“All right,” he said, business-like. “I already know you’re going to want to read through every detail of this, but there are a few things I wanted to tell you to save time.”
He looked at me, and the expression there threw me. I don’t think I’d ever seen him look at me so guilelessly, other than right after he put his magic in me. He’d certainly not done so for a singleconversationwe’d attempted.
“A few weird things.” He motioned gracefully at the stacks of paper. “I managed to get personnel files from that day. I’ve narrowed down everyone on it who could have been there, in that same part of London where you and your parents came up from the Underground.”
He set down his mug and leaned over the stacks, plucking out a piece of paper that looked like a list. He placed it in my lap, and I blinked down at it.
“That’s the roster for the day your parents got killed.” He took another swallow of coffee. “The starred names are the ones who conceivably could’ve been in London. I have thefulllist of everyone listed as an employee of the Praecuri during that time, also,” he added, laying several clipped-together sheets of paper on top of the first. “And I’ve got transcripts of some of the back and forth between the various teams and central command.”
He picked up another file, paused, and looked at me.
“First weird thing,” he said, laying the file carefully on my lap. “There was a confidential informant. That’s how they foundout your parents would arrive in London that day. They must’ve kept that detail from the press, because it’s the first I’d ever heard of it.”
My throat closed. “An informant? I thought there was some kind of trigger? Or a trace on her?”
“I saw no reference to either thing,” he said.
My jaw tightened. “Who was the informant?”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find that out. Which makes me think it must be someone well-connected. They managed to keep their name off absolutely everything.” He studied my face when I remained silent. “I can make a few guesses about who itwasn’t,based on who they interviewed and the nature of some of those interviews, but it would only be a guess. It’s possible the informant had an interview conducted purely to throw suspicion off their involvement.”
I stared down at the file, frowning without opening it.
“But it would’ve had to be someone who knew they were coming?” I clarified.
“Likely, yes.”
“So someone my mother trusted?”
“Possibly, yes. Or someone who found her on their own.”
“What are the other weird things?” I asked.
He exhaled, looking back down at the files.
“There’s two. One is how the hell they never found your parents in the first place.” His gold eyes met mine, probing. “It’s fucking amazing your mother was able to hide all of you so well, given how the Praecuri operate, and especially since she didn’t seem to have suppressed your magic. It’s impressive to the point of being downright odd.” His eyes flickered to my throat. “Do you know anything about that? How she did it?”
“No,” I said. “What’s the other weird thing?”
He looked at me a second longer, then averted his gaze.
“The spell they used.” He combed his hair out of his face with his fingers, then motioned with the same hand over the papers. “It’s not registered. I can’t find record of it anywhere. Which means it’s likely an old family curse, something that never made it to the books after they passed the registration laws.”
“Why a family curse?” I asked. “Why not just something no one registered?”
“Curses leave imprints,” he explained, no hint of the usual condescension in his voice as he rifled through papers. “Generally speaking, if a curse is new, it’s easy to trace. There are direct lines to the beings used to implement the magic, and those can be traced to specific primals. It’s really hard to scrub a direct line to a Magical or group of Magicals on a new curse. For older, familial curses, there are far more primals involved, more Magicals, more beings, which muddies the origin. The more a curse has been used, the harder it is to trace.”
He raised an eyebrow, glancing at me. “It’s why they passed the registration laws, to get as many as possible on the books. Both to regulate them, but also so they’d get a ping any time a particularly dangerous curse got used.”
I couldn’t help but find this fascinating, and pursed my lips.
“Couldn’t they trace the family?” I asked. “Don’t most of the old families use familial primals?”
“Yes,” he shrugged. “Not all, but many do.”
“But they couldn’t tracethisto a particular family?” I clarified.
“No,” he said. “Not that the Praecuri documented, at least. But honestly, even if they could, that wouldn’t necessarily make it easier to trace to whoever used it for this. Confusing one family member’s primal with another is common with familials. More common than with ordinary primals. And it might not have been a member of the family that used it.”
