Ritual Magic

announced. “It won’t bother him if we talk because he won’t notice, and
I
want to know about the body dissolving.”
    “It seemed to go through all the stages of decomposition, only on fast-forward. They ran some tests on the soil and found the kind of organic traces you’d expect to find in a burial site . . . about fifty years after the burial.”
    Cynna’s forehead wrinkled. “Do you think it was a way of getting rid of the evidence? They couldn’t have expected the body to be found as soon as it was, so they could have done something to make it self-destruct. Not that I know of any way to do that, but it happened, so it’s possible. If Hardy hadn’t gone looking for the body—oh, that reminds me. I’ve got a message for you from him.”
    Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “You do?”
    “Isen wanted me and Cullen to meet Hardy, or for Hardy to meet us, or maybe he thought Hardy would talk me into staying at Clanhome. Or maybe, being Isen, he had something else in mind altogether. I went along with it because I was curious. I’ve never met a saint.”
    “Do you think you have now?”
    “I don’t know. I liked him, even though he’s got this way of looking at you as if he’s been reading your diary. Not that I’ve ever kept a diary, but . . . how do you know if someone’s a saint or not?”
    Lily had no idea. “He seems to know things he shouldn’t. Not without getting tipped by, uh . . . someone or something. The question is what side is tipping him off.”
    “Even people without magic can have visions. If drugs or magic aren’t involved, then spirit is. Would that mean he really is a saint?”
    “It means that he had a valid warning for me once, so if he gave you a message for me, I’d probably better hear it.”
    “Oh, yeah, right. Hardy kept singing ‘I’ll be calling you,’ emphasis on the ‘you,’ until I asked if he had a message for you. He nodded a lot, then he went like this.” She hummed the refrain from “Riders on the Storm,” then switched to singing, “‘There’s a killer on the road . . . da-da-da . . . squirming like a toad.’ Just like that, with some of the words left out.”
    Lily huffed out a breath. “Unless he’s trying to warn me about a killer toad, I don’t get it.”
    “Me, neither. Isen told him that probably wasn’t enough information to help, so . . .” Cynna launched into another song.
    Lily stared. “The candy man? He’s warning me about killer toads and the candy man?”
    “He added a few bars from something called ‘I Want Candy’ by the Strangeloves.”
    “That can’t be a real band.”
    “I never heard of them, but Isen has. I guess they’re an older band.”
    Lily shook her head. “I suppose Hardy means well—saints have to mean well, right? But I don’t see how that helps. Unless he’s not a saint and is getting his information from the dark side of the Force, in which case he doesn’t mean well. And it still doesn’t help.”
    “Don’t be an idiot,” Cullen said.
    Surprised—and too inured to Cullen’s habits to be any more than a little annoyed—Lily looked at him. He’d put away his little notebook. “Was that a general suggestion, or were you actually listening?”
    “I meant,” Cullen said with exaggerated patience, “that of course the man’s a saint. Isn’t it obvious?”
    “No. And you wouldn’t be my first choice for spotting holiness.”
    “He made me want to squirm. Made both of you feel like that, too, didn’t he? When he looks at you, it’s like he’s shining a light right through to the back of your skull. Shine a light in a dark place and you get roaches scurrying for cover. We’d all rather think we weren’t full of roaches.” He raised his eyebrows. “What, did you think saints were supposed to make you feel good about yourselves? That’s
Sesame Street
’s job. Saints make people uncomfortable, which is why people usually kill them.”
    After a moment Cynna said, “He has a point.”
    It was more insight than Lily was used to from Cullen, and it made her uncomfortable. Kind of the way Hardy had. Which was practically proof Cullen was wrong, because she was abso-damn-lutely sure that Cullen Seaborne was no saint.
    “What spell is Abel planning to use to reconstruct the runes?” Cullen asked.
    “Something that requires an Earth witch. Beyond that, I have no idea.”
    “Probably one of the variants on Cyffnid’s Dire,” Cynna said—which set her and Cullen