“I saw Grey’s name on the list of candidate Houses. How do you want me to deal with him in a duel?” His question and tone were both carefully neutral.
Miranda didn’t even blink at the confirmation that Grey would be participating in the Turning. It was what she had expected from him. “Should he challenge the House, deal with him as required by the terms of engagement.”
A very polite call and response that meant that Ian could kill Grey in a mortal challenge if one was made. Ian waited a beat. When Miranda said nothing else, he continued. “All right. Do you require a demonstration of magic?”
“I’ve watched you grow up, Ian. I’m quite satisfied with your magical abilities. I’m happy to sign the contract if you are,” Miranda said.
“I already have.” He smiled then and opened his right hand, spreading the fingers. The top drawer of her desk opened.
She pulled the thick sheet of paper from her drawer. The standard agreement, modified for his terms for payment. His signature at the bottom, the ink still drying. “And if we hadn’t reached an agreement?”
“It would have remained blank, and I would have been disappointed.”
He had done this spell while sitting across from her. Very elegant—she hadn’t even felt it. Miranda smiled as she countersigned, secure in the knowledge that her House would not only survive the Wheel’s Turning, but triumph. “Excellent,” she said. “House Prospero appreciates your service.”
“I believe it will.” That slight bow of the head again as he left.
Miranda watched him go, heard the House close its doors after him. “Thank you,” she told the House. “This should be interesting.”
If the House had an opinion, it did not share it. The mirror remained blank.
? ? ?
Harper pressed send on her latest CV, rolled her head from side to side until her neck cracked, then leaned back in her desk chair. She closed her eyes, balanced on her toes, holding herself in place just on the edge of tipping backward, then heaved a sigh and dropped back down. She’d spent the last few months researching what were usually called Special Projects Divisions at various white-shoe New York law firms. It had taken some time, as that wasn’t the sort of practice group that generally got listed on the letterhead. Having a Special Projects Division almost always meant that the firm handled the legal affairs of at least one of the great Houses of the Unseen World. Magicians, as it turned out, needed lawyers, too.
Working for a firm like that, one that would almost certainly have at least one magician attached as counsel, was one possible way into the Unseen World, the one that seemed most likely to work. Two of the firms she had recently sent her CV to had scouted her in law school, before she’d even heard of the Unseen World. Both had expressed happiness on hearing from her now. She had an interview with a third later this week.
Whatever it took, she’d find her way in. She had a promise to keep.
On the wall over her desk was a framed photo of Harper and the woman who had been her best friend, Rose Morgan. They were smiling, arms slung around each other, faces shining with delight. Rose had been the person to teach her to light the candle, the person who had cracked open the doors of the Unseen World and let her look inside.
Two years ago someone had killed her, and Harper had been the one to find her body.
She had gotten there almost in time. In time to see a man—his face obscured by shadows—stand up from Rose’s body, his hands covered in blood. In time to see him carve a doorway out of darkness with those same bloody hands, step through it, and disappear. Needless to say, no one believed her. They had been kind about it, blaming it on the stress of finding her murdered best friend, but they hadn’t taken her seriously. When it came down to it, she understood. If she’d heard her story from someone else, she wouldn’t have believed it either.
The police had no leads. Harper didn’t think they’d ever find any—Rose had said the one thing the Unseen World was best at was keeping secrets. So Harper had decided that she would find her way into that world.
She would find her way into that world, and she would figure out who had killed Rose, and she would finally get justice for her best friend.
Harper touched her fingers to Rose’s picture, then turned back to her computer. She entered a password and opened the locked file, the one where she kept information on magic and magicians. She marked her locations from yesterday on the map. Rose had said that they tended to live in the same areas of the city, and so there wound up being enclaves—the magical equivalent of Billionaires’ Row. Harper didn’t have enough data points to make any guesses, not yet—she had the most near Central Park, but everyone went to Central Park, so she didn’t weight those all that heavily—but she could almost, sort of, out of the corner of her eye, see patterns forming.
That done, she checked her automated searches. Most of the results they found were crap, although there was a link to a new Penn and Teller illusion. Not exactly the kind of magic she was looking for, but she bookmarked it for later. They were always fun to watch.
Then a YouTube video. Twenty-seven seconds long and uploaded with the title “Sxxxy Hogwarts.” Probably nothing, and almost certainly something she’d regret clicking, but it was only twenty-seven seconds, and it wasn’t like she had to watch the entire thing if it really was awful.
She clicked, then sat up straight and hit the expand screen button. There was the Trinity Church steeple, out of focus in the right-hand corner of the frame.
It was the same intersection she’d been at yesterday.
The recording jumped, glitched, and then. Her. The magician, standing in the intersection, cars flying around her.
Cars. Flying.
Even the recorded magic was enough to make Harper’s head ache from watching, but she did, again and again. Beneath the headache, adrenaline fizzed through her, lightning in her veins. This, this was what she’d been looking for.
Flying cars. In the air like it was nothing. Unfuckingbelievable. She barely breathed while watching.
Then the video caught. Hung. Announced that it was rebuffering. Harper’s internet signal dropped. She knew. She knew what it meant, knew that once again the secrets of the Unseen World were keeping themselves. She cursed herself for not taking a screencap, at least getting a picture of the woman’s face.
When her internet reconnected, the video was gone.