Chapter One
They called Missos the month of flowers. It was the first really hot month of the year, and the poppy anemones, clover, and waterclasp coated the slopes of the Erastes Valley with yellow, white, and red blooms — and, incidentally, set at least a quarter of the population of Agatos to fits of sneezing and streaming eyes. It was also the month when, traditionally, the young people of Agatos headed out into the valley for picnics, sports, and a whole lot of frantic, unfulfilling sex.
Things were different for me. For the third night in a row, I was shut in a sweltering, dusty kitchen pantry watching out for ghosts that I was pretty sure didn’t exist. Ah, the glamorous life of a mage for hire. I couldn’t imagine why more people didn’t try it.
On the plus side, if anyone wanted to know exactly where to find the lentils, onions, or various spices, I had memorised the location of every single one.
It was possible I was going crazy.
“Come on, ghosties,” I muttered to myself, more because I hadn’t heard a single human — or nonhuman — voice in the last seven hours than because I thought it would help. “Ghosty, ghosty, ghosties.”
Nothing. I let my eyes drift closed. Just for a moment. I didn’t need my eyes to detect ghosts. We mages had other senses for anything supernatural. That was my story, and I was sticking to it.
I had just started to drift off when the door to the pantry burst open. I started up, banging my head on the shelf. Depths! That hurt.
“Well?”
My client, Galena Sunstone, stood framed in the dawn light. She was dressed in a white robe, belted at the waist, with geometric patterns picked out in gold thread around the hems, and thin slippers, but otherwise she looked like she’d just climbed out of bed. She hadn’t put her hair up nor applied the thick, gold eye-shadow and lip-paint that was all the rage this year. Not that I could criticise. I could feel the thick, black stubble on my chin and smell my own sweat.
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
Sunstone’s eyes narrowed. She was older than me by maybe fifteen years, and wealthier by a whole lot more. This wasn’t my usual line of mage work, and she certainly wasn’t my usual type of client. You would have thought that, being a mage, I would have had a good line on an attitude of effortless, unearned superiority, but most of my time I spent breaking curses, spying on cheating spouses, and magically locating lost knick-knacks. I was rusty at dealing with the entitled. This was my first job in the better part of Agatos. Or it would have been if there had been anything to these supposed ghosts.
“Maybe, Mr. Thorn,” Sunstone said, “you are not hiding yourself well enough.” I had felt more warmth in an ice cellar. “Maybe they know you are there.”
I suppressed a sigh. I had tried to explain to her that ghosts couldn’t care less if you were sitting out in full view snacking on cheese and olives and drinking good wine, but she had made me sit in the pantry anyway. More to keep me from making her house look messy than to help with the non-appearing ghosts, I suspected.
Sunstone threw a glance behind her, then leaned forwards. “I have a dinner party in two days’ time. Everyone is coming. You need to find the ghosts.”
When she had first employed me, I had thought she was worried that the ghosts might disrupt her precious dinner party. It hadn’t taken me long to decide that the explanation was much simpler. She wanted to have the presence of ghosts confirmed to titillate her bored friends.
She was going to be disappointed. Not so disappointed that she refused to pay me, I hoped.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in ghosts. I just wasn’t sure I believed in these particular ones. Real ghosts were rare, even if half the people I met thought they had seen one. Human brains were great at picking out patterns. We only needed a glimpse of a face to recognise a friend across the street, and a good artist could suggest a whole scene in just a couple of strokes of charcoal. Our brains were designed to fill in the missing pieces.
Unfortunately, when there really wasn’t enough information, our brains were prone to finding patterns that weren’t actually there. We filled in too many blank spaces with the wrong things, and we convinced ourselves we had actually seen them. A dragon in the shape of the clouds. A hunched figure that was just a robe thrown over the back of the chair in the dark. A whispered voice that was only the wind through a shutter. Or, if you were of a superstitious bent, you thought you saw ghosts.
I stretched, feeling my joints pop. My left ankle flared, making me wince. I had injured it five years ago, and it had never properly healed. Being stuck in that pantry all night had been the worst possible thing for it.
“I’ll do my best,” I muttered.
A flash of irritation crossed Sunstone’s face. “I was told you were a proper mage. You came recommended.” I didn’t know who had recommended me, and I didn’t know whether I should be thanking them or cursing them right now.
Galena Sunstone eyed me up and down, and her lip twisted. I couldn’t say I blamed her. My shirt was stuck to my chest and my back with sweat, and I stank. Most mages tried not to look like drunks kicked out of an inn and left to sleep in the gutter. But most mages didn’t have to earn an honest — or slightly dishonest — living like this.
By now, Sunstone had undoubtedly been expecting chanting, purple smoke, and ghastly apparitions, or whatever other nonsense would make her the centre of attention for the length of some gods-awful dinner party. Instead, I had provided her with three nights of sweaty mage in a cupboard, which was hardly going to impress her friends.
“You’re not trying hard enough,” she said.
What did she think I was doing in her bloody pantry?
If I’d had any self-respect, I would have told her she was wasting her time and money and washed my hands of the whole thing. Only, self-respect didn’t last beyond the next overdue rent and the associated large, hairy men with clubs. Don’t judge me. I could think of a dozen temples that would happily provide an exorcism with all the bells, whistles, and purple smoke she desired, regardless of whether there were any ghosts here, and that would charge a hundred times as much as I did. If you thought about it right, I was doing her a favour.
I cleared my throat. “About the pay?”
“At the end of the week,” she said coldly. “As we agreed.”
The end of the week. Four more nights in the pantry.
Big men. Big clubs, I reminded myself.
With a tight smile, I stepped past Galena Sunstone and headed for the front door.
If I had known that within five hours I would be arrested for murder, I would have stayed in the pantry.
The streets and plazas of the Upper City were still quiet this early in the morning. Within an hour, the heat of the early summer sun would be oppressive and relentless, but for now, the last remnants of the night’s coolness were refreshing after my imprisonment in the pantry.
I made my way from the Sunstones’ grand house on Heliodore Plaza to the Royal Highway, then turned south towards the docks and the lower city. In the distance, I could see a caravan already forming up at the foot of Matra’s Needle, ready to begin the long trek north through the Erastes Valley, along the Lidharan Road to the cities beyond the mountains. Gulls complained loudly overhead.