the wards,” Ophelia said, just as calm and even. It gave Henry the shivers to watch the two women, both of them apparently fully in control but scary as shit. The witch kept her hands on the table and didn’t move. “Or you could just explain what you have in here and we can continue with our business.”
Aria’s expression soured and she glanced at Henry. “Since when do you employ witches?”
He shrugged. “Something new the boss wanted to try. Care to explain what she’s talking about, or should we take our business elsewhere?”
The banker definitely scowled as she shoved her chair back. “I’ve been in this city for decades and no one has challenged me. Do you really want to be the ones to start?”
“We like to know who is looking out for our business interests,” Henry said. “All we need is a simple explanation.”
Aria drummed her fingers on the table in a rolling tattoo that made his nerves twitch. It reminded him of the eerie attention of Smith, some ancient fae nightmare who lived in the city and had occasionally intervened in the lives of the shifters to tip the scales in favor of good over evil. Smith worked as a private investigator and had been the one to help SilverLine trap Deirdre into saving Evershaw’s life, so Deirdre wasn’t a big fan of the fae or whatever he was. Maybe it was a fae versus witch thing.
Henry folded his arms over his chest as his stomach rumbled and his thoughts drifted to lunch. “We are aware there are many different... types in this city, all seeking to live in peace. Are you a witch? Fae? Some kind of shifter?”
The banker twitched when he said fae, and after a long silence, her lips thinned until they almost disappeared. A hint of very sharp teeth appeared when she finally spoke. “I am similar to what you might call fae. That is as much as I can say on the matter without running afoul of other forces.”
He didn’t sense any threat from her, nor from her bank. Their business had always been straightforward and handled promptly. SilverLine had no complaints about the professional relationship at all. And yet... not knowing who and what they dealt with every day made his skin prickle. What did “similar to fae” actually mean?
Ophelia continued to gaze around the room, perhaps measuring that magic she sensed, but eventually she tapped the table and nodded. “It is truth, or as close as she can admit. The magic feels... different. I would like to study it more.”
Aria’s sharp teeth were far pointier than any human’s had ever been; the visual turned Henry’s stomach, as if Aria had been a snake in human clothing all along and only recently showed her true colors. He didn’t let himself cringe back though, since it wasn’t worth ruining a perfectly good business relationship over.
The banker eyed Ophelia with distaste. “There is nothing to study, witch. You would not be able to learn anything.”
“I observed a sorcerer at work once,” the witch said absently. “He’d stolen some practices from the fae and learned to use them.”
“That’s impossible,” Aria said.
They argued quietly and coldly about things he only halfway understood—something about protect magic that came from inside instead of the outward-facing magic that came from the environment, and how one couldn’t use the other but the fae could or the witches could or something. He glanced between them like trying to follow a tennis match, amused as the argument got more and more technical until it devolved into actually trading secrets instead of guarding them.
He could have sat there all day and listened to Ophelia’s confident lecture on witch magic, surprised by the change in her when she started in on a topic she’d mastered. The fact that Aria responded to her in the same emotionless, highly technical manner helped, no doubt. He sat forward when Ophelia abruptly launched to her feet and strode across the office to gesture at a painting on the wall, and Aria followed on her heels to argue about whether a spell concealed the wall or the wall’s magical nature diverted the eye and thus didn’t need concealment.
He chuckled and then immediately schooled his face into solemnity as two pairs of angry female eyes found him. Henry sat up straight in his chair like he’d been caught passing notes in school, and cleared his throat. “This is a fascinating discussion, but I don’t want to take up too much