Page 31 of Magic Claimed
“This is where it gets tricky,” Kira admitted. “Shapeshifters can smell magic, and in our shifted forms, we can tell the difference between individuals. I can tell you all the scents I detected are new to me, but there are traces of gryphon, air elemental, and fae, along with a tiny whiff of… sprite. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s sprite. Ari is the only one I’ve ever met.”
Well, that would explain a lot. But the weirdest thing wasn’t the variety of scents.
“Just traces?”
The dragon nodded. “And those traces only linger in specific spots. There’s no scent trail through the yard or on the roof. The only noticeable trail in the house is fae, but it’s faint.”
So we had a conspiracy of different races to steal a random boy. The sprite could teleport inside, unlock the window, and let the others in. The air elemental could have lowered the boy out the window, where the gryphon could carry him away, and the fae could have provided silence for the whole operation. Then the sprite relocked the window, teleported out, and left no traces.
But for what? Why go to so much trouble? Unless…
No scent trail through the yard or on the roof.
A gryphon shifter would leave a very clear scent trail behind. Same with a fae, or an air elemental, and only the gryphon could fly. So how did they get in and out of the house without leaving any traces?
Unless they weren’t Idrian at all.
Dread curled itself around my heart once more, this time with an undercurrent of rage. If I was right…
But I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Monique. I needed to talk to Kira first. Talk to Faris. Decide the best way to chase this down without alerting the humans.
“I need to call Callum,” I said aloud. “I think the next step is to look for fingerprints, just in case we can find anyone who’s already in the system.”
“Do Idrians use fingerprints?” Monique asked skeptically.
How to explain without her getting suspicious?
“Not usually,” I hedged, “but I have a friend who ran acheck for prints recently, so someone out there must be able to do it.”
That search hadn’t found anything, because every one of the kidnappers had been Idrian. But if my hunch was correct, maybe we would get lucky and the human police would have a record. I just needed to know who Callum had contacted last time. Which meant I needed Callum to answer his phone…
I turned to Monique. “We need to chase down a few potential options, so let’s share phone numbers. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything concrete, and we can decide on next steps. But I promise we won’t do anything potentially dangerous without letting you know.”
I could tell she was reluctant to agree. Reluctant for us to leave. Right now, it must feel like the search was finally moving forward. Every new clue brought her closer to finding her son. But the moment we left, she was back to helpless waiting, and that was the worst feeling when someone you loved was in pain.
“And please call me if you hear anything, or even just remember any new details,” I added. “Any messages from the kidnappers, any new info from the police, any clues from Jeremiah’s friends… Anything at all could help.”
Monique agreed and led us back inside so Kira could shift. And as we drove away, she lingered on the porch, watching us with her arms tightly folded, as if holding herself together by sheer force of will.
My heart hurt for her, but it hurt even more for the sixteen-year-old boy who’d been caught up in something he’d never asked for.
“You think it’s Blake, don’t you?” Kira asked bluntly.
“Yes.” It was the only thing that made sense of the scent trails. An Idrian would leave a trail wherever they went, but when a human used stolen Idrian magic, the only thing a shifter would smell was the magic itself.
But what mattered the most now—other than finding the missing boy—was why.
Blake had seemed to have no difficulty recruiting humans to his cause, and for good reason. He was promising them the ability to wield magic. Promising them power, which was a compelling incentive for the discontent—a category that encompassed nearly everyone at one time or another.
“You think he’s trying to stir up trouble with the humans? Get them to blame Idrians for the kidnapping?”
It was possible. “I think that would be a happy by-product for him. It just doesn’t make sense if that’s all he wants out of it.”
Jeremiah was just a kid. No one influential or visible. If Blake was going to take the risk of committing a crime like kidnapping with the intent of pinning it on Idrians, he wouldn’t choose someone the local authorities would dismiss. He would go after someone high profile. Someone whose disappearance would make the evening news.
Now that I thought about it, that was an all too horrifying possibility. He could commit any number of crimes using his stolen magic, pin them on Idrians, and then sit back and watch the chaos.
But that still didn’t explain his choice of target.
