Chapter 1

1

EVANGELINE

T he derelict remains of Belmont Manor loomed over me. It was a massive, old Victorian, with a cluster of turrets that moved around every time you took your eyes off them. I'd tried to count them when I'd first come to scope the place out, and it had left me with a splitting headache for at least half an hour.

Buildings in Eldoria tended to suck up stray traces of magic over time, and the older a place was, the more it absorbed. On the edge between the Arcane Quarter and the Garden District, Belmont Manor had been able to leach both wizardly academic magic and the wilder fae magic that kept the parks lush and a little strange. The combination made the place temperamental.

I didn't like dealing with haunted houses, but the neighborhood homeowner's association was offering good money to have the problem taken care of. Apparently, the horrifying noises coming from the manor were starting to drive down property values. Ghost infestations were almost always a pain, but they were usually quick to handle once you'd done your research.

As a rule, early-to-mid-fall was a slow season for private investigators—even the paranormal ones. Things picked up around the holidays, but back-to-school season didn't leave most people with enough free time for criminal activity or magical hijinks. So, I was just going to grit my teeth, deal with the haunting, and collect the paycheck.

It was a foggy night, and the brass doorknob was damp and cool under my hand. I took a deep breath and pushed the front door open.

It was pitch black inside, so I conjured a small ball of golden light that hovered above my palm. The front hall was in bad shape, with peeling wallpaper and faded carpets. A window must have broken somewhere because leaves were scattered across the floor. The floorboards creaked worryingly beneath my feet, and an eerie hum came from behind me, filling the air with a familiar tune.

I shot a dry look over my shoulder. "I think this place has enough atmosphere already, Marcus. You don't need to hum the theme tune from The Exorcist ."

Marcus shrugged, unrepentant. "I'm merely trying to set the mood," he said mildly. Marcus had the build of a retiree who'd gotten obsessed with cycling and rock climbing. He looked like a cross between Gandalf and Jimmy Buffet. He was one of those people who didn't have to put any effort into seeming powerful. Even in his usual work clothes—cargo pants and a brightly-colored, short-sleeved button-down—he radiated an air of mysticism. He'd been teaching me how to control and use my magic for years, and I'd almost gotten used to how weird he could be. I could've easily handled a simple haunting on my own, but I got the sense that Marcus liked having a reason to get out of the house every now and then.

There was a crash followed by a shriek from upstairs, and we moved toward the sweeping staircase at the same time.

"You shouldn't do that," said a voice from right behind me. "The staircase is quite rotted through. You might plummet all the way to the basement, and wouldn't that be just dreadful?"

I sighed. I despised haunted houses. When I turned around, a young woman was standing there, watching us idly. She was in an old-fashioned dress, her hair swept up into an elaborate knot. With her big doe eyes and small pink mouth, she was pretty in a fragile kind of way. She was also dead. When I wasn't looking directly at her, she shimmered faintly, like the air above asphalt on a hot day.

"Which one are you?" I asked. "Marigold or Primrose?"

"I'm Prim," the woman said, smiling demurely. Then her face twisted into a sneer. "Marigold is the one making that terrible fuss upstairs."

According to my research, Marigold and Primrose Belmont, twin sisters, had been the sole heirs of their robber-baron father's estate. Their father died when they were twenty-two, and after a few months of throwing wild parties every night, they'd fired all their staff and stopped leaving the house. Later that year, a stubborn aunt managed to get inside and found them both dead in their rooms. Now it was my job to figure out why they'd stuck around.

"Prim," I echoed. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Evangeline Summers, and I'm here to help you. Can you tell me why you're still here?"

Prim sniffed haughtily. "I have to make sure that harridan doesn't get to have this place all to herself. She's an absolute misery, you know, and I simply couldn't bear it if she were to take over Papa's estate."

"We'd like to speak to your sister, too. Do you think you could help us with that?" I asked the ghost.

She heaved a put-upon sigh. "Mary!" she bellowed. "Come downstairs, you miserable cow!"

"Shan't!" a voice bellowed back.

"Then I'll entertain our guests all by myself, shall I?" Prim yelled.

There was a clatter, and then another young woman appeared at the top of the stairs. She was dressed just like Primrose, except she wore big pearl earrings. Being dead for decades had faded their dresses to the same foggy gray, but their eyes were still startlingly blue, and their lips and cheeks very pink, so they gave the impression of one of those old black-and-white photographs that had been partially colored in.

"You'll have to excuse my sister for her manners," Prim said sweetly. "Her hospitality just hasn't been the same since she killed me."

"I think you'll find you were the one who killed me," Marigold snapped, then looked at me and Marcus as she plastered on a smile. "But, please, let's be civilized, shall we? We can discuss who killed whom in the drawing room." She drifted down the stairs and swept into another room off the hall, with her sister floating after her with a huff.

Marcus and I exchanged a look. He raised his eyebrows, and I shrugged, then we followed the ghosts.

The drawing room had probably been magnificent once. It had a massive fireplace with an elaborate mantle carved from dark wood that reached up to the ceiling in a frothy configuration of flourishes and little shelves that held knickknacks. The wallpaper was still a vibrant green after all these years, even though the low sofas and armchairs in the room had long since dulled. I could feel the faint buzz of old, barely there charms coming from one wall, where an ornate mirror hung above a sideboard absolutely covered with half-full cut glass decanters. The ghosts had flounced to opposite sofas and were both hovering a few inches above the cushions, glaring daggers at each other.

"So," Marcus said, patting one of the pockets on his cargo pants. "You each believe the other killed you?" He found what he was looking for and pulled out a long-stemmed, wooden pipe with glass and metal bands just above its bowl. "Do you mind if I…?" he asked, waving the pipe.

"Be our guest," Marigold said, still glaring at her sister.

Marcus nodded appreciatively and pressed a button to turn his horrible vape on. I forced myself not to roll my eyes.

"Can you tell us more about what happened?" I asked, the armchair letting out a wheeze and a puff of dust as I sat.

Both ghosts started to talk at the same time, gesturing wildly.

"One at a time, please," I interrupted. "Marigold?"

" Thank you," Marigold said, shooting a venomous glance at her sister. "We'd been throwing such wonderful parties after Papa died, and absolutely everyone who was anyone was there. It was simply the most marvelous time. We had this game, you see… a competition to see who could come up with the best charm or potion to fortify our drinks, or give them the drollest effects. It was all an absolute gas, you know."

"But?" I prompted gently. Ghosts could get a little stuck when reliving memories, and it helped to give them a bit of a nudge in the right direction if you were trying to get useful intel.

"But then…" Marigold practically snarled. "I start to come over all ill, and dear little Prim starts to act suspiciously. Shifty. Like she was hiding something."

"I never—" Prim protested, but Marigold cut her off.

"You did so!"

"You're just sour that I was better at the game than you!"

"Why, how dare you?"

Marcus winked at me, blew out a cloud of cotton-candy-scented smoke, and twisted his fingers through the air. The room fell silent, although the ghosts' mouths were still moving.

"I believe my associate here asked you to speak one at a time, ladies," he said calmly. "Now, I'm going to drop the silencing spell, and I'd appreciate it if you chose to listen to her this time."

Both ghosts crossed their arms and grimaced but nodded reluctantly.

"As I was saying," Marigold said icily. "My beloved sister started acting odd, and I started to become ill: aches and pains, shakes, malaise, a downright dreadful case of the morbs. So, there, you see? She poisoned me, practically drove me mad, and then when I was too weak to resist, she must have struck the final blow!"

"Odd, isn't it, that that's exactly what happened to me as well?" Primrose said sourly. "Mary was jealous that I was prettier and better liked, not to mention miles more talented, so she poisoned me! Her own sister! Of course, with me out of the way, she would finally be able to get her grubby little claws into every bit of Papa's money."

"More talented," Marigold huffed. "I've heard your singing voice, darling, and it could be used as a weapon ."

The ghosts descended into bickering again. Marcus sent me a questioning look, raising a hand in case he needed to cast the silencing charm again, but I shook my head and tuned the two women out.

I looked at the charmed decanters on the sideboard, and chewed the inside of my cheek. I stood, went over, picked one up, and blew the thick layer of dust off until the bottle gleamed. When I held it up to the light, it reflected tiny rainbow prisms. Tapping the decanter with one of the long-handled silver spoons that lay on the sideboard elicited a clear, resonating sound that hung in the air.

Marcus watched me curiously, his pipe back in his mouth.

"This might sound odd," I said, standing between the two ghosts, "but I'd like to look at your gums, if you don't mind."

"Why?" Marigold asked, but Primrose was already baring her teeth, pulling her lower lip out of the way with her fingertips. Her sister scoffed.

There were dark blue-gray lines on Prim's gums, right at the base of her teeth. It was a good thing she'd had a strong enough personality to hold onto her coloring for so long, or they might not have been visible.

"I thought so," I murmured. "Marigold, if you would…?"

"I don't see why you need to inspect my teeth like I'm a horse you're trying to buy," she said haughtily. "But if you absolutely insist."

She had the same markings.

"Okay," I said, clapping my hands together. "Great news, ladies. Neither of you murdered the other."

There were two squawks of outrage, but I didn't give them time to start arguing with each other again. "You were drinking from these decanters every night for weeks, right? And all of them were magically imbued, either with an enchantment of some kind, or with a potion. Those decanters are all made out of lead crystal. You wouldn't have known at the time, but it's dangerous to drink from, and alcohol picks up the dangerous elements pretty quickly—much quicker if it's been infused with magic, too." I spread my hands, meeting the eyes of each ghost in turn. "You both had lead poisoning. It would have caused all those physical symptoms and also made you paranoid, as well as potentially making you hallucinate. It was a horrible accident, but it was an accident."

The sisters looked at each other without anger for the first time that night. They seemed smaller somehow, like they'd both been puffing up their spectral energy like the tails of angry cats.

"Oh," Primrose said quietly. "I thought…"

"All these years," Marigold said. "And it was just our silly game."

"I think perhaps my sister and I have some things to discuss in private," Prim said to me. Her outline was getting more shimmery, as was her sister's.

"Of course," I said. "We can see ourselves out."

They'd forgotten about us by the time we made it to the drawing room door. Marcus and I turned back to watch them. Marigold was sitting next to Primrose, and their heads were bent together as they talked in low tones. They began to shimmer more and more until they weren't there at all.

I let out a breath. "Get some rest, girls," I murmured to the empty air.

The house creaked around us. The curtains in the drawing room pulled themselves open, and the windows opened to air out the room. The breeze that blew in swept the leaves in the front hall into a tidy pile, and when I opened the front door, those leaves fluttered out alongside us.

The door closed itself politely behind us.

The outside of the house looked subtly different, as if it had straightened itself up a little. It was still in rough shape, its paint flaking, and woodwork battered, but I got the sense it was trying to make an effort now that it wasn't being pulled in two directions by its owners anymore.

"Well, that was tidy," Marcus said. "I do prefer it when we don't have to… encourage them to leave."

"Exorcism" was a loaded term in our line of work, and it was also something I preferred to avoid. Ectoplasm always went all over the place, and it was impossible to get out of clothing.

"We should let the client know," I said. "And we should tell them to make sure someone gets that wallpaper out of the drawing room before anyone else moves in. I'm pretty sure it was made with arsenic."

By the time I got home, it was almost two in the morning. All I wanted was to collapse into bed, but the residual energy from hauntings tended to hitch a ride in anyone nearby for a little while, and it always gave me weird dreams.

I groaned, rubbing a hand over my face. At least I could be comfortable while I waited out the effects. I unhooked my bra and tugged the straps off through my T-shirt sleeves and tossed it onto my sofa, which could be called "vintage" if you were polite, or "beat to shit" if you weren't. I grabbed leftovers from the fridge—takeout from the Siren-Korean fusion place on the ground floor—and headed downstairs to my office.

I'd gotten the place for cheap. It was in a rough part of town—the former red-light district—and the landlord had delicately described it as having "a lot of personality". With magic-imbued buildings, that was literal. The place had been a brothel for a long time, and whenever I had someone over it still perfumed the air and lit any candles it could find. It was a bit like having an overbearing relative who asked if you were dating every single person you mentioned, but I could deal with that if it meant having a niceish apartment in the same building as my office.

I kicked my feet up on the desk and dug into my noodles. They were spicy enough to make my eyes water, just the way I liked them. When I was halfway through the takeout container, there was a musical little ping from a small blue box on my desk. I slid open its drawer to reveal a neatly folded piece of parchment inside. The inbox was a neat little bit of enchantment that most offices in the city had. Modern technology could be a little iffy around magic, and it was hard to get centuries-old vampires to send an email.

The parchment was folded into tidy thirds, sealed by red wax with a crescent moon stamped into it. The wax broke with a satisfying crack when I opened the page. The writing was in a tidy copperplate hand in stark gray ink.

Ms. Summers,

The ascendancy array is being hunted. The artifact is still divided into its components, but if even one fragment of it falls into the wrong hands, it would be a formidable weapon. If all four pieces are united, they have the potential to cause irreparable damage to our world. It is of the utmost importance that you find it before anyone else does.

A friend

I flipped the page over. The back was blank, which meant it was only slightly less helpful than the front. I drummed my fingers on the desk, then got to my feet and began to pace around the office. My instincts were at war. Half of me was eager to jump into a new mystery, the other half certain it had to be a trap. I glared out the window for a moment, then bit out a curse and turned toward my bookshelf to grab every book I could find that might be relevant.

I needed to research.