“How long will it be before your vision returns?” Briar asked, and I could tell from how much closer her voice sounded that she’d left the doorway and moved farther into the room.
I shrugged. “Several hours, I would guess. Surely no more than six or so.” At least for a partial return of sight. I’d had full blindness last days before, with a very slow return to my normal damaged level, but I’d been doing some very serious, plane-shaping magic at the time. Even a ritual as long as I’d just performed couldn’t compare to that kind of magical expenditure.
Briar was silent several moments. Then I heard the door swish open again.
“I can’t wait that long. I’ll call you if I need you.” She must have said it over her shoulder as she walked out, because the door clicked closed a moment later.
Tamara clucked her tongue in disapproval and then lifted the now-empty mug from my fingers. “More coffee?”
? ? ?
I called Rianna for a ride. I still couldn’t see by the time she arrived—no big surprise—so Tamara helped me to the parking lot. I’d have to come back for my car some other time.
“There’s a dog in the front seat,” Tamara said after Rianna pulled the car to the curb.
“Desmond, can Alex sit shotgun?” Rianna asked in a sweet voice.
The barghest growled.
“That’s not very nice,” Rianna said. “And wouldn’t you be more comfortable stretched out across the backseat?”
The doglike fae made a grumbling noise that was not quite a growl, but I heard the scrambling of his nails and huge paws as he climbed into the backseat.
“Am I good?” I asked Tamara.
“Yeah, but watch your head.”
I nodded, too proud to let her guide me any farther into the car. Putting a hand on the roof, I lowered myself into the little car, managing to still bang my knees into the dash because the seat was up farther than I thought. Once I was inside, I said my good-byes to Tamara and we were off.
“Anything interesting at the office today?” I asked as Rianna drove us through the city. Her small sedan was a gently used older model, and the feel of the steel around me made my stomach cramp. Still, it was a better option than taking the bus or waiting for my vision to return enough to drive myself. As far as human-built cars went, Rianna’s contained much less iron than the average vehicle while being much cheaper than a fae-built one, but it was still uncomfortable. I had to wonder how Desmond could stomach riding in Rianna’s car every day.
Rianna made a noncommittal sound that likely accompanied a shrug before saying, “We got a walk-in client. He asked for you specifically, but it was a missing-artifact case and once I explained you were engaged on a different case for a few days and I’d be the one casting the tracking charm regardless, he finally agreed to let me take the case as long as the paperwork said it was being covered by the firm. It was odd.”
“Sounds odd. But on the plus side, at least it wasn’t another ritual for an insurance case, right? So what did he hire the firm to find?”
“Family heirloom.” The words were flat. I was missing something. She should have been excited. She loved cases that let her be more detective than grave witch.
“Did you locate it already?” I asked, because while it was only early afternoon, I would have expected her to be off tracking it when I’d called for a ride, and not at the office willing to pick me up.
“No.” The single word sounded sullen and I wished I could have seen her body language. “Would you look over this charm for me?”
I held out my hand, and she placed something that felt identical in size and texture to the charm I’d used to track Remy onto my palm. I might not have been able to see, but I knew she didn’t want me to examine the charm with my eyes. While I couldn’t have created the tracking spell myself, my ability to sense magic let me check a spell’s strength and purpose, as well as feel out any irregularities. Kind of like running a diagnostic. It was a skill I’d taken full advantage of when Rianna and I were in our wyrd boarding school. While I’d barely passed my remedial spellcasting class, I’d made a fair chunk of change troubleshooting other students’ homework and projects. Not exactly approved by the school’s code of conduct, but all the practice meant that when I’d gone to get my OMIH certifications, I’d tested into the highest category for a sensitive. I never even bothered trying to get certified for spellcasting.
Like almost every spell I’d seen from Rianna since she returned from Faerie, the magic itself was tight, clean, and very strong. It should have been perfect, but while nothing in the magic of the spell felt wrong or even that different from the one she’d made for my case, the reason for her concern was immediately obvious. The magic was there, ready, but the charm itself was silent. There was no tug in any direction, no pull toward the missing artifact she sought. The charm was lifeless.
I frowned, squinting at the charm in my palm as if that would somehow make it come into focus. It changed nothing. “The magic is flawless. What did you use as a focus?”
“An illustration. I know, I know,” she said, clearly having read the skepticism on my face. “But I have successfully traced items with as little before.”
“No, it’s not that. You said the client claimed it was a family heirloom? Why didn’t he have more than an illustration? What exactly is this family heirloom anyway?”
“An ornate, filigreed, and jewel-encrusted bottle. He called it a buidealanam. Though I’m probably pronouncing that wrong. It’s apparently been in his family for hundreds of years. I have no idea why he didn’t have a picture, but it was a very detailed illustration that he provided.”
When I continued to frown, Rianna sighed, the car slowing. “You think he never owned it to begin with.”
“I think that’s a distinct possibility. The charm you made is good, and the focus, while not a great one, should be enough to get at least some feedback from the spell. That means the bottle is either too far away to track, or well warded. If his bottle is warded, that means it wasn’t lost.”
“No. It was stolen. He was up front about that.”
“Did he contact the police?”
She was silent a moment before finally saying, “He said he contacted the authorities but that there had been no movement on the case in weeks. I’m not sure if he contacted the police or the FIB.”
That last part surprised me enough I almost dropped the inert charm. “The client is fae?”