Page 2 of Arcane Entanglement

The cries of street sellers, hawkers, and barrow boys mingled with the clip-clop of horseshoes striking cobblestone and the jarring rumble of wheels rising from carts and carriages trundling through the thoroughfare.

The East End was a noisy, messy place on the best of days. Market Day made it ten times worse.

“What Inspector Grayson doesn’t see won’t hurt him,” Shaw muttered presently.

Evander traded a resigned glance with Vincent Brown, the alchemist who’d just gathered another piece of the victim’s brain and was tucking it inside a secure slot in his evidence box. A rotund man with a bushy red beard, Brown wore a constant glint of curiosity in his eyes.

“Look here, Shaw,” the alchemist started, “how about you stop mucking around and?—”

Something went “squelch” under the mage’s probing finger.

Blood and a sticky black substance spurted out of the dead man’s chest cavity, flew an inch past Shaw’s left cheek, and landed on one of Evander’s expensive, lace-up boots with a wet splat.

They stared, horrified.

Evander swallowed a groan.

Jasper is going to kill me.

Jasper Hargrove was his manservant. A caster and former Navy man, he prided himself on making sure Evander was smartly dressed whatever the occasion. Evander suspected if he ever had an appointment with Death, Hargrove would make sure he was perfectly presentable for the deadly rendezvous.

The constable who’d barely recovered his composure gagged, twisted around, and vomited noisily against a wall. Griffiths patted him on the back and directed a dark look at Shaw.

The forensic mage was too busy chewing her lip to pay attention, her eyes locked on the unsightly blob presently sinking into the exquisite leather of Evander’s boot.

“Oh, you’ve gone and done it now, Shaw,” Brown grumbled. He threw his hands up in the air. “His Grace’s boots are bound to be worth at least half a year’s salary!”

Evander didn’t bother correcting the man. His boots had cost far more than that. He knew because he’d seen the receipt from Greystoke & Co, the fine leather goods shop in Pall Mall Hargrove purchased his dress shoes and boots from.

Shaw paled, her expression a mixture of remorse at what she’d done and shock at the idea that someone would wear boots equivalent to half her annual wage.

Evander reconciled himself to getting an earful from his manservant and sighed.

“Would you be so kind as to lend me one of your specimen vials, Mr. Brown?”

The alchemist had just passed him a glass tube and a scooping stick when a voice made them flinch.

“What the devil happened here?!” Rufus snapped.

The inspector had joined them.

He took one look at the bloodied end of Shaw’s gloved finger and the grim evidence Evander was patiently scraping off his footwear before clenching his jaw so hard they heard his teeth grind.

“Miss Shaw,” Rufus grated out, “what have I told you about sticking those fickle hands of yours where they don’t belong?”

Shaw recovered and flashed a smile at the inspector, undeterred. “Look on the bright side, sir. I just saved Dr. Mortimer the trouble of discovering that black substance, whatever it is.” She waved at the stygian lump on the scooping stick Evander was holding.

Ambrose Mortimer was the chief physical examiner of the Arcane Forensics Division. Despite his morbid sense of humour and his unsettling habit of talking to the corpses he examined, Mortimer was a stickler for following procedure.

Rufus closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Brown heaved a weary sigh and shook his head.

Evander didn’t blame them.

Mortimer was going to have an apoplexy when he found out what Shaw had done to his precious body.

Rufus frowned at the constable who was still hurling his breakfast and, by the looks of it, yesterday’s dinner, before observing Evander candidly.

“What do you make of this, your Grace?”