Chapter 11

We gathered in the interior office, where Mrs. French perched in front of a standing desk, commandeering a laptop that was attached to a large screen on the wall opposite our complaint-intake system. I blinked at all the electronics.

"When did we get those?" I asked, but Mrs. French waved me off.

"We've always had access to all the fancy technology we need, and setting it up is no great matter," she said as I peered at the glittering combination, sparing only the barest glance for the Victorian-era pneumatic tube system that served as the main communications hub for Justice Hall. Then the screen in front of me changed, and my attention sharply refocused on it. A series of lines, glyphs, and letters, all from different languages, gleamed from its surface, jumbled together like alphabet soup.

"When you start at the very top row, then read all the way through to the bottom, you end up with a tangle of glyphs," Mrs. French said before highlighting one of the symbols with a red laser pointer. "However, this sign here appeared at such regular intervals that I decided it was some sort of break in the pattern. When you use that as a focal point, then you get the exact same set of letters between the two symbols every time, just in different order. So the message itself is quite brief, I suspect, for all that I cannot specifically decipher it. But the symbol bracketing the message is, I think, quite appropriate, given all the fuss of late."

I nodded. It was a simple crescent, heavily outlined. The ancient symbol for the moon.

"Can you make heads or tails of it?" Nikki asked.

"Um—actually, I can," I said, squinting at the glyphs with some surprise. "It's Quechuan, sort of, plus some other influences, but the message is coming through clear enough. All variations of ‘Come save me, you cunt.'"

Nigel choked on a laugh, and I glanced at him. "You know Roland better than I do. Does that sound like him?"

"It sounds very much like him," Nigel said. "The question is, where is he?"

"He's Australian, right?" I hefted the ring. "Opals are mostly mined in Australia. It would make sense to start there, except for the Quechuan inscriptions on the band. I have no idea how you end up with opals in South America, but I think it's far more likely that's where the ring came from. I bet that's where Roland found it, anyway."

"Quechuan?" Nigel asked. "Who speaks that language?"

"Originally? Tribes indigenous to the area who were the precursors to the Incas by several thousand years, which doesn't narrow it down much," I said. "The language is still in use today, to some extent. So maybe this ring was part of that civilization? It's heavy, but it's meant for a woman's hand. Not for everyday use, I can't imagine."

Nigel reached for it, and I handed it over with only slight trepidation. Fortunately, he had no reaction to it. Either the inscribed symbols had already done their job, or he wasn't a trigger for the ring. He weighed the ring and grimaced.

"Definitely not an everyday ring. It weighs about two pounds, I would guess. Not something you'd want to have hanging out on your hand all day."

He held it up to me, and didn't stiffen when I passed my ring finger over the opening of it.

"You feel anything?" I prompted.

He shrugged. "Perhaps I'm all better."

"Or the message has been received," Nikki put in, echoing my own thoughts. "All right, so let's take this from the top. We've got a beaten-down bad actor of an artifact hunter lost and potentially in distress, probably, though not definitely, in South America, who had enough gumption, mojo, or connections to get a message to Sara and, by extension, you, Nigel. What else do we need to be thinking about here?"

Nigel sat back in his chair, considering. "He didn't offer anything to sweeten the deal. A hint of treasure to be found, a reason for us to have skin in the game. That's unusual."

"You guys usually have to provide incentives to get you to go help a friend?" Nikki asked drily.

Nigel cocked a finger at her. "Remember, we are not friends. Roland and I, in particular, have been on opposite sides of an artifact hunt more often than not, dating back to before Sara got into the game and continuing after she left. He knows that. So why me—why both of us? And why now?"

"Could there be more to the message?" Mrs. French asked. "Nigel is only one man, one contact. Perhaps he only has part of the message that Roland was sending. Who else do you know in common?"

I frowned. "I didn't make a lot of friends back in the day. We didn't even share that many clients, since Roland tended to dive into the murkier end of the pool. It should have been someone obvious, but there really isn't anyone I can think of. What about you, Nigel?"

He shrugged. "As much as it pains me, I'm forced to agree with you. More than that, Sara was always known for operating on her own. My association with her was competitive back when Roland and I were working…." He narrowed his gaze at me. "Is there anyone else you would consider your competition?"

I made a face. "I'm telling you, I didn't work like that. Most of the time, the artifacts I sought weren't on any official radar until the job started. There were only a couple of highly coveted items that drew the attention of multiple hunters."

"Okay, then, what about the money behind the clients?" Nikki hazarded. "Your buddy Mercault funded a lot of searches. Could he be a connection?"

"Maybe…" I blew out a breath, but I still wasn't feeling it. The head of the House of Pentacles was a Frenchman with a penchant for pretty baubles, particularly those that might augment his own natural ability. He was by no means the strongest Connected I'd ever met, but he held his own, in large part due to the combination of crystals, totems, spelled devices, and flat-out magic he'd harnessed, purchased, or stolen to advance his own aims. I didn't think he was still in the artifact-hunting game, but he certainly kept his finger on the pulse of the arcane black market. And he definitely heard things. But still…

"This is worse than a needle in a haystack," I grumbled, edging close to a whine. "If someone was affected like Nigel was, and no one was around to see it, then Roland's lost that opportunity to communicate with us. Why wasn't he more clear?"

"Most likely, he couldn't afford to be," Nigel said. "Maybe he had to send things in code. The message that he decorated my body with would have made no sense to me—no matter how long I studied it. It was only with your penchant for translation that you got the gist of it, not because it made any sense."

"But how did Roland know I had a penchant for translation?" I pushed. "It's not like I make a point of advertising that."

Nigel waved off that question. "He's not stupid. When you started working for the Magician of the Arcana Council, we all took note. That was one of the highest rollers in the arcane black market. His grasp of the arcane was pretty legendary, so any puzzle you were sent, it's reasonable that the Magician would be involved in solving it."

"I guess…" I was feeling argumentative, but I could be excused. Throughout the conversation, I could feel the presence of the Magician growing in my mind, seeking out avenues of ingress. I'd long since warded Nikki and Mrs. French from his inquisitive touch, but I hadn't ever done the same for Nigel. Anything in the Brit's mind, the Magician was privy to, but he was deliberately remaining silent—even though we were now straight-up talking about him. Did he want an engraved invitation to the party?

Despite the fact that my mind remained warded against him, the Magician was also adept at reading emotions and body language, the kinds of things that were nearly impossible to ward against. His chuckle was smooth and amused.

"I no longer run the Arcana Council, Miss Wilde,"he reminded me. "You are under no obligation to involve me in your deliberations. I, however, remain, as always, at your service. I also cannot enter Justice Hall without your or your people's explicit permission, as you may recall."

"Well, come on, then. We don't have all day—"

Before I'd even completed the thought, a knock came at the door. Mrs. French whirled in a bustle of Victorian efficiency.

"Well! It's a good thing I tidied up," she sniffed, and a few seconds later returned with Armaeus. He was looking much better by far than he had on the plane, fairly bristling with electricity, but no longer outright glowing.

"So what's the word?" I asked. "You know something we don't."

"Almost certainly," the Magician agreed smugly. "But in this case, I'm happy to share. Nigel, your assumption was correct. Roland's message went out to five other operatives that I've been able to find—and then only by searching for the unique distress signature that arcane runes appearing all over one's body would cause, as well as the beacons of magic that were required to light up these unfortunate operatives. You'll be interested to know they stretch throughout the world: Cairo, Moscow, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Sydney."

"I don't even know five operatives from the bad old days," I protested. "I barely put up with Nigel."

Nigel's muttered response didn't quite reach my ears, but made Nikki snort.

"That leads us to two possibilities," the Magician agreed. "Either Roland put out a general distress signal, triggered by the ring but available to any and all capable of responding…"

"Or it's a call to the hunt," Nigel interjected, his pale brows winging up. "An open bid."

The Magician nodded. "Or he is creating the illusion of such an open bid in hopes of inspiring your and Nigel's actions, Miss Wilde. Because to your point, you have no direct connection with him, and you have many, many other causes that could occupy your attention."

"An open bid…" I muttered, mulling over that idea. Even back in the day, I hadn't usually responded to those. I'd certainly never needed to once I'd met up with the Magician, though open hunts were by far the most lucrative opportunities. "So what you're telling me is Roland used me as a catalyst to send a message to hunters all over the world to come find him, without giving any indication of what the bounty was? Or the artifact?"

"Unless he is the bounty," Nigel said. "‘Come save me,' he said. At least to us."

I could hear it then, the excitement in Nigel's voice, an excitement that, despite my best efforts, I could feel echoing deep within me. The lure of the hunt was on him.

"The other afflicted parties, they're all hunters?" I asked, wondering how anyone could survive the carvings in their flesh, muscle, and bones to possibly kick off an earnest hunt. Nigel had been lucky I'd been so close. Were the other message bearers that fortunate?

"They are. Some of them I've even used." Armaeus rattled off a list of names that meant nothing to me.

"That's a good list," Nigel mused. "Unless I miss my guess, most of them are still in operation. Meaning that if they are not currently on a job, they're with a client, or with other hunters either preparing for or recovering from a job."

"But what's the likelihood that they'll be able to decipher the message?" Nikki asked.

"Or surviving it?" I put in tersely. "Nigel was hurt."

"I wasn't hurt that badly," he scoffed.

"Oh, bullshit," I countered. "Those glyphs were cut into you all the way to your bones. I know. I was the one who took them off you."

"Well, you were the most important of the hunters to convince, right?" Nikki put in. "Perhaps the others just had some, you know, temporary tattoos. Or watercolor marker notes. Anyway, there's still the problem of understanding the message. You said yourself it was a bunch of glyphs in random order. That's great that Sara here has a facility with Scrabble, but what about these other hunters?"

Nigel turned to her. "Good point. What if their message is neither so dire nor arcane? What if it's more straightforward and leads them to wherever it is we're supposed to go?"

"Or, what if they each got different messages that sent them all over the world?" Nikki countered. "They could all be wild-goose chases."

"All good questions," the Magician agreed. "Here is another. Who would be savvy enough to create a message that would only be triggered when the Justice of the Arcana Council received the opening salvo? Who's behind this hunt? I've told you that the winds of change are stirring. Power is percolating at a level I haven't felt during my entire time as Magician, power, if not equal to mine, then certainly a challenge I have heretofore not experienced."

I grimaced. He was as excited as Nigel was, though arguably for different reasons. Armaeus had been kicking around this earth over eight hundred years. It was reasonable that he was bored. But surely he would recognize that boredom for the trap that it was.

"Are you sure this magic is as strong as you think it is?" I challenged. "Could it be that you're being made to think that it's so strong to lure you into a trap?"

"It's possible," the Magician agreed. "And yet the magic I felt handling the ring after you gave it to me was nothing compared to the jolt I felt when you first slipped it onto your finger. You were the trigger, Miss Wilde. A highly specific trigger, only recently come into her own power. Evoked by an ancient magic I've never felt before, yet one which knows you intimately. Altogether, it makes for a very curious situation, and one that requires much study."

"Well, respectfully, I'm afraid you're going to have to crash that final exam," Nigel said. "The operatives you listed, they're not going to stick around and think about this all that much. And if they got a message we didn't get…we'll need to catch up. Quickly."