Page 72 of The Diamond in the Rough

It couldn’t be from anybody else.

I took a deep breath,then went deeper.

He ranhis fingers over the box, anticipating the power the necklace inside would bring him. The money that bitch would pay before that was just the icing on the cake, not that he needed it. But he enjoyed the fact that she and her Nid-loving husbandwouldn’t. Both the money and the power had been all his own idea—Dagget just wanted her dead. He hadn’t specified how.

He’d gone to Garraway looking for something special—he hadn’t told the man what he wanted it for, either. Just that he needed a piece of jewelry that could serve as a vessel for magic. Not that Garraway would object to the fact that he was stripping it from a fucking Nid.

The man had made clear his dislike for Arcane magic, although he had to admit that Garraway’s practices got closer to witchcraft than he was comfortable with. It might predate the Arcane plague, but he’d always thought of witchcraft as hedge-magic. Dabbling. Not clean magic. He knew Garraway used—or studied, at any rate—both the Old Way and witchcraft. And while he might not approve, he wasn’t above using the man’s bastardized abilities to rid the world of yet another Nid bitch.

I was reaching my limit—somethingelse I’d started being able to tell—and pulled myself out of the man’s thoughts, gasping a little. I felt vaguely nauseous, but not so much so that I was actually going to get sick.

“Are you alright?” Raj asked, his voice worried.

“I take it we hit the right box?” Hart asked.

I nodded, then drew in a long, slow breath, and told them what I’d gotten from the killer.

“Jeeeesus fuck,” Hart breathed, tugging on the end of his long white braid. “So we’ve got one anti-Arcanid fuckwad making magic-sucking shit, and another one using that shit.”

Raj didn’t say anything at first, and I looked up at him. His expression was thoughtful.

I waited to see what he would say.

“But that does suggest that this Garraway is not a member of the Ordo,” he remarked.

“Oh, joy,” Hart drawled, derision thick in his voice. “There’sanotherbunch of murderous anti-Arcanid assholes out there. Be still my beating heart.”

Raj glared at him. “Or we could be grateful that the Ordo hasn’t managed to survive underground and resurface.”

Hart scowled back. “Or possibly both,” he grumbled. “In which case we’re completely fucked.”

Raj rolled his eyes. “God forbid we have to do our jobs, Keebler.”

“Not trying to get out of doing my job, Tony,” Hart snapped back. “Just wanting to make sure I know which fucking secret organization it’s my job to shut down.”

Raj grunted, his expression smoothing out slightly.

I didn’t understand the working relationship between Raj and Hart. I understood Hart—I knew that he cursed and swore and blustered, but that, fundamentally, he was a good person. A thoughtful one. He’d been the first person to suggest that I was part of a family at Beyond the Veil—the first person to suggest that I was part of any sort of family. And, sure, everyone else immediately agreed with him, but he’d been the one to say it. He thoughtfully brought coffee and donuts, brought me cocoa with espresso and poured it into my mug, he was careful and cautious about giving me things that might trigger a psychic episode.

I didn’t understand Raj. I liked him—maybe more than I should, given how little I knew about him. He’d been nice to me, too, having bought my dinner that night at the Secret Sandwich Society. He was considerate, making sure that I wasn’t over-extending myself, always asking me if I was alright.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Couldn’t stay out of his dreams, even though I knew I really should.

So, instead, I cleared my throat. “Do you still want me to touch the rest of the boxes?” I asked.

I handedthe last box back to Raj, not having learned very much at all from them other than that Yvonne Gates-Adams seemed to genuinely love her husband. Whether Simon Adams loved and missed her or just felt guilty, I couldn’t tell, but I hoped he’d loved her, too.

“Learn anything new?” came Ward’s voice as he rolled past the doorway of the gathering room that had been Hart’s office where we were sitting.

“Looks like we’re dealing with a whole new set of fucking assholes,” Hart replied, briefly summarizing what I’d told them about the man who had killed Yvonne Gates-Adams.

As he spoke, Ward’s brow furrowed. “So this Garraway person, who made the necklace, is anti-Arcanid, and the killer isalsoanti-Arcanid?”

“Seems that way,” Raj replied mildly.

“And you haven’t been able to find anyone by that name to talk to?” Ward asked.