“Go fuck yourself,” one suggested, because they were all jonesing for a fight. An enemy had invaded their base, attacked a woman they were bound to protect, and—probably worst of all from their perspective—said woman had managed to save herself while making them look . . . not very competent. Which was unfair.
They’d dodged those spells in the corridor like a boss.
“Here it is!” Jonas adjusted his spectacles. “From an entry dated the 4th of September, 1761: ‘The torso of a male fey was discovered in training salle number seven today’.” He looked at us from over his glasses. “What we call number one was actually the seventh to be dug out, you see, but the other six were taken over by the new medical facility completed in 1883—”
“Jonas.” If Pritkin’s teeth got any tighter, he was going to break one.
“Yes, of course. Where were we? ‘The torso was naked, with no insignia to specify clan affiliation, and the body was badly decayed. However, it was determined to be of the light fey subrace, and the proper authorities were notified—’”
“Why was it naked?” The same mage who’d spoken before suddenly asked. He sounded American.
“He, and time disintegrated his clothing,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“You hit it with a time spell, and it kept on moving?”
I blinked at him. “He. And, no. He died.”
“Then why was the torso only decayed, but the clothes were gone?” he asked, like Sherlock Holmes making some kind of major deduction. “Flesh rots faster than cloth!”
“Jonas said ‘badly decayed’,” I reminded him, wondering if they had IQ tests for war mages, and thinking it might be a useful idea. “And maybe he had shitty clothes. I don’t know—”
“No, you don’t. Which is why you should have let us do our jobs!”
“You couldn’t even see him,” I said angrily.
“And you could?”
“That is a point,” Jonas said, looking up from his book. “How did you detect him, Cassandra?”
“Lady Cassandra,” Pritkin snapped, from over his shoulder, having gone back to pacing.
“Yes, of course.” Jonas smiled genially at me.
“Pythia stuff,” I said, grateful that Pritkin’s remark had given me a second.
“Really? Of what kind, may I ask?”
“Later,” Pritkin said, coming to my aid again without even realizing it. Or maybe he did. He might be angry, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have my back.
“Of course,” Jonas said, dropping it too easily, but right then, I didn’t care.
“The body has been turned over to the fey representative,” he continued. “Along with what appeared to be a much older shin bone, also determined by our doctors to be fey in origin. Dr. Campbell has speculated that this area might once have been a cemetery for exiled fey who could not be buried on their own soil—”
“Then where’s the rest of him?” Mouthy Mage demanded.
I was getting really tired of this guy.
And so, it seemed, was Pritkin. “What the hell difference does it make? He’s dead—”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“—our job is to find out how he got in, what he wanted, and if there’s any more of the damned things!”
“Well, you’re the fey expert,” Mouthy said. “Or was that demon? I forget.”
“Simpson,” Jonas said, still reading. “Do be a dear boy, won’t you, and close the door on your way out?”
Simpson left, after shooting Pritkin another “anywhere, anytime” look, and thankfully took the others with him. I immediately missed him. Mouthy had been irritating, but also a good distraction, and now I was suddenly the sole focus of two very intelligent sets of eyes.