Page 6

Chapter 6

H ecate's fur raised and she hissed, dropping the pocket watch onto the counter as I curled my shoulder into the gap between her and the broom. I gathered her up in both arms and a hard thwack on my back had me staggering forward, my shoulder and spine stinging in the aftermath.

I breathed through the pain, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Hecate clambered up my other shoulder, laying her paws on it and licking my cheek. At least she was sorry.

"Was that your plan?" Oliver bellowed. "Distract me with buying useless tat while your familiar steals the valuable stuff?"

"Oh, please." I exaggerated a sigh as I turned around, clutching Hecate to my chest. "That thing wouldn't go for pennies at a flea market. She just likes shiny things, that's all. There's no need to attack her!"

"You stay here a minute longer and I'll do worse than attack!" Oliver brandished his broom, his entire face north of his moustache the colour of a ripe tomato.

"All right, all right!" I barged out of the door, ensuring to make the bell clang extra loud on my way.

Hecate rolled into my arms like she was a baby being cradled and touched a paw to my neck. "I'm sorry."

"You're lucky you're so cute," I said, and pressed a kiss on the top of her head.

No matter how much trouble she got me into, I could never make her feel bad about it. For a thief, she made herself surprisingly accountable.

A pressing sensation intensified inside me as I closed the cover of the final grimoire. My work desk didn't even need organising. I had tidied as I went along to stall for time. The glows of the powers in their talismans from the surrounding shelves gleamed across the crystals embedded into the grimoire's leather cover. All it was missing, like the two others, was the protective power to imbue it with.

Given that all commissions were anonymous, on account of me performing illegal work for shady people, I wouldn't exactly get customer complaints if their products were late. But I didn't want to make a habit of pissing off unknown people after nefarious items.

I had already tracked down the locations of the powers I needed for the grimoires, but the one I needed for my personal vendetta weighed on my mind. A power like Troy Franklin's was rare. I was lucky enough that it had fallen into my lap, but the power to track someone with such precision was the longest possible shot. I would never find it with my usual search technique, which was to scour the Nexus database of released criminals and find the one I needed.

Powers that rare were never put on display for the public to see, not even if they were career criminals. Nexus would have seen to that. The question weighed heavily on my mind: how on earth would I even find someone with it?

I drummed my fingers on the cover and headed for the door to my bedroom. No matter how urgently I wanted an answer, it would have to wait. Commissions came first at the moment. They paid well and I had rent every month. Not to mention I needed to keep my bribery fund topped up in case Hecate got caught again.

"Right," I said, as I slid the panel back into place in the wall of my room. "Are you ready?"

Hecate stretched out on my bedcovers and blinked sleepily. She didn't look ready. When I sat down next to her, she laid a paw on my hand to communicate with me.

"We're not leaving for a few hours yet. Why the rush?"

"I didn't say are you ready to go . Are you ready for later?" I asked.

"Ask me after my nap."

"You are unbelievable."

"A cat burglar must be well rested. Do you want me to make silly mistakes?"

"Like the one you made today?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.

She batted my hand as if I was a kitten in need of a telling off. "Yes, because I didn't get to sleep in this morning."

"All right." I held my hands up in defeat. "Get your beauty sleep. I could do with a little time to do some research, anyway."

That was a lie. Ideally, I would have headed out as soon as possible to avoid being here when Asher arrived. But if that wasn't possible, I would sneak myself some dinner and do a little more research on the power I wanted to track down.

I headed downstairs, my ears pricked for any sound at the front door. Asher wasn't likely to knock, and I really didn't want to be around when he came waltzing in.

It was Laura's turn to make dinner that night. She stood over a huge soup pot, wearing a red polka dot dress; a far cry from the work clothes I had caught her in earlier. She had tied her auburn locks back in a Viking style braid and a full face of make-up. I still couldn't quite fathom how this blacksmith who routinely hammered the living daylights out of metal had such a fierce feminine side.

Edward sat at the dining table, bent over his sketchpad and surrounded with open tins of pencils. His tongue between his teeth, Edward sketched out a gazelle on the paper.

His floppy blonde hair had grown out so long that it wouldn't be long before he could pull it back into a ponytail. Perpetually covered in paint, Edward wore nothing but comfy clothes, many of which had holes in. He had built up a layer of muscle from years of daily yoga but he wouldn't enter a gym if you paid him.

"Starting another project you're not going to finish?" I asked as I headed toward the cupboards.

"It's a commission." Edward jabbed his pencil in my direction. "I have to finish it."

"Things picking up again?"

Edward shot me a mischievous look. "Not as well as they are for you . Didn't you say you were going to quit book slinging?"

Once or twice. But that was before Asher and I had broken up. Back when I had the foundation to make huge changes like that.

"Mind your business." I plucked a cup of noodles out of a cupboard.

Laura drew in an exaggerated gasp mid-stir. "Excuse me, I'm making dinner. What do you think you're doing?"

I pulled a face at her. "Do you really think I'm hanging around down here?"

"I thought you were going to be civil?" Laura asked. "Isn't that what you said?"

"Yeah, but I'm going to do it my way. If anyone expects me to greet him at the door like some dog he left at home while he was out working, they deserve a slap." I flicked the kettle on and leaned against the counter next to Laura's bubbling pot.

Edward sighed so loud that his papers fluttered under the force of it.

"So how will you meet him, then?" Laura tapped a little salt into the pot.

"We'll pass awkwardly in a corridor in the next few days," I said. "Then we'll ignore each other as best we can for the rest of it."

"Sounds like you've given it a lot of thought," Edward said, a taunting edge to his words.

I picked an apple out of the fruit bowl and threw it at him. He batted it off with his arm and bared his teeth at me.

"All right, do it your way," Laura said, shooting me an exasperated look. "I'll let him know you said hi."

"Don't do that." I grabbed the kettle once it finished boiling and poured it into the cup. "If you must tell him anything, tell him to shove-"

" Okay, I won't tell him anything. I'll save you some stew if you want some later."

I bid them both goodbye, stirring my noodles and headed upstairs. Hecate was fast asleep when I got back up to my room, so I slipped into my work space. I put my noodles on my desk to stew, the room alight from the rows of jars along the far wall. Some of the stolen powers within them drifted back and forth, bouncing off the glass walls. Others stayed perfectly still, flickering every so often. They looked like luminous jellyfish if I squinted my eyes.

I stirred my noodles a little more, my gaze drifting up to the top shelf. The eight powers contained up there were the first I had ever taken; the powers of the Bishop family. At the earliest opportunity I had changed my name from Bishop to Silver. Not a shred of me belonged to them anymore. Not in name or anything else.

Grabbing my soundproof headphones, I turned my back on the shelves and sat at my desk. Noodles in hand, I hunkered down at my laptop to do some digging. For hours I scoured every public register and a few less than public ones, too, in search of someone with the power I sought. Someone out there had to have the ability to track people; to find someone with a magical power. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't find anyone.

This power was either rarer than I thought, or government agencies had snapped these people up already. Either way, that left me with a non-existent pool to draw from.

After hours of searching, I gave up and joined Hecate in a nap, setting my alarm for midnight, and when it woke me too soon, I reluctantly got up and downed an awakening potion. Its fizzing magic jerked me awake and Hecate and I stood up and stretched simultaneously.

"Ready to cause some mayhem?" I asked, slinging my pre-prepared black rucksack onto my shoulder.

Hecate jumped onto my shoulders and tapped a paw to my cheek. "Always."