“That would certainly explain the resonance.” She paused, her expression curious. “How is the sorceress connected to whoever might be using Michael’s identity?”
“We suspect our sorceress is a face shifter who is able to not only make a full body shift, but can become male or female, too.”
“Which is an extremely rare occurrence.”
“I know.”
She glanced down at the cuff link, then rose abruptly. “Come along then.”
She bustled out of the room and didn’t look back. I hastily placed my coffee mug back on the table, the movement so sudden liquid splashed over the rim, scalding my fingers and spilling across the table. I grabbed a napkin, dropped it over the mess, then ran after Adeline. She led us into a room farther down the hall – one opposite the room in which she’d taught me to astral travel. Energy caressed my skin as I went through the doorway, a warning that wards were very active here. The décor was simple – a small round table, a half dozen thickly cushioned chairs, and warmly colored tapestries on the wall. Candles burned in the four corners of the room, their aroma filling the air with lavender and sage. They were also the only source of light. This, I suspected, was the place she did most of her business and, in very many ways, it reminded me of the room Mom had used when she had clients wanting to talk to relatives who’d moved on.
“Please, sit.” Adeline waved a hand to one of the chairs, then sat down opposite. “I’ll attempt lithomancy, which is a form of divination using stones. I think there is enough of a resonance within the sapphire to at least give me some idea as to who might have owned it. Whether I can pull current location information from it might well depend on how long they have owned it. I will need your help, however.”
I nodded. “Just tell us what to do.”
“Reaper, please sit between myself and your charge.”
Azriel obeyed without comment. She placed the cuff link on a small velvet cushion sitting in the middle of the table, then sprinkled it with sage, which I knew from Ilianna was used for cleansing or purifying. Adeline slid her chair back slightly, opened a drawer, and produced a small crystal ball. This one, unlike most, had a small indent in its base, and it was this section she placed over the cuff link.
“Now,” she said, her voice brisk and businesslike. “This will work along similar lines as a séance, only instead of spirits we will be seeking to connect to the essence of whoever owns this piece. As I said, what we see in the crystal will very much depend on how long the stone has been in the possession of its owner.”
“So we join hands and chant?”
“Join hands, yes. Chant, no. I just need you two to focus on the cuff link. I will channel our energy into drawing whatever the sapphire holds into the crystal so that you might see it.” She hesitated. “I cannot guarantee we will see anything, however. Lithomancy is generally used to ‘see’ the past, clarify the present, or predict the future. It is rarely used for what we are about to attempt.”
I nodded. She held out her hands, palms up. I placed one hand in hers, the other in Azriel’s. Her skin was warm against mine, and far softer than Azriel’s more calloused grip – naturally enough, given one was an earthbound witch and the other a gray-fields warrior. Adeline closed her eyes. After a few moments, energy began to rise, a heartbeat that seemed to fill the silence. As it grew stronger, the small crystal began to cloud over. It cleared again after a few moments, revealing a small, book-filled room. A study of some kind. The view shifted, and revealed the back of a woman. She was thickset, with almost manly shoulders and short colorless hair. It wasn’t white, wasn’t gray, wasn’t anything, really. It reminded me somewhat of an unwashed canvas, waiting for the arrival of paint.
A sorceress in her true form, perhaps? Azriel commented softly.
Perhaps.
The image shifted again. This time we got a side view of her; she had a large, almost regal-looking nose and thin lips framed by deep lines. Not someone who smiled very often. It wasn’t, however, Lauren. Or not as we knew her, anyway.
She rose and walked across the room. Our viewpoint followed her. She gathered several armloads of papers and returned, dropping them all in a suitcase and closing it. She left the room, but moments later returned, carrying another case.
She was packing up.
Which meant if we didn’t get there soon, we’d lose her. And yet there wasn’t enough information coming through the crystal to give an indication of where this was all happening.
The woman moved across the room again, her stout fingers brushing the edges of a framed painting. After a moment, the painting slid aside and revealed a wall safe. She opened this and took out four small items – three daggers and a broken bayonet.
Excitement surged through me, but it was tempered by panic. I had no doubt one of those things was the key to the second gate, and if she had it narrowed down to the four of them, then it wouldn’t take her very long to find the correct one.
Damn it, we were so close! All we needed was the where and the who…
We didn’t get it. The clouds closed over the image, then faded away. It was all I could do not to scream in frustration.
Adeline sighed and pulled her hands from ours. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I could get. As I said, this is not the usual way I use lithomancy.”
“Thanks for trying, Adeline. At least we know she’s out there.” To Azriel, I added, Could you transport us to that study?
No. There wasn’t enough information. All we saw were bookcases and a safe. It could be anywhere.
I slumped back in my chair and wearily rubbed my eyes. Damn it, why couldn’t things just go our way for a change? “How are we going to find the location of that place?”
“You could always try astrally.”
I frowned. “How could that help?”