a bright cool space floored in granite, the low beams overhead knobby with glass spheres aglow with incandescent light.
The perimeter of the basement was divided into bays, each one open toward the center and containing a table, metal shelves covered in equipment, and paraphernalia half of which Cuan could not identify. “We don’t research or experiment here,” she said. “That’s carried out at London Bridge, just in case anything blows up. But there are facilities for forensic work. Last bay on the left, please.”
He went on ahead while she was locking the door behind, and paused by the opening she had indicated. A light still burned over the long slab table, a length of white toweling spread beneath it. Something black and slender lay diagonally across the cloth, dull enough even under intense light that Cuan could not make out its detail.
Garrett cleared her throat at his shoulder, and he jumped. While he was still gathering himself, she said, “Coen is really Cuan, isn’t it, Detective Sergeant? Sean Cuan? Do I miss my guess?”
The slow banging of his heart accelerated with panic. “DCI?”
She shook her head. “You’re Irish. Aren’t you?”
He could lie, of course. But changing your name wasn’t a crime. Lying about the reasons to a Crown Investigator, however…
“I’m Irish,” he said. “But I’m good at my job.”
She smiled. “Never fear, Coen. I’d be the last to throw you to the wolves. I know your partner dismisses it, but do you think your killer is a bobby?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t ruled it out, but—that’s a lot of ground for a policeman to cover, unless he’s off duty nights. And why would you slip on a cape to cover your uniform, but leave your helmet on?”
“You could plan to come back and mingle with the crowd of police at the scene,” Garrett offered. “Here’s your knife—or the shape of it, anyway.” She reached out and lifted the object, turning to offer it across her hand.
Cuan accepted the model, finding it lighter and warmer than he expected. He’d thought it would feel like glass, heavy and chill, but it barely weighed his hand. When he held it close enough, angled to the light, he could pick out the features of the blade.
“Dip it in whitewash,” she said. “It’ll give it a little more texture. But for now, you should be able to see—”
“It’s a Frontiersman,” Cuan said. A hunting knife, jagged along the back, sharply pointed and sporting a heavily beveled edge. “We don’t see a lot of these in London.”
She nodded. “I thought it was significant. There’s more; look at the hilt.”
He brought his eye down to the same level as the hilt and looked along it, consciously adjusting his focus to sweep the length. “There are scratches on the hilt. That’s pretty damned weird, DCI.”
“They look like fingernail scratches,” she said. “But those would have to be peculiarly long fingernails.”
Whatever passed between them when their eyes met, it was Cuan who looked aside. It was easier to talk with his shoulder to her. Spit it out, Cuan. “How did you get to be a sorcerer?”
She lifted her chin, framing a savage response. And then something in his face must have softened her fury, because the corner of her eyes twitched and she said, “I attended university.”
Cuan bit his lip, knowing she noticed. “And the admission requirements?”
“A basic liberal education,” she said. “There’s an examination, of course. And a practical. The examinations are more stringent at Oxford than on the continent, with three or four exceptions.”
“The Sorbonne,” he said.
The flat line of her mouth curved upward. It must have been the note of pure longing in his voice. She said, “But if you want to join the Crown’s Own”—she touched her dress over her breastbone—“you need the red sigils.”
Sorcerers received the mark of their profession upon graduation. Mostly tattooed over the breastbone in black ink. The red sigils were from Oxford, Paris, Wittenberg, Rome, or Kyiv—the great universities of the profession. “No point in studying anywhere else, then.”
“You’ve a spark?”
He nodded.
She lifted the model knife from his grip and turned back toward the work table. With her free hand, she swept up the length of toweling. “Show me.”
He spread his fingers as if they ached. “I haven’t anything to work with.”
Garrett laid the objects in her hands on a steel shelf. When she turned back, she held a shallow brown-and-cream glazed bowl in her palm. She laid it on the table before Cuan and cupped her hands around it. She