Since Jamie and Henri agreed to be Kingsmen consultants, they’d not had much call to actually consult. Which is a fortuitous thing, as Henri is up to his neck in labwork and interviews for a new Magical Examiner due to Sanderson’s departing. He is hardly in any position to add more tasks onto his shoulders.
Which, naturally, means two disasters strike at once.
In a brilliant coup, a group of thieves have struck the railroad and stolen a breathtaking three hundred thousand pounds in gold. No one has any idea how, who, or where the ingots have gotten to. The Kingsmen on the case are baffled, as this is hardly their normal purview. They naturally reach out to their Kingsmen consultants, which mean Jamie and Henri are now on the week-old case.
To spice things up further, someone is routinely sneaking through the palace wards and lurking about the grounds, and no one has any idea how the breach is occurring. Seaton’s beside himself trying to figure it out and Henri has been drawn in to assist him.
As Jamie would say: When it rains, it pours.
Mei’s checklist for the next year is simple. On the surface, at least.
Travel into the past to get the necessary instructions - check.
Travel back into the present to defeat Odom, Zaffi, and Kovel Below - check.
Actually defeat Odom, Zaffi, and Kovel Below - well...that’s a work in progress.
Mei Li and her team of experts have no time to catch their breath before the next wave of magical problems hit them. Saving the world will take stamina, patience, magic, and time. And a little help from dragons.
And by a little, she means a lot.
Mei Li is ready for the world-ending disasters to be over, please and thank you.
Apparently, time-travel spells have a sense of humor and don’t take direction well. Mei Li could’ve done with knowing that beforehand, and fully blames Shunlei for not forewarning her.
Instead of going back a few years to rescue the missing tomes, Mei Li finds herself thousands of years in the past, with the original events she needs to learn about still ten years into the future. She is stuck in a hurry-up-and-wait pattern she doesn’t appreciate.
It doesn’t help that this world is full of its own problems, and Mei Li has more than enough of those already. Now she must face shape shifting demons, volatile water deities, and a murderous sword on a rampage all while trying to figure out WHY the spell sent her here in the first place.
There are a few side benefits. Mei Li gets to meet younger Shunlei—or Shunlei the Red. Seeing him as a young dragon is fun. It’s also fascinating being with the first group of magical troubleshooters, the original founders before the Tomes system ever existed.
And when the past starts to intertwine with the future in ways she could never have predicted, Mei Li prays she’s able to navigate it without ruining the future. If she does, she fully plans on blaming Shunlei for that as well.
Henri is quite accustomed to dangerous and unusual cases landing in his lap. Being partnered to the Shinigami Detective likely has something to do with it. What he is NOT accustomed to is the queen herself marching into his lab and handing them such a case.
Former Royal Mage Joseph Burtchell was found dead in his home, all signs pointing to murder. However, it’s in question as to how the murderer accomplished the deed—the house was locked, the wards fully up, and the body bearing a peculiar wound.
It’s a locked room mystery, one with a suspiciously absent murder weapon and lack of suspects. Henri’s left baffled. Jamie’s excited, relishing the challenge the case represents.
Who’s powerful enough to thwart a royal mage’s wards and murder him undetected?
“What does Baros say?” Amalah asked in a hushed tone.
“He’s asking for my help.”Amalah’s dark brows shot straight into her hairline.
“Your help? You’re wanted by the entire Sovran, how can you possibly help him?”
“He says here that he’s wrangled a full pardon for me so that I can enter, but he needs my help.” Darius stared down at the letter, blindly, as everything he had heard in the past year coalesced into patterns all at once. “Amalah. I told you that because Niotan wrested free of the Sovran, avoided being conquered, that Baros would lose control slowly of the other countries.”
“Yes, so you did. Is that happening now? Is that what he wants you to stop?”
“No. Something worse than that. I should have anticipated this, but—” he swallowed the words down because in truth, he had actively not thought about war much in the past year. “The Roran barbarians were the first to break free of the Sovran after last year. And now it seems they’ve pulled together, at least most of the clans, perhaps all, and they’re threatening the northern countries. Baros has battled them to a standstill for now, but he can’t find a way to force them back into their territories. If he doesn’t do it soon, then they’ll overrun him. They’ll overrun the Sovran.”
He had known this day would come. No man could escape the entire might of the Sovran forever. He just found it humorous that it was an enemy of the Sovran that had caught him instead.
Bound, kneeling before a queen whom he had hounded for a straight year, he should have been anxious. Or at least a little worried. Instead, a strange sense of relief filled him. It was over. His mad escape from Brindisi’s justice was over.
“That is a very calm expression on your face, General Darius Bresalier,” she observed. Her tone was idle, but her eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s. “Are you not worried?”
“I knew what the punishment would be, Your Most High Majesty,” he answered respectfully. “I have had a year to resign myself to my fate. I cannot complain.”
She gave a low, musical hum of approval. “Well said. I have heard many reports on what you did but never once did I believe I could have the full tale.” She leaned forward, causing the silk pillows behind her to slide in every direction. “Kingslayer, tell me. Why did you kill your king?”
“Good work, Balancer.”
I frowned at the title. “All I did was transport her here, Raile.”
“Yes, so you did,” he agreed in a tone that clearly didn’t agree with me at all.
“Perhaps you don’t consciously realize this, Garth, but its little things like this that are restoring balance to Chahir. No task can be done in just one stroke of effort; it takes many strokes, and much sustained effort.”
He’s right. I started reviewing all of the things I had done over the past two years, memories flicking through my head almost too fast to follow. Each choice led to another; my choice to leave my home in Tobadorage and seek refuge in Hain led directly to my actions now, bringing a Queen into exile. And each choice, each action on my part, had started the chain reaction that was bringing magic back into Chahir.
“That boy thinks the world of you,” Xiaolang murmured. “And…” he visibly hesitated, slanting a questioning look at me from the corner of his eye.
“And…?” I encouraged him. Xiaolang rarely hesitates in his speech. When he wanted to say something, he said it.
“He’ll be very important in the future,” Xiaolang murmured. “I’m not sure how to put this…” he paused, mouth rummaging for words. “Something will change very soon, Garth. Someone will be discovered who will change everything. When that happens, you need to trust Trev’nor like he trusts you. Much will be lost otherwise.”
I looked, really looked at Trev’nor. Trev’nor has always been special, a child prodigy in a life that had no child prodigies. My head was swimming with questions after Xiaolang’s revelation. Who was the boy we were to rescue, and why was Trev’nor so important for that boy?
Humanity excels in finding ever creative ways to murder…
Car bombings as a means for murder was unheard of, unprecedented, and as far as Henri Davenforth knows, only one person in the entire world had ever seen the like before: his partner, the Shinigami Detective.
The case is transferred to them because this one calls for Jamie’s skills. But it turns out that not everything is as it appears on the surface. What should have been a straightforward murder might have some very murky motives behind it, and the further that the two investigate, the stranger the case becomes.
Now the Royal Mage of Kingston is involved, as well as the Kingsmen, bad charms are flying about, and the situation’s going from bad to worse. Their two murder victims created some bad magic, and it’s spreading like a disease throughout the city, killing other people in its wake. Henri’s desperate to track it down, to end it. He’s afraid that if they don’t react fast enough, even more death and explosions will follow in short order.
And thousands will die in the aftermath.
When the Night Foxes boldly break into the Fourth Precinct’s Evidence Building, it causes quite the stir. The break-in is daring enough, but their method shreds the magical wards and protections on the building like confetti paper. To say the police are ‘alarmed’ by this is the understatement of the century.
As a Magical Examiner, Henri Davenforth is of course immediately called in. Quite to his astonishment, Captain Gregson has him work the case like a detective. Even more astounding, he assigns Henri a partner.
The Shinigami Detective.
The woman is famous for killing the most destructive rogue witch of the century, and no one is quite certain where she’s from. Every officer in the precinct is either in awe of her or a little frightened by her. Henri is just baffled. What is he supposed to do with a partner?
Hopefully killing one witch makes Jamie Edwards enough of an expert on magic to be helpful, as the thieves aren’t content to just break into one building. They in fact seem to have an agenda, as with each theft, they take magical objects. It’s all mounting to a dangerously powerful magical construct capable of toppling the wards on any building.
And no one has any idea what the thieves’ true target is.
People really have to stop kidnapping her….
Sevana has quite enough on her plate, what with her wonky magical core still spastically melting or exploding things on her. She has every intention of seeking professional help, if such a thing exists, but is stopped before she can even go back home.
That is to say, she’s kidnapped. AGAIN.
Now she has her Fae family out for blood, the Unda pestering her with a problem to solve, upset human kings demanding compensation for destroyed research facilities, and she STILL has a wonky magical core.
If she’s kidnapped one more time, Sevana will not be responsible for her actions.
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