey! “I can show you the cantrip if you don’t believe me, but flashing the Family’s symbol in the market might get me arrested. Might have escaped your attention, but everyone in that warehouse was staring at us already.”
“Illegal cantrips?” said the elf. “That sounds like Liv’s area.”
I groaned inwardly. Of course it did. Liv always seemed to show up where I least wanted or needed her.
“Not really,” said Ryan. “It’s more her friend Devon who deals with cantrips. She helped us track down the people responsible for creating illegal cantrips last time around.”
“Who were they, exactly?” I asked. “Might it be the same people again?”
“We broke up all their safe houses,” said Ryan, wearing a disgruntled expression. “The operation might’ve survived in some form, but I can’t say how the cantrips ended up in Elysium.”
“Did those cantrips…” I paused. “Did they have any kind of mark on them? Like a signature?”
“No,” they said. “They were all reusable, though, which is a relatively new model created here in Arcadia itself.”
Hmm. Maybe not the Family’s doing, but they’d certainly stepped in pretty quickly. Cantrips which wiped themselves clean after use could be used to conceal all kinds of evidence.
“Who ran the operation?” I asked. “Last time, I mean? There’s gotta be a figurehead.”
“A vampire,” said Ryan shortly. “None of the original perpetrators walks free, but those inferno cantrips didn’t drop out of the sky.”
“I know they didn’t,” I said. “The cantrip which killed the jailor in the House of Fire wasn’t an inferno, though. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“A cantrip killed someone at the House of Fire?” said Trix.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether I should be discussing it in front of him. While elves didn’t tend to get involved with human politics, I didn’t know the guy, even if Ryan trusted him. On the other hand, I’d already brought up the subject. “Yeah, but we don’t know what the spell was. Or how it got there.”
“Liv might know,” said Trix.
“She has enough crap to deal with,” Ryan said. “Last thing we need is to get her wrapped up in illegal cantrip business again. Right, I’ll go and speak to the COS’s people and get a list of who they sell their cantrips to outside of the city. It’s this way.”
While Ryan took the lead towards the warehouse on our right-hand side, Trix fell into step with me. “Are you an elf?”
I startled at the blatant question. “What? Why?”
“You move like one.”
He was definitely sharper than he looked, that was for sure.
“Half elf,” I said. “Half human. I never met my elf family.”
“Shame,” he said. “There aren’t many of us left.”
“No.” I didn’t know what he expected me to say, so I caught up with Ryan, who stood talking to a bulky security guard outside the warehouse doors.
“Are you with the COS?” Ryan asked.
“Who wants to know?” said the guard.
“The Death King,” I said, figuring mentioning his name would speed the whole thing up. “He has concerns about your contacts in Elysium. Can you name them?”
“Ask my supervisor. He’s in there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t touch anything.”
Ignoring Ryan’s look of annoyance, I entered the warehouse beside them, where we found ourselves in a small storeroom. Through a door on the left, I could
