9. Keelan

Chapter 9

Keelan

I trotted back to the Guard Compound, a hundred thoughts running through my head, none settling long enough to be coherent. In the days since I’d met Hadrin Albrecht, I’d managed to answer zero questions.

Zero.

Not a winning formula for an inspector.

In fact, not only had I managed to not answer any questions, I’d uncovered a host of new ones that looked even more impossible than the first to unravel.

What was in the missing ledger?

Why was there an imprint of a magical device on the victim’s hand?

Who stole the ledger, and did the same person kill Albrecht?

Was there a third person who took the magical whatever-it-was?

Was that thing even connected to the ledger, or had Albrecht gotten himself into the deep end of several ponds?

What was with Celeste’s accent? Something about it tickled the back of my head.

And why was Hadrin intent on visiting the Spires, a faraway place made closer only by a painting on their wall?

The moment I entered the compound, a boy of twelve summers took my horse’s reins and led him toward the stables. I headed in the opposite direction, toward the headquarters.

My temples throbbed, and my stomach grumbled. There would be no fighting crime until I had lunch.

“Rea!” Lieutenant Grieve’s voice was just the ice bath I needed to snap out of my own thoughts. My head snapped up to find him sitting on the top step of the headquarters, a half-eaten apple in one hand while he waved the other, motioning for me to join him.

“Sir,” I said with a crisp nod, stopping a few feet away.

He pointed at me with the apple. “You look like shit. Case that bad?”

I tried not to wince. The man was a mind reader. Not literally. His Gift had something to do with archery or marksmanship; I’d never been sure. I just knew it wasn’t mind reading. That would’ve been terrifying.

Still, he didn’t need a Gift to see the frustration scrawled across my face.

I plopped down beside him.

“It’s going.”

He snorted.

“What?”

“That’s the bullshit answer I always give the Captain when I don’t have a clue what I’m doing next.”

My head drooped. I couldn’t meet his gaze lest he see just how perfectly he’d hit the mark.

He surprised me with a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Just follow the leads. Let them guide you. Don’t make assumptions, and don’t stop one line of inquiry until it’s exhausted.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, unsure how to respond to the most basic of lessons I learned in my first days in the Guard Academy.

“Oh, one more thing.”

“Sir?”

“Some riddles can’t be solved. Don’t beat yourself up too bad if this thing doesn’t work out.”

That wasn’t the advice I’d been expecting. Shouldn’t my Lieutenant bark at me for results or pump me up to run through the last walls of the case? But give up or accept defeat? What the hell was that about?

Before I could think of a response, he tossed his apple toward a rubbish bin. The perfect arc soared high, then landed the core directly into the bin. Grieve pumped his fist as he stood.

“That’s how you shoot ’em.”

With one last pat of my shoulder, Grieve stepped inside the headquarters, leaving me to wonder if his Gift revolved around precise tossing of half-eaten fruit into barrels. As fun as that sounded, it would’ve been a waste of good magic.

The idea of wasted magic made me think of Declan.

My brother still didn’t have any magic. No Gift. No nothing.

The poor boy had no direction or hope of finding one.

He was adrift in a sea of . . .

What was I thinking? He was lost. As much as his indifference and sidelong smirks might annoy me, he was my brother, the only family I had left. I owed it to him to try again and again—and again, if that’s what he needed.

I stood, driven to visit the Mages’ Guild, when another thought struck.

Try again and again.

That’s what Albrecht deserved, too.

It’s certainly what Celeste deserved.

Screw the Lieutenant and his lukewarm advice. I would solve this thing, bring justice to a murdered man, and help his grieving wife heal. I would protect them all, no matter what anyone else thought or said.

Their doubts—my Lieutenant’s doubts—would only serve as motivation, fuel for my fire. I would never stop until the truth came out and the guilty were behind bars or below ground.

That’s what wearing the cloak was all about.

Protecting people. Serving people. Never giving up on people.

And I was born to wear the cloak, dammit.

I would protect them all.