Page 4 of Arcane Entanglement
Rufus, Shaw, Brown, and even Griffiths stared up and down the alley at the small red flags the alchemist had planted in the ground to indicate where he had collected the various fragments of the contents of the victim’s skull.
Shaw’s face cleared. She slammed a fist into her palm. “By Jove, you’re right, your Grace!” She beamed at Evander like he’d performed a miracle.
“Wait.” Rufus cut his eyes to the roofline before aiming a probing stare at Evander. “If he wasn’t pushed off that building, then how did he get here and in such a state too?”
Evander faltered before voicing the words that had been at the forefront of his mind for the past ten minutes. The words that had raised goosebumps on his skin when he’d first thought them.
“He was dropped from at least a hundred feet above the ground.”
Shock widened Rufus’s eyes. Brown drew a sharp breath.
Shaw crossed her arms and started pacing the alley, her face focused. “That makes sense. Which means our dark mage…” She trailed off, realisation striking her like lightning and drawing a gasp from her lips. Her head tilted jerkily as she met Evander’s steadfast gaze.
“The murderer may be able to wield wind magic too.”
Rufus licked his lips in the tense hush that followed Evander’s statement. “So, we could be dealing with a dual elemental mage?”
Evander could hazard a guess as to what everyone was thinking from the unease growing on their faces.
Mages were powerful enough as it was, ranking highest in the hierarchy of magic users above healers, Charm Weavers, enchanters, alchemists, and casters. A dual elemental mage was rare, a tri-elemental mage rarer still. As for a quadri-elemental mage, that was the stuff of legends.
Because a mage who could wield four elements or more qualified for the title of Archmage. And of those, a mere handful were born each century.
Formidable figures that had shaped mankind’s history since magic flourished in the mid-1500s, Archmages had enjoyed vast privileges and power over the centuries, putting them on par with royalty.
Evander masked a frown.
Or at least they used to.
Though still glorified and revered the world over by nobles as symbols of the purest form of magic, the reputation of Archmages suffered a severe setback after the War of Subjugation. They came to be feared and reviled by the common man and the masses, especially the magicless thralls who formed the lowest class of society and who were often treated as little more than property. Many thralls who survived the war and the illegal purges that followed still bore ugly marks that had been branded into their flesh to denote their status as quasi slaves. Cattle to be used and disposed of at the will of those possessing magic.
An all too familiar wave of bitterness swept through Evander at the thought of the thousands of innocent men, women, and children who perished during the misbegotten conflict that ripped through the British Empire and the continent in the first quarter of this century.
Though the war began and ended well before his birth, he could not allay the anger, shame, and remorse he’d carried deep inside him ever since the day his brother John first told him the true facts of the matter.
It was never a war to begin with. It was genocide.
Evander clenched his jaw. Now was not the time to dwell on a subject that had long haunted his thoughts and dreams.
Rufus’s voice brought him back to the present moment.
“Wouldn’t such an individual have to be registered with the Mage Council?”
The Mage Council was the governing body for mages in the British Empire. All mages, regardless of their status in society, had to be on their official records, their powers carefully documented so as to satisfy the rules and regulations set by the council.
Similar guilds existed for other types of magic users.
“Not if he is a rogue mage who chooses to hide his abilities,” Evander muttered.
Shaw and Brown traded a troubled look.
A loud crash made them all jump. Evander’s shoulders knotted as they stared towards the mouth of the alley. Cuss words and shouts clouded the air somewhere on the thoroughfare.
“What in the blazes?” Rufus mumbled.
The crowd beyond the cordon began dispersing, a swarm migrating towards the next source of gruesome entertainment. A constable rushed into the passage a moment later.
Evander stiffened at the sight of the crimson stains on his clothes.
