The girl had hands like magic, and quite the devious mind, since she had come up with this plan. Veranix knew she had learned her craft with the Rynax brothers, a pair of real schemers from the west side who worked elaborate heists.
As quickly as she had brushed by the dealer, she was out of sight.
Someone else came up to the dealer, and after their brief exchange, he was looking put out. He checked his coat pockets, and then again, and looked all around him. Veranix pretended not to make too much note of him as the dealer, swearing a hot streak, stormed off down the road.
Veranix followed, but not as Veranix Calbert, magic student at the University of Maradaine.
He slipped into an alley, and with a magically powered bound, leaped up to the top of the roof while shedding the illusion of his uniform.
Now he was the Thorn—crimson flowing cloak and hood, shading magic hiding his face. Fighting staff and a quiver of arrows on his back, magical rope at his belt, and his brand-new bow in his hand.
He was excited to try the new bow, finally.
From the rooftop he stalked after the dealer until he went down another alley. He knocked on one basement door and then went in.
Veranix dropped down to the ground, and drawing two arrows—normal ones, not the gifts from Verci Rynax—he kicked the door open and went in.
A small storeroom, and four guys, including the one he had followed, standing among crates of effitte.
Perfect.
“Gentlemen,” he said as he drew back the pair of arrows. “I’m the Thorn. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
He loosed the arrows, and allowed a smile to come to his face. He was going to enjoy knocking these dealers about, and destroying the poison they were selling. He’d keep doing that until it, and the entire empire of drugs and death Willem Fenmere was running, were wiped out of the city.
Inspector Second Class Minox Welling needed more lamp oil.
Whoever designed the archive room at the Inemar Constabulary stationhouse clearly did not expect anyone to be staying in the archives for extended periods. There was almost no natural light. The few windows were small and at the top of the wall—street level in the basement—and were on the north side of the building. It seemed an absurd design for a room devoted to finding and reading written records.
Even more absurd was the limited budget for lamp oil, and despite Captain Cinellan’s promises that he would try to get Minox more, he had almost run out for the month, and today was only the twenty-fifth of Oscan. In addition, his extended time down here had begun on the sixth. Without a significant change in the near future, his coming months would be largely in the dark.
His exile to the archive room—technically to desk duty, but that translated to him being down in the archives much of the day—was to be one hundred days, of which nineteen had passed. And he was already feeling his grip on normality slipping away. He needed the work, to be on the streets, dealing with cases and, hopefully, making the city safer.
But instead he was down here, him and his dangerous magical hand.
Minox decided to solve at least one problem by using his hand as a light source. It wasn’t efficient—the use of magic taxed him, and he couldn’t efficiently use his hand to look through files and as a light source at the same time. If he had received proper training in magic, he might be able to create the light without it having to come from the hand itself. But he remained untrained, Uncircled, and outcast among mages and the Constabulary.
Despite all that, he was determined to make the most of his exile, to use it as an opportunity. The archives were in a frightful state—the chief archivist clerk had passed away six months before, and no one had been hired to take her place. Plus, she had clearly grown negligent in her later years.
Minox had been spending the last nineteen days making some sense and order out of things, organizing the files that represented over twenty years’ worth of investigations, cases, and arrests. He found a letter detailing the process of sending files to the City Archivist—that must be an astounding library of records, over on the north side of the city—but those protocols had not been followed for some time. He had hoped for some assistance, but no one was available.
His cousin Nyla hadn’t been back to work since her encounter with the killer called Sholiar. And his sister Corrie—
Corrie was gone. Maybe dead. He was holding out hope that she was alive, and that somewhere in these files was the clue that would help him find her.
“Welling, you down here?” That was Inspector First Class Henfir Mirrell, currently the Chief Inspector of the Grand Inspection Unit. A post that was far from deserved, but he had been promoted to it nonetheless.
“The light must make that apparent,” Minox called back.
Mirrell came around the file cabinets to Minox, discomfort plain on his face. Probably from the bright glow emanating from Minox’s left hand.
“Everything all right down here?” Mirrell asked.
“Lamp oil is, apparently, at a premium, but I’m making do,” Minox said. “Do you need me for something?”
“Yeah, something scratching at the back of my head. We busted up that ring that was abducting kids, working out of the docks, right?”
“There was an arrest of a group of abductors, yes,” Minox said. “Let me guess—a new surge in missing children.”
“Yeah,” Mirrell said. “Maybe it’s connected, maybe it’s not. But it’s
