Grey sat at the corner of the bar farthest from the door. He liked to be able to watch the people, the girls, come in. He could tell, usually, who had strong magic and who didn’t—hell, half the time he knew which Houses the girls were part of and how closely related they were to the main families. And even when it wasn’t immediately obvious, being farther away gave him time to think, to consider. The corner seat meant he could watch, directly and in the mirror that hung behind the bar. No reason to waste an approach, no reason to make himself memorable if he didn’t want to be.
He normally wouldn’t have come back so soon, not while he still had a supply, but the conversation with Merlin made him wonder if it wouldn’t be better to have more bones in reserve. Miles was powerful—if he was looking for alternate sources of magic, it might be a good idea to show him how effective the bones could be. Plus, if he was going to challenge Sydney, he needed to be sure she didn’t have any advantage over him.
Even so, at two drinks in and no possibilities, he had just about given up and decided to leave when he saw her. Short dark hair, almost conservatively dressed, but still sexy. She looked like the sort of girl he might have said hi to at the bar if he were here looking for a date. Best of all, she was alone.
He waited. He waited while she settled in, while she had a drink. He watched as her eyes scanned the crowd, but not like she was looking for someone she knew, just like she was looking for someone. He watched as she didn’t check her phone.
He didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t from any of the Houses. But she was here, which meant she had enough magic to find out about the place, enough magic to get in the door, and probably not much more than that. Perfect. There was no one important who would miss her.
Grey signaled the bartender. “The woman at the end of the bar—if she orders another drink, I’d like to buy it for her.”
The bartender nodded. Fewer than five minutes later, the woman sat down next to him, vodka gimlet in hand. “Thanks for the drink,” she said.
“My pleasure,” Grey said. “Grey Prospero.”
Her eyes widened, just a bit. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Harper.”
? ? ?
Harper’s lip curled as she looked at the man passed out on the bed. Then she set the timer on her phone so that she could be sure she was finished and gone by the time the spell wore off, and got to work.
It had been the emailed wards and spells for the archive that had given her the idea—if it was possible for a magician to package magic in a way that would let mundane people trigger it, then she wanted some. And she guessed that if such things existed, that sex would drive their creation as much as it drove any other technology.
She’d been right, and it had been the bartender who had hooked her up. She was a magician—Alanna Valentine—and when Harper explained what she was doing, that she was looking for the man who had been murdering women for their magic, Alanna said that she would help however she could. She’d had a cousin, she said, who’d disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
She’d given Harper a lighter, one Harper had been carrying in her purse each time she’d come back to the bar. “Once you find the guy, just ask him to light your cigarette for you. When he clicks it—or anyone does, so don’t get confused and do it yourself—it activates the spell.”
Harper didn’t smoke, but that was fine. It was easy magic, and it worked. Grey had become very affectionate and had been delighted when she’d suggested that they go back to his place. They’d barely made it in the door before he passed out. When he woke up, he’d be very confused.
Very.
Harper methodically stripped him of his clothes, tossing them around the room so that it looked like they’d come off in the heat of passion.
Then she searched his apartment.
She got lucky—if that could possibly be considered the right word in this situation—when she got to the final set of kitchen cupboards. They weren’t even hidden. She guessed that when he had gone through the spells to take down his extra wards when they came in, his lack of focus meant that he’d accidentally taken down all of the wards in his apartment.
She found a tiny glass jar. Inside it, three human finger bones.
Her eyes went from the glass and its terrible contents to the man on the bed. She thought about the women who had gone missing the past few months.
She thought about Rose, whose bones hadn’t been stolen but whose hands had been carved into, cut open. Who had still had her life stolen from her.
There was a block of knives just on the edge of the counter, and Harper’s hand ached with the desire to pick one up.
Instead, hands shaking, she picked up her phone and took pictures—close up on the bones, then the cupboard, then the kitchen. Enough to put what she’d found in its horrible context. Then she grabbed her coat and her purse, and she got the hell out of there.
? ? ?
Grey paced around his apartment. It felt somehow unfamiliar to him. He’d woken up naked and alone in his bed. He didn’t remember fucking the girl, though he supposed he must have. He didn’t even remember bringing her home with him, and that was part of the problem. He never brought girls here. He never brought anyone here.
Even worse, when he’d woken up, all his wards were down. All of them, even the ones on his cabinet where he stored his spare magic. Nothing was missing—it was the first thing he’d checked—but still. Something felt off, felt wrong. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the girl, whoever she was, had opened that cabinet, had seen what was inside.
Not, he told himself, that anyone would believe her. Some nobody who wasn’t even part of a House. But still—he’d gone out looking for power, and instead of refilling his supply, he’d brought a girl back here and gotten laid. He thought. He scratched his balls, wishing he could remember.
Better to be safe. With the wards down, who knew what she might have seen. Grey took the finger bones from their container and ground them to dust with a mortar and pestle. He added honey, and wine, and salt, and he drank all of it down. The magic burned going down his throat, burned as it traveled out through his veins.
Now even if she did tell someone, even if they did believe her, there was nothing to be found, no matter how hard anyone looked. And he could always get more if he needed to.
He glanced back at the rumpled bed and got dressed. There was something he needed to do.
? ? ?
Sydney was on the way to House Prospero. She’d picked up some clothes and food for Grace, who seemed to be settling in well, all things considered.
“I feel like I’m okay while I’m here in the House, but I’m not quite ready to reintroduce myself to the Unseen World yet. Things are still—I don’t even know what things are, but you know how that place messes with your head,” she’d said when Sydney had called to check clothing sizes.
Sydney did. “It takes a while, for not being there to feel—forget normal. For it to even feel possible. And even though the adjustment is to something good, it’s an adjustment. Give yourself time.”