Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(7)

Noria shrugged. “Sure, if I can figure out how it was done. I’ll jump on investigating how the silver could have been diluted. A couple of my friends at the Academy have done experiments with metals and electricity. It’s very likely that whoever did this was human.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. I couldn’t imagine it being one of our own.” Shifters didn’t use silver to kill other shifters – we preferred to settle things with our fangs and claws.

Comenius came back from around the counter, a bracelet clutched in his fist. “I couldn’t find anything in the books I have here,” he said. “But I’ll check the Mage Guild’s library and see what else I can find. In the meantime, you should wear this.” He held up the hemp bracelet to reveal a small, circular amulet dangling from the center. “It will help quiet the spirits around you and sharpen your focus, so you can concentrate on the investigation.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, touched by his concern, and held out my arm so he could fasten the bracelet around my wrist. Electricity buzzed up the nerve endings in my arm as his long fingers brushed against my skin, and from the way Comenius’s pupils dilated, I could tell the same thing had happened to him. Which wasn’t exactly strange, since we’d tumbled together in the sack before, but it was pretty awkward with Noria sitting right there watching us, so I settled quickly back into my chair, breaking the contact as soon as he was done.

“So,” Noria said. “What now?”

“Now we look at this.” I unzipped my jacket and pulled out the file. Com and Noria’s eyes widened, and they both leaned forward.

“Is… is this a case file?” Comenius said.

“Yep. From Roanas’s house.” It had taken me quite a while to find it, so I hadn’t had a chance to do more than stuff it down the front of my jacket before Brin and Nila arrived. “He told me to get it before he died.”

Comenius looked like he wanted to say something about stealing evidence, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. I flipped open the file, scanning the notes and various newspaper clippings. My eyes smarted at the sight of Roanas’s handwriting – it was a painful reminder that he would never write another word again. But I blinked away the tears, knowing I couldn’t afford them now – there would be time enough to grieve after the killer was caught.

“Naya? Isn’t this about one of your own?”

I glanced down at the article Noria was pointing at. My eyes widened as I took in the photo of the beautiful woman depicted at the top of the article, dressed in leathers and armed with a short sword. It was Sillara, one of the more competent Enforcers, and one I’d been quite fond of.

“I had no idea she’d died of silver poisoning,” I murmured, tracing the outline of her face with the tip of my finger. She’d been part of a crew, whereas I was a solo mercenary, so our paths didn’t really cross. But she’d always struck me as frank and dedicated, one of the true diamonds amongst a sea full of rhinestones. And now she was gone.

Comenius said nothing, simply laying a hand on my shoulder as I read the article. It said that she’d been found in her apartment on a Friday night, dead on her living room floor. The Mage’s Guild was conducting an autopsy, but there was no conclusive evidence pointing to a cause of death, murder weapon or killer, for that matter.

“They wrote her off,” I muttered, my fingers curling so tightly around the edges of the paper that it started to shred. “I remember now. The Guild said she’d died from some kind of f*cking heart failure.” Which was incredibly rare amongst shifters, especially one who was as healthy and in shape as Sillara had been. Magorah, why hadn’t I seen it? I should have questioned it, should have suspected something… but of course, I’d been too wrapped up in my own problems, and I hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Comenius said gently, rubbing his thumb along the edge of my shoulder. I wanted to lean into him, to sink into the comfort he offered, but I couldn’t – someone was killing off shifters, and I needed to find out who.

“Do you think the mages might be in on this?”

I glanced up at Noria, who’d spoken. “You think the Mage’s Guild is responsible for the murders?”

Noria shrugged, lines bracketing her mouth as she scanned another one of the articles. “I can’t say for sure, but it seems like someone’s definitely trying to keep all of these hush-hush. I mean, usually the papers are quick to connect cases like this, and yet we have six issues here, spread across three months, and not a single peep from the media. What gives?”

“But this is the Shifter Courier,” I argued. “These stories aren’t published by the Mage’s Guild.”

Noria shrugged. “Race doesn’t seem to matter when someone shoves a pouch full of gold in your face. They probably bribed the editor or something.”

Even though as a hybrid I wasn’t fully part of the shifter community, my gut still twisted at the idea one of us was a sell-out. Sure, I’d had to take down my fair share of shifter bounties, but it was still tough to admit we were just as susceptible to the same weaknesses as any other race.

A gloomy silence descended as we all pondered the possibilities. So far, the beginnings of our theory suggested human involvement with mage cover-up, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense because there was no reason I could think of that the mages would want to cover up for humans. I’d searched Roanas’s house for clues while I’d been waiting for the Enforcers to show up and hadn’t found anything helpful, but that didn’t mean nothing was going on. I had a feeling that even if we were on the right trail, we were only scratching the surface, and things were going to get a whole lot messier the deeper we went.