Magic Rises

people are dead, Tamara and the guard by the gate. We need to know if there was any link between them. They could be random victims, or they could be part of a pattern. You need to reconstruct their lives. Did Tamara and the other guard have enemies, were they in debt, and so on? Right now we don’t know enough.”
    “They could be targeting Desandra,” Hibla said. “They could be targeting one of the packs. They could be targeting Lord Megobari.”
    “Exactly,” Derek said. “We need to collect information and then we can howl in the dark.”
    * * *
    Hibla led us back to the main keep and left us to our own devices in the main courtyard. It was mostly empty, except for some djigits tending to the horses. Above us the sky was so blue and beautiful. I stared into it. Maybe I’d see a flying monster and solve all of our problems.
    “Are you waiting for a clue to fall on your head?” Derek asked.
    “Yep. Tell me if you see one coming.”
    “Nope.”
    “My super mental powers must be getting rusty.”
    We walked toward Doolittle’s room.
    “Thoughts?” I asked Derek.
    “Jarek,” he said. “He has the most to gain.”
    I had to agree with the reasoning. Desandra’s father was the only one who really won if she failed to survive. He wouldn’t want to be blamed for it, so he’d somehow hired or allied himself with some weird shapeshifters and now they were trying to nuke his daughter. It was a good theory. Except again Jarek Kral the founder of the dynasty didn’t fit with Jarek Kral the daughter killer.
    “Why take the bodies?” I thought out loud.
    “Hiding the evidence. For kicks. Or food.”
    I glanced at Derek. Cannibalism was forbidden to shapeshifters. Eating human bodies triggered a catastrophic avalanche of hormones that led straight to loupism. It drove the shapeshifters insane.
    We reached my room. I opened the door and stuck my head in. Empty.
    “Curran?”
    Nope. No Curran. Yep, he had a plan. Yep, I wouldn’t like it. Now he was actively avoiding me. Great.
    The door ahead opened and Barabas stepped out. “A moment of your time, Alpha.”
    “Sure.” I nodded at Derek. “Will you take the scale to Doolittle?”
    He nodded. I passed him the bag and he walked off. We watched until he walked into Doolittle’s room.
    “He’s getting grimmer and grimmer,” Barabas said.
    “Derek?”
    “Yes. Before long he will start emitting his own dark cloud.”
    “Maybe we can all sneak around under the cover of his darkness. Do you have some information for me?”
    “Yes. But not here.” Barabas started down the hallway, back to the stairs. I followed. We climbed the stairs and turned, Barabas opened a door, and we stepped out onto a wide, square balcony.
    “This place is a maze,” I said.
    “And people listen to us in the walls.”
    We walked to the far end of the balcony.
    “Lorelei Wilson,” Barabas said. “Twenty-one, daughter of Mike Wilson and Genevieve de Vos. The de Vos family runs one of the largest wolf packs in Belgium. They are based in the Ardenne Mountains, in Walloon, which is a French-speaking region of the country. The family is very prosperous. They obtained their wealth during the nineteenth century from coal mining, and over the years they increased it, using the mineral-rich region to their advantage. Currently they produce steel, and Genevieve, and Lorelei in turn, have access to the money, so it’s unlikely that her motives for being here are financial.”
    She really was a werewolf princess. “How did you manage to get all of this?”
    Barabas gave a small predatory smile. “People love to talk and I love to listen. Being a handsome devil doesn’t hurt either. I am charming.”
    “And so full of humility as well.”
    “Indeed.”
    “What is she doing here, Barabas? She isn’t part of any pack that I can see. How did she even know about this meeting?”
    “That I can’t answer. Not yet. I can tell you that she definitely has an agenda. I watched her flit about yesterday and today. She starts every conversation with flattery. It’s a deliberate choice on her part.”
    “Thanks.”
    The humor drained from Barabas’s face. “As your nanny, I now have to bring up an uncomfortable fact.”
    “Shoot.”
    “Lorelei’s standing too close to Curran. She’s also monopolizing his time.”
    “I noticed.”
    “I don’t know why he is doing this, but it’s sending a signal to the other packs, and they also noticed.”
    Ugh. And there was nothing I