Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘Easy,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s been cleaned of magic in exactly the same way.’

‘Spoilsport.’ She gave Dessa a half-hearted thumbs-down making the cornrowed WPC grin happily. Mary huffed and whipped out her notebook. ‘C’mon then, how do you know?’

‘The hawk did it,’ I said. ‘In the square. With the magical green ribbon snake.’

‘Ha ha. Very funny.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, and it’s a Booted Eagle not a hawk. The square’s bird warden ID’d it.’

An eagle? Well, it went with the whole Roman imperial theme.

Mary waved her notebook under my nose. ‘Specifics, please.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Well, Freya said that the bird smelled like her Uncle Jack. Jack is one of the Morrígan’s ravens. He’s also a changeling. Ergo, the eagle is also changeling. Changelings are human babies raised by the sidhe in the Fair Lands and given sidhe magic. So the eagle changeling used sidhe spells in the kidnaps, and that’s why the zoo, and here, look like a sidhe’s cleaned up all the magic.’

Mary fingers whitened where she gripped her pen then she gave me a not so friendly look. ‘You know,’ she said quietly, ‘that’s the one thing all us witches fear about our babies, that we’ll wake up to find them stolen. Taken to be a changeling. And all we’re left with is a stupid ùmaidh .’

Stupid was right, since ùmaidh means dolt or dim-witted. But then most ùmaidhs were made from something inanimate like a fresh cut log, or the longer lived ones from animals – I’d heard piglets were a favourite – so anything more than basic sentience wasn’t part of the spell.

I touched Mary’s arm. ‘Won’t happen. For one to make an ùmaidh , the sidhe would have to offer up a chunk of flesh and sever part of their soul. It’s a big sacrifice to make for something that’s only going to live for a couple of weeks at the most.’

Mary’s mouth twisted. ‘Yes, I know, but they’d get the stolen baby in exchange.’

True. Only if a sidhe really wanted to steal a baby they’d be more likely to leave a Glamoured sprite behind than an ùmaidh . Way easier. But I didn’t tell Mary that. And really she didn’t need to worry anyway. I did tell her that.

‘Reason being,’ I carried on, ‘the sidhe have agreed not to steal any kids from London. They can only take them with the mother’s agreement.’ Grianne, my faerie dogmother, had told me that little gem, back when I’d accused my sidhe queen grandmother, Clíona (through Grianne), of stealing Freya’s Uncle Jack when he’d been a baby. ‘Well’ – I added the proviso Grianne had also told me – ‘they can’t so long as there’s a queen on the British throne. Which there is now. It’s an old agreement going back to Boadicea.’

Mary’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘Truth?’

‘Yeah.’ I frowned. ‘How do you not know that?’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’ She tapped her pen thoughtfully. ‘Weird. I’ll have to ask Mum, see if she has. It would certainly put a lot of our worries to rest.’ If it’s true .

She left it unsaid. Not stupid enough to say it might be a lie to my face. Though to be honest, I was wondering if Grianne had somehow told me it wrong too . . . or if I’d let some cat out of a bag I wasn’t supposed to . . . but that mystery was for another time.

‘So,’ I said briskly, ‘we know the eagle is a changeling, and he/she used the jade ribbon snake to wipe the crime scenes clean magically, but it wasn’t just the magic that disappeared, but the eagle, Werewolf Guy and Mad Max too.’

‘Which means the snake also held some sort of Translocation spell, or it opened a portal.’ Mary flipped back a couple of pages in her notebook. ‘One of the witnesses said he saw a large black shadow fall from the eagle, so that might indicate the portal option.’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, but a portal to where?’

‘I don’t think it can be far; those types of spells take a lot of power,’ Mary mused. ‘It might even have gone to a nearby van. We had a shoplifting perp who was doing that with goods before we nicked him . . .’ Her face lit up. ‘We nicked him when he lifted something we’d planted and we were able to scry for it. So it doesn’t matter where the portal went, because we can find it. Or find Mad Max, anyway, using that gold coin he had in his mouth.’

I handed her the coin in its plastic bag. ‘I picked it up, remember, after Mad Max dropped it, is that going to be a problem?’

‘Not if we keep you with us, and the coin’s got lots of scratches on it, so his saliva should be all over it. The main scrying kit is still back at the zoo, but Dessa’s got a portable kit in the car.’ She jumped up, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘I know why the Emperor wants me – sort of, anyway,’ I said. ‘But why would his werewolves kidnap the ambassador’s wife, her kid, and the zoo employee?’

‘I don’t know, Genny. But right now, why doesn’t matter. Let’s see if we can find them first, then we can worry about that.’ She hurried over to Dessa, and I fished my phone out to check my messages. Nothing from Tavish, which was odd considering he’d said he’d got into the Emperor’s website, and I’d sent him the pictures of the gold coin. I left an update then checked the rest.

Most could be left till later, but Katie wanted me to call, urgently.

I phoned the Spellcrackers’ office private line. ‘Hey, hon,’ I said, ‘how’s things?’

‘Where are you, Gen?’ Finn said sharply. ‘We need to talk.’

Surprise at unexpectedly hearing Finn’s voice flipped straight into anger. He was supposed to be back in the Fair Lands. But since he was here, and wanted to talk, he could start with an explanation.

‘What the hell were you doing answering my personal texts, Finn?’

‘You know why, Gen,’ he said, exasperated. ‘You can’t go seeing the sucker out in public.’

‘That’s my decision, not yours.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ he agreed, stumping me. ‘And you’re right; I probably shouldn’t have sent that text. I know jealousy isn’t cool, but it’s more than that, if you want to keep Spellcrackers.’

And here it was: his usual emotional blackmail. Well, I’d made my decision and even if Malik was a cowardly text-dumping over-protective idiot vamp, and our relationship was more likely off than on, I was sticking to it. No way was I going to let Finn, the satyr herd, the witches or anyone else dictate my choices in life. Not to mention if Finn was back for good, then Spellcrackers wasn’t mine to keep anyway. I nudged my backpack nearer with my foot, resisting the urge to kick it, and dug out a Phone Privacy spell.

‘Threats are even less cool than jealousy, Finn,’ I snapped as the spell activated and the noise from Trafalgar Square muted. ‘Oh, and my keeping Spellcrackers is sort of a moot, as you’re back.’

‘I know, Gen,’ he said, his exasperation turning to apology. ‘I’ve been talking to Tavish, and like him I’ll back you all the way. Hell’s thorns, I think the herd owe Spellcrackers to you for all the hassle they’ve caused.’ He paused. ‘But things will be a lot easier if you stay away from the sucker. If you can, that is.’

Shock rocked through me. Part was his comment about ‘staying away from Malik, if I could’, though what Finn meant by that was a mystery. But mostly it was down to: ‘Did you say you’re willing to go against the rest of the satyr herd? To let me keep Spellcrackers? Don’t you want it?’

‘Gen, I enjoy the job, but a lot of that is working with you. I don’t feel any great need to be the boss and to be honest, with Nicky and the baby to look after, I could do without the added responsibility. So, yeah, I’ll back you.’