Bound by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #2)(34)

“At your service.” He gave me a crooked grin as he bowed, and I grinned a little as his gangly body tried to execute the motion. He was a strange combination of charming and awkward, and I could already see why Noria liked him.

“Same to you.” I bowed back, then turned back toward the Chief Mage. “So what’s this all about?”

“These three are here to make a report, and I wanted you to be here for it,” Iannis said, gesturing toward Director Chen, Elnos and Lakin. “I’d prefer you come stand on this side of the desk, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh. Right.” Slightly flustered, I moved around the desk to come stand next to Iannis, on the opposite side of where Fenris stood. Fenris gave me a quick wink as I did, relaxing me a little – it made sense that I would stand next to the Chief Mage as his apprentice, but I was far more used to being on the other side of the desk.

“Very well,” the Chief Mage said, settling his violet gaze on Director Chen. “Deliver your report.”

“Yes, sir.” Director Chen’s silk robes rustled lightly around her as she stepped forward – she’d chosen to wear robin’s egg blue today, with silver leaves embroidered across the fabric with fine thread. “As some of you may you already know, Inspector Lakin came to the Mages Guild two weeks ago with evidence that shifter-specific drugs are still being sold on the market.”

“He did?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Annoyance at the interruption briefly disturbed Director Chen’s placid expression, but she nodded. “Yes. He confiscated a bag of incidium from a wolf shifter. Apparently the shifter bought the supply from a human downtown, and was planning on reselling it to friends and family.” Her lip curled ever so slightly.

“By Magorah,” I muttered, disgust curling in my own gut. It was bad enough that humans were peddling the stuff around, but for shifters to be selling it to their own kind now? Incidium was a fine white powder that created an intense euphoria when ingested, and like all other drugs, shifters were normally impervious to it. But thanks to Elnos, we found out that the drugs were being mixed with silver, which was being masked by kalois, the same plant used in the silver poisonings. Since shifters are highly allergic to silver, the substance counteracts our high metabolisms, allowing the drugs to take effect. Once we’d discovered this, the Enforcer’s Guild had started taking a hard stance against drug dealers, and we’d managed to get most of it off the market… or so we’d thought.

“Unless we eradicate the source of these drugs they will continue to be a problem,” Elnos, who seemed to be reading my mind, commented. “And according to Inspector Lakin, there have been more episodes of psychotic breaks in Shiftertown.”

“Is this true?” Fenris demanded, folding his arms over his broad chest. His yellow eyes narrowed, and I resisted the urge to arch a brow as he sized up Lakin. At times Fenris seemed to act more like the mages he lived with than the shifter he clearly was, but his territorial instincts were showing up loud and clear now.

“Not as many as there were when the drug dealing was rampant, but we had an incident just last week with a rabbit shifter,” Lakin said calmly. He met Fenris’s eyes, then lowered them ever so slightly – a submission he likely wouldn’t have granted if they’d been in Shiftertown instead of the Palace. “The Rabbit Clan ended up having to put him down.”

I winced at that. Rabbit shifters weren’t known for their ferocity, or for any sort of violence at all, really. They’d been bred as couriers and spies, not as warriors, and the idea of executing one of their own would be abhorrent to them.

“So, do we have any leads that might get us to the manufacturer?” I demanded. “This can’t continue.”

“The only lead we had was Petros Yantz, and as he is currently in the wind that is not much help to us,” Director Chen admitted. “I’ve assigned the case to the Main Crew, and am hoping they produce results soon.”

Anger bubbled up inside me at that, and I had to force myself to let it go. I wanted to demand that Iannis let me handle the investigation, but I couldn’t have that conversation with everybody else in the room, and besides, my plate was a little full with Sillara’s case right now.

“Well in the meantime, don’t you think we should do something to discourage shifters from buying the drugs?” I asked. “If we can’t stop them from being sold, maybe we can stop them from being bought.”

“What exactly do you have in mind?” Iannis asked, turning toward me, the interest clear in his voice.

“I’m not sure Miss Baine’s suggestion would be effective, at least not in the long run.” Director Chen commented. “Many shifters tend to be too impulsive to be easily deterred from the instant gratification narcotics provide.” I bristled at the condescending undertone to her voice.

“Director Chen,” Iannis warned, but before he could say any more, Lakin spoke up.

“What if we started an urban legend that these drugs cause impotence?”

“Huh.” Elnos tapped his chin, sounding mildly impressed. “That would only work against the male population, but still, it would be a start.”

“We could also spread a similar rumor about female infertility,” I said. “Who’s to say it’s not true, anyway? Silver will kill us in large enough doses; exposure to small quantities over a large period of time could produce all kinds of harmful side-effects.”