Monty appeared a few seconds later. He had a multitude of twigs in his hair and scratches on his arms. Belle followed him, her grin unrestrained.
“What have we got, Liz?” He hobbled over surprisingly fast.
“Well hello to you, too,” I said, voice dry.
He had the grace to look chastened, if only momentarily. “Sorry, just eager to get back into the action. Been going a bit stir-crazy after all the inactivity and hospital stays.”
“You worked in spell cataloguing for most of your working life. You should be used to inaction.”
He stopped beside me. His face was flushed with heat, and sweat dribbled down his cheeks and stained the underarms of his shirt. “It seems I’ve gained a taste for action, despite being in the reservation for only a short time. What do we have?”
“Feathers.”
He gave me the look. “I can see that much.”
I grinned. “Did Belle tell you about the ones we found earlier?”
“Yes, and Ashworth should have waited for me. I am the stronger witch.”
“Dare you to say that to Ashworth,” Belle commented.
He grinned. “I’m not actually that silly. I take it these are from the same shifter?”
I hesitated. “There’s some very minor differences, so I don’t think so. But the output is stronger.”
“Yeah, I can feel it from here.” He hesitated. “There’re two threads of magic running through the wave though.”
I glanced up sharply. “There are?”
His smile was smug. “More powerful witch, remember?”
I snorted. “I wonder if the second thread is the residue of whatever magic flung the shifter off course.”
“More than likely,” he said. “But that begs the question, why attack them and not follow up?”
“Maybe he or she simply intended to stop the shifters taking their prey,” Belle said.
“At least two of them were fairly badly hurt,” I said. “That suggests the attacker’s intent was dee
per than just interfering with their hunt.”
“I agree.” Monty glanced at me. “Have you got any containers in that backpack?”
“I have Ziploc bags.” And disposable gloves. Aiden might have a seemingly endless supply in his pockets, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have additional ones on hand. “Why?”
“To scrape some of the dried blood into. Might be worth seeing if it’s the same blood on both rocks.”
I got out one of the bags and my blessed silver knife and began scraping. Light rippled down the edge that touched the blood, an indication that it still held the taint of either darkness or magic. “What about the feathers? Do you want to try tracking their owner tonight?”
He hesitated and then motioned toward them. “Let me feel one of them.”
I picked out the one with the strongest vibe and handed it up. He studied it for several moments, testing and probing it magically, then grimaced. “We won’t get very far—the magic we’re feeling is actually some sort of tracking barrier.”
“Why would she magically protect the feathers rather than simply picking them up and taking them away?” Belle said.
He shrugged. “She might have been dazed, either from blood loss or the remnants of whatever spell sent her flying.”
“If she was lucid enough to spell,” I said, “she was lucid enough to simply pick them up. Why leave a magic marker like that?”