“I’m trying not to get distracted.” Ant looked up into Viktor’s dark eyes. “I know I’ve had a problem with that lately.”
“Ant.” Viktor’s hands were a grounding and welcome presence on Ant’s arms. “You are an incredible and amazing being, and I am thankful every single day since we met that you’re mine and I am yours.”
“Thank you?” Ant was fairly sure that when people said something nice, they should be thanked for it. “You’re being veryfeeling. Is this because of our disagreement earlier?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.” Viktor grinned. “I’m not trying to confuse you, but I don’t want you to stop being you. It means a lot to me that you don’t try to change me. We’re a team, and I guess we sometimes need a reminder of that.”
“Ah, right. That does help, yes. Thank you. I feel a lot for you, too.” Ant nodded.
“That also means if you saw something that bothered you - that may or may not be related to Carmine, because that doesn’t matter - I still want to hear about it. If you noticed it, it’s important.”
“It was about the student.” Ant thought about what he saw. “I’ll admit I went into this reading with some preconceptions, which was my mistake. Students that I’d dealt with in class were all full of confidence and expectations about were their magic would take them. The Mage Academy only allows students to practice magic in specific supervised situations until after they graduate. It’s not safe otherwise. So, in situations where they did use magic successfully, they would usually be proud of what they’d done.”
“This student wasn’t like that?”
“He didn’t want to be here.” Ant started to pace, looking at the site of the scene and where Viktor had parked the car. Unwilling to cross the park on foot, Viktor had used the service vehicle track instead.
“The car was here…” Ant pointed to where Viktor’s car was. “Long, dark gray, dark-tinted windows. The license plate was one of those personalized ones – it had the letters C and D on it. No prizes for guessing who that belonged to. Carmine, though…” He moved to the other side of the car.
“Carmine was here. Gray suit, dark glasses, big grin showing his teeth. Our student – he’s over there. Carmine is telling him where Carol’s body was found. I mean, you can’t see anything there now. It’s just a patch of soil and grass, but the student looked sick.”
“You didn’t see anyone else?”
“No, but that’s part of what doesn’t make sense.” Ant paced between Viktor and the car. “The car is here. Carmine is there. Our student is over there…looking terrified. He had a backpack– he’d clearly made the warding spell beforehand. He put it down on the ground three different times, with Carmine verbally correcting the placement each time.”
“What about the quicksand business?”
“That was shoddy spellcasting.” Ant flung up his hands. “Carmine’s over here yelling about how the student needed to make it impossible to get to the body site at all. It wasn’t supposed to kill us, just stop us from getting anywhere near that specific spot. The student came up with quicksand, but when he cast the spell – what should’ve scattered and covered that whole area, fizzled like a blob of spit in the one spot. This is why students are not supposed to perform magic outside of the Academy.”
“Focus on the student himself,” Viktor suggested. “What did he say? How was he acting? Did you see an exchange of money between him and Carmine?”
“No.” Ant would’ve remembered that. “Whatever deal had been struck must’ve been done before they arrived here. Carmine was smug – all teeth and cocky attitude. The student was scared. Why didn’t he run?” He pointed back across the park. “The student had an athletic build. Carmine wasn’t in the car, so it would’ve taken time for him to get back in the car, and even then, if the student stuck to the grass areas, Carmine could be searching for him for hours, and he’d have to do it on foot. He doesn’t strike me as that sort of person.”
“Babe, were the windows in the car open or closed?”
Still imagining an escape across the park, it took Ant a moment to answer. “Er…the ones at the back were closed, and the ones in the front were open about an inch or two. Why? Is that important?”
“I think so. Did you see Carmine and the student get out of the car? Did they use the front or back doors?”
“The back of the car. Oh.” Ant clicked what Viktor was saying. “There would’ve been someone else in the car. Carmine’s driver.”
“Carmine is rarely seen anywhere without his goons with him.” Viktor came over, resting his hands on Ant’s shoulders. “What I think you’re seeing here is that Carmine stood over here for two reasons. One, he didn’t realize you’d still be able to see him in a vision this far away from the student. Two, he was out of the line of fire of the guns that were likely aimed at the student, while he was laying the traps for us.”
“Guns?” Ant shrugged off Viktor’s hands and ran back to the clearing where he’d called for the vision. Kneeling down, he glanced up at Viktor’s car and then stood up again. “Of course. There’s no way I would’ve seen the guns from this angle. But that’s possible. Yes. That would explain the student’s fear.”
He made his way back to Viktor again, Able wagging his tail beside him. “Carmine wouldn’t have abducted a student at gunpoint, though, would he?”
“No.” Viktor’s arm was on his shoulder, leading him to the car. “Perhaps it started off as a bit of a joke. Carmine might’ve dared the student to do it, and the student got scared when he realized Carmine wasn’t joking.”
“I’ll find out when we go and speak to him, I guess. Can we head to the Mage Academy, please?” Ant opened the back door, letting Able jump in, before closing the door again.
“I thought they were still closed?” Viktor said as they both got into the front seats.
“The Mage Academy technically never closes,” Ant said. “It’s only the students who have a holiday.”
“Well, at least one of them is going to wish he’d decided to spend time at home doing extra studies, instead of being out and about being picked up by Carmine.” Starting the car, Viktor got it moving down the track again. Ant was still thinking about Carmine’s smug expression long after they’d gotten back to town.
Chapter Twenty-Four
