Ghostlight (The Reflected City Book 1) by Rabia Gale (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📗

Blake staring down at the city. Blake’s salamander was a cheery yellow glow, filling the small space with warmth.

“You know how it is,” said Blake. “Every church and cemetery insists it needs purification before Holy Week. Ember is in demand.” He held a slip of silver paper to the fire elemental. She crackled happily as she ate, her small flames delicately licking the treat, her tail curled around her body.

Blake had always been too modest about his own skills, Trey thought. He was a surprise magician: no one else in his family had the gift. Scions of traditionally gifted families—like himself, Trey freely admitted—didn’t suffer from a lack of confidence in their own abilities.

“You’ll always get more requests than you can handle, even from official channels,” he said. “You have to use your own judgement and not stretch yourself too thin.” Trey flicked a glance at Ember, contentedly buzzing. “Ember relies on you to make good use of her powers.”

Blake looked amused. “You don’t look like you’ve been following your own advice, Trey.”

“Damn right I haven’t,” said Trey feelingly. “But I made it my business, so I have an obligation to see it through.”

Blake lost his smile and lowered his voice. “How is Arabella—Miss Trent, that is? Is she—no, of course, not. You wouldn’t bring her here.”

“Arabella, is it?” Trey eyed his friend. “Sweet on her, are you?”

“She’s a nice little thing. Good friend of Charlie’s. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. Charlie would be upset.” Blake grinned at him. “She particularly wanted me to tell you to treat her friend gently. Charlie knows how you can be.”

“How I can be?”

“You aren’t always the most pleasant and sympathetic of people, old fellow,” Blake pointed out.

“Miss Trent has bigger problems than my lack of manners towards her.”

“Ah.” Blake looked somber. “No luck yet.”

“Not much luck, but a hint or two.” Trey clapped Blake on the shoulder. “Tell Charlie not to worry. I’m taking care of her friend.”

“I will.” And as Trey pulled open the door, Blake called, “Heard that Winter’s looking for you.”

“Of course he is,” Trey called back. The interior was gloomy and echoing, with marble floors muddy from people tramping back and forth. A servant desultorily pushed a dirty mop across the floor. Trey headed up the three flights of stairs to where his supervisor, August Winter, waited, no doubt ready to take his tardy underling to task.

Chapter Six

The Phantasm Bureau was on the topmost story, next to storage rooms stuffed with rolled-up rugs and broken chairs. Their suite was small, but too empty of people and too full of memories. Trey pushed open the door and was once again assailed by the wrongness of it all.

Desks whose owners would never return were still piled high with papers. Chairs, including Hilda’s big one with the indentation of her body still pressed in it, were pushed to corners and against the walls. Half-empty boxes on the floor were for personal items that no one had time to finish packing and return to grieving families.

Trey put his hat on a rack and his top coat on a peg and glanced at the only occupant of the front room. Sutton hadn’t looked up, still hunched over his dishes of ink and milk and salt and fresh water. Trey didn’t know if the small, thin man ever went home any more, as if his vigilance in monitoring the boundaries of the Shadow Lands was his penance for surviving the Incursion.

Trey crossed over to Sutton, casting a shadow over a small plate of milk. Sutton moved it into the light and said, never taking his eyes from the swirls of ink in it, “Winter wants to see you in his office.”

Trey glanced at the shut door across the room. “Morgan out with the new boy? What’d he have to say about Jem?”

“He said, ‘He’ll do.’” Sutton squirted red ink into water milky with salt crystals. He studied the swirls that meant nothing to Trey.

“Anything come up recently?” Trey asked.

Now, Sutton did look up, light turning his spectacles to silver, hiding his expression. “You mean aside from the disturbance near the cathedral last night? But you took care of that, didn’t you.”

From Sutton’s tone, Trey suspected that he had broken a number of Winter’s interminable rules by his handling of the barghest last night. He probably had an unread copy of recent regulations on his desk somewhere.

“It was only a barghest.” Trey shrugged. “No, I’m looking for something else that was abroad last night.”

“What?”

“A ghoul.”

Sutton’s pinched face paled to the color of curdled milk. He swung back to his dishes, scattering powder over them, lips moving in soundless incantations.

Trey watched for a moment, then turned towards Winter’s office. Might as well get the unpleasant interview over with. He had a request of his own to make, too.

He had his hand up to knock when Sutton said behind him, “You know.”

“Eh?” Trey turned around to look at the man’s narrow wool-clad back.

“You know, you could’ve called for help.” Sutton’s tones were neutral. “The Phantasm Bureau isn’t just you.”

Trey’s mouth twisted as he looked around the room. “Believe me, Sutton, I remember it every time I come in here.”

And he rapped on Winter’s door.

August Winter had taken over the shattered and reduced Phantasm Bureau at the close of the Incursion last year. His predecessor, Horatio Halford, had been invalided out from the position. Trey suspected, though, that Halford’s health had only been the official excuse. Scared politicians tended to look for someone to blame.

Trey had nearly come to blows with some asinine aristocrat for suggesting that the common Halford had been ill-equipped to deal with the invasion the way a born noble would’ve been. Only Blake’s timely intervention had kept him from a duel that would’ve ended his career, Shade Hunter or no.

August Winter prized self-discipline above all.

He was a tall, lean man with smooth black hair and cold blue eyes, always impeccably dressed. Right now, he stood inside a magic circle in