Page 30 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

A slow breath left him, curling in the cold air as he flexed his fingers, testing the pain.

Interesting.

By the next morning, the pain in his hand had dulled, but the questions remained.

Ark made his way to the offices of Aegis & Ash. The building sat on a narrow side street at the edge of the Elf District—just close enough to the centre to be convenient, far enough from the main thoroughfares to be forgotten. From the street, it looked one bad storm away from toppling. No sign marked the door. No nameplate announced the occupants. That was the point.

The interior told a different tale.

The foyer opened into a spacious room with exposed beams and dark panelled walls. Wards pulsed faintly along the edges of the room, visible only as a shimmer at the corner of vision. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, crammed with ledgers, maps, and texts in languages that predated the city.

He crossed to his desk—a battered thing inherited from the building’s previous tenants—and pulled a heavy leather-bound tome toward him. A few days’ worth of work waited, none of it urgent, but all of it demanding attention: acquisitions to review, artifacts to research. And tonight, he had that event—a tedious affair Aegis & Ash had arranged weeks ago. He’d been dreading it then. With his hand still healing, he dreaded it even more.

A ripple in the air, followed by a faint chime of magic, broke his reverie. A scroll materialized mid-air before him, landing with a soft thud on his desk. It was sealed with a distinctive splash of violet wax, imprinted with the stylized ‘VB’ that was Briony’s signature.

He broke the seal. The parchment unfurled, the ink sharp and precise.

Ark,

Miss Aura dropped off Starlight’s documents. Agmon’s acquisition is a masterclass in legal fortification. Their lawyers have built a flawless box around that property.

At first glance, the law is unlikely to help you, but I’ll keep digging. There might be something—a heritage clause, a land protection, some forgotten covenant buried in the archives.

—B

Ark let the scroll curl back onto itself, Briony’s words settling like a stone in his gut.

So, the law might not save Starlight. His gaze drifted toward the corridor. The locked rooms at the back held the things that fell through the cracks—objects with no paperwork, no status, no clean resolution. If the system wouldn’t help, one of them might.

The entrance door creaked open, and Ark turned to the noise.

Caius entered first, unhurried, pulling off his gloves one finger at a time. “You’re already at work, darling? I’m impressed.”

“I had a good reason to start early.”

Rhodes followed, shutting the door behind him. “I’m more concerned than impressed.” His sharp gaze flicked to Ark. “You look like hell. Didn’t get a good night’s sleep?”

“I slept fine.”

Which was a lie. He’d tossed and turned—partly from the pain in his hand, and partly from thinking about the mysterious entity that caused it. Whatever lay in Starlight’s basement was part of a larger picture he didn’t yet have the context for.

Caius lowered himself into the chair across from Ark, elegantly crossing one leg over the other. He flicked his gaze toward the open books. “I assume this has to do with Starlight Orphanage.”

Ark shut the tome with a quiet thud. “I went last night.”

“And?”

He lifted his right palm, revealing the faint outlines of barely healed blisters. Both Caius and Rhodes leaned in.

“Something attacked you?” Caius’s brows lifted.

“That something also resisted me at the entrance,” Ark said, flexing his fingers. “The only reason I stepped inside was because Miss Aura invited me in.”

Caius tilted his head. “A threshold barrier?”

“I found no sigils.”

Rhodes frowned. “Land Magic?”