23. Constellation

twenty-three

Milla laughed. One hard, sharp bark of scornful humor. “Impossible.”

“Improbable,” Cyrus replied.

“No, Spock, impossible ,” she doubled down.

“The data does not lie,” he replied. “That is a Death Witch. It matches your signature on a mathematical level. We are dealing with a rogue coven of witches performing magick Forbidden and Foule under the command of a Death Witch.”

“And sometimes two plus two equals five.” She snatched the tablet, ignoring his flustered protest, and swiped to the right until the supposed Death Witch became a blur behind the disparate Ways and then nothing at all. Pinching the screen, she spread her fingers wide to zoom in. And again. “Lou showed me some of the graphs when I was in the cells. Printed out on paper .” She sent Lou a withering look. “Seriously? Paper?” Lou rolled her eyes, and one of the witches on the couch snorted. “It was only a snippet of each ritual telling this same story, but look.” She zoomed in again, right on the point where the disparate signatures converged, and the anomalous blur began. “Can’t do that on paper.”

“Do what?” Donmar asked.

“Examine the finer details,” Diego answered. He moved closer, adjusting his glasses and squinting at the television. “Oh por Diosa.” He whipped around, blood rushing from his cheeks as he said to Milla, “It is a constellation.”

“A what?” Lou asked.

“A constellation.” Milla tossed the e-grim on the table and crossed her arms. “A coven of witches stepping into their Ways in a joint ritual to mimic the Way of another witch.”

“An old term,” Rai added. “I have not heard it since leaving Kowloon.” She rose gracefully and approached the screen. “C.R.O.W. did away with the categorization several decades ago.”

“The older generations still use it on the steppes,” said Donmar, tension deepening the crow’s feet around his eyes. “They called the stryzga—”

“This is not the stryzga.” Lou set her hand on his shoulder. “Not here.”

“I know.” Donmar closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, and nodded.

“In my first life,” Diego said softly, “my sister and I would cast with a vinefica to mimic corpomancy.”

“Good Goddess.” Rai pressed a hand to her chest. “To what end?”

“Someone had to keep our patients still.” Diego shrugged, unbothered by the look of disgust that washed over Rai’s face. “Magick was regarded differently then,” he said. “C.R.O.W. was in its infancy, and not many could afford the services of a corpomantic. With a potion to induce sleep and a Stitch Witch to keep the patient from bleeding out, a hippocromantic could work their cure.”

“As fascinating as this history is,” said Lou, “it is a practice no longer deployed by C.R.O.W.”

“Is it not?” asked Toby. “C.R.O.W. bottles witches more often than you are available.”

“Yes, well—”

“Ezra was called in for bottlings like six times while we were together,” Milla added. “What makes a coven of witches doing the work of one Light Witch any different than this?”

“The suggestion holds merit, Lou,” Rai gently added.

“It would change the scope of our investigation.” Cyrus frowned at the e-grim Milla had tossed on the table, a thoughtful line pinched between his thick eyebrows. “All of my projections are based on the assumption that a Death Witch is commanding the ritual, but if they are not …”

“Then it could be anyone attempting to do anything,” finished Darkly.

“Hardly anything,” Lou scoffed. “What all can a Death Witch do? Rot and revive?”

“Revive the dead, command the dead, mass summons and possession”—Milla counted off on her fingers—“phylactery transference, astral projection, enthrallations, Soul and Shade tethering, Shade summons, corporeal divination, willful malediction—”

“Alright, yes, we get it. There are many Death Witch rituals.”

“Death Witchuals,” Milla corrected.

Lou gave her a droll look, and Rai hid a smile behind her hand.

“I do not get it.” Cyrus glanced from witch to witch, and Tobias took pity on him.

“It is a pun.” He frowned at Milla, but his voice was absent the harsh seriousness she remembered from the cells. “A terrible one.”

“So where do we start?” Darkly sat forward, propping his elbows on his knees.

“I will need to re-run my projections,” Cyrus began, “and base them around the coven itself. Then I will need to cross-reference the Ways against registered witches in the affected demesne—”

“And the missing witches,” Milla added. “What were their Ways? You could work the problem backward, narrowing down which Ways are in high demand for the ritual or, um …”

“Burning out,” Tobias supplied.

“You think this is a matter of burnout?” Lou angled her face at him, lips pressed together as she considered the suggestion. “It would make sense, I suppose. A ritual with a signature of this magnitude would require the casting witches to step deeply into their Ways.”

“And I’ve nae come across their Shades,” Darkly added.

“If it is burnout,” said Milla, “and you can figure out which Ways are being exhausted, it would narrow down the potential Death Witchuals.”

Lou tucked her chin, lip curling. “I am absolutely not calling them that.”

“Yeah, you are, Big Yin.” Darkly’s eyes shone behind his glasses, and a genuine grin lit up his face. “It’s too good not tae.”

“Goddess, you clown,” Lou muttered, some of her tension easing at his smile. “Right, so we have a heading, which is more than we had yesterday. Anything else?”

“I will need to borrow Milla’s grimoire,” Cyrus added.

“Why do you need my grimoire?”

“To review the Death Witchuals,” he said. Lou muttered under her breath and left the room.

“Good luck finding them.” Milla shrugged. “My grimoire was a gift from my dad when I turned sixteen. I’ve read that thing from front to back; there’s no Death Witchuals in there.”

Cyrus’ cheeks blanched. He looked down at his e-grim, the table littered with tech and data, then back to Milla. “So how do we—”

“Casting range.” Tobias rose and stepped over Darkly’s legs. “I need to prepare her for Beltane. We will run Milla through exercises and have her cast the rituals she knows. Would that suffice?”

“It would help, but I—”

“Tomorrow.” Tobias hit Milla with a bright blue stare. She backed up a step, crowding against Cyrus. He put a hand on her shoulder to steady them both. “First thing.”

“I have to run my demesne in the morning,” she said. It was a weak excuse, but Horned God, anything to get out of special forces alone time with Agent Sterne. “I have to tend it.”

“I fail to see how that is possible when you are Soulbound.” Lou re-entered the room with a cup of tea in her hands. She held it out to Milla, huffing when she did not immediately take it.

“But it’s my routine,” she argued, “my demesne. I can’t just let it—”

“Then run it in the evenings if the mileage is so important.”

Milla lurched back, hot tea spilling over the cup’s rim and splashing on her hand. Vaguely, she was aware of Rai and Donmar leaving the room. Of Diego grabbing Cyrus by the arm and hauling him away from his tablets and charts. But they were on the periphery, and Lou’s commandeering, belittling tone was right in front of her. “So I’m just supposed to let this mystery steward continue tending my demesne?”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” She flipped a dismissive hand in the air.

“And I’m sure it’s my demesne; I think I understand it better than any of you.”

“St. Augustine doesnae care when you tend to her.” Darkly filled the space behind Lou, and a wave of red washed over Milla’s vision in seeing him there. What was it Natje had called them? C.R.O.W.’s darling Light Witch and her pet. “So long as you—”

“Horned God, would you stop mansplaining my demesne to me?” Pure silence filled the room. Milla glared at Lou and Darkly. “No? Nothing?”

“The casting range is within city limits,” Tobias spoke from the couch, where he had settled with a tablet. “And Lou will have to release your Way for you to cast. That will suffice.”

Milla’s jaw dropped at the sheer audacity, again , of this witch, but no words or argument formed.

“There we have it.” Lou clapped her hands and stepped away, leaving Darkly standing far too close for Milla’s comfort. “First thing in the morning, we head to the casting range. Keir, will you be joining us at the cottage for dinner?”

Her question, so flippant compared to the rest of their conversation, left Milla reeling for solid ground. She sat in the metal folding chair, gripping the teacup in both hands and willing its warmth into her chilled bones, only half hearing Darkly’s reply.

“Nae tonight,” he rumbled. “Gonnae run with the cultists.”

“Right.” Lou sighed and swept a hand over her hair, looking at Milla in a way she did not like at all. “Best take Ludmilla with you, then. It’s time she met them properly.”

“Goddess, seriously?” she groaned.

“Are you not the Witch of the Demesne?” Lou arched an eyebrow. “I seem to remember you saying something to that effect.”

“I am, obviously, but that’s not how my demesne works. I tend to St. Augustine and keep far away from the cultists.”

“It is in your best interests to—”

“Horned God, we just went over this. My demesne. Mine. Not yours, not his.” She pointed at Darkly, who flinched. “Mine. I ran it fine before any of you got here.”

“And then you lost the demesne to a Loa and regained it in an act of magick St. Augustine has never before witnessed or felt,” Darkly countered. “But the cultists did, and they have questions.” He stepped close enough that Milla caught a whiff of his clove and spice scent. Close enough that the heat of him warmed her more than the tea could manage. “The steward has done what he can, but Lou is right. It is time you meet with the cultists and get to know them.”

Though he lowered his voice and softened the edges, the demand was there, lacing through each word and granting his speech an air of know-it-all-ness she hated.

“You’re not a secret anymore, Milla,” he continued. “Come Beltane, you’ll need all the support you can get before revealing your Way to the Elder Witches.”

Darkly trailed a knuckle down the outside of her upper arm, lingering at her elbow. She bit her lips, willing her body to remain still, when the desire to lean in and seek out more of his touch became overwhelming. His eyes dropped to where he touched her bare skin, and then he reversed the path, brushing hair over her shoulder and slipping his hand away.

Again, she saw a hint of the Darkly she had come to know over six weeks and not the lying Enforcer she knew him as now.

It was heartbreaking.

“You need to foster a relationship with the people who can best support you in your demesne,” he said sadly, “and that begins with the cultists.”

She exhaled, not breaking away from his gaze. Because once she saw that Darkly, the one she knew, the one she trusted, the one who only ever asked, “What do you need?” she was a lost cause.

“Okay,” she whispered, low enough only he could hear. Darkly’s eyes bounced from one of hers to the other, asking that silent question. When he gave the tiniest little dip of his chin, she knew without words that he’d heard her answer.

“I’ll pick you up.”