The seller watched her, chewing his gum.
“This is a cute little thing,” Soleil said carelessly. “How much? Like, a dollar?”
He snorted and grinned, showing brown-spotted teeth. “Nah. Let’s say twenty.”
“Twenty? For this?” Soleil smirked and made as if to return the ring to the tray.
“Fine. Fifteen.”
“Five max.”
“You’re killin’ me here, girl.” The man ran a hand through his greasy brown hair. “Okay, ten dollars.”
Soleil barely heard him. Her eyes had latched onto the bracelet on his wrist—a thick cuff of dark metal, stamped with alchemical symbols and set with black onyx and peridot for the containment and warding of evil.
She’d seen pictures of such bracelets. This mountain man was wearing a Convocation restraining cuff, forcibly applied to witches whose magic was beyond control or tended toward evil.
Soleil met his gaze. Awareness flared in his eyes—knowledge that she had recognized the cuff for what it was. His gaze dropped to her hands, to the rings studding her fingers.
He licked his lips and spoke, his voice hoarse. “Ten dollars. Take it and go.”
Soleil set the ring on the table, shifted the tote bag containing her purchases, and fumbled with her purse. Her brain swirled with questions. What was his primary affinity? What had he done to get himself permanently locked down? The Convocation didn’t put restraining cuffs on just anyone—only the most wicked of witches.
It would be rude to ask, but—
“I have questions,” she murmured, smoothing the ten-dollar bill between her fingers.
“No.” He leaned forward and snatched the bill. “I don’t deal with your kind anymore, okay? I got my life. I don’t cause trouble. Get on outta here.”
“Just tell me where you got this,” she begged, holding up the ring.
His brow creased. “That old thing? Why?”
Could he not sense the magic spiraling from it?
“You know what, never mind.” He scooted his chair back. “We’re done here. You have a nice day now.”
Soleil moved on. Before tucking the ring into her purse, she snapped a quick photo and texted it to Tarek, with the question “Know anything about this?” As a lexical witch, Tarek was a genius at research. If anyone could figure out where the ring was from and what it could do, it would be him.
While browsing the booths in the next aisle, Soleil stole furtive glances at the gum-chewing witch. He kept scratching his head, shifting in his seat, rearranging his wares, and glancing right and left along the aisle. She’d made him nervous. But surely he had nothing to fear from witches. Once a magical threat was neutralized, the Convocation took no further action.
A pair of suit-coated backs moved in front of the brown-haired witch’s booth, blocking Soleil’s view of him. She shifted along the row of shelves she was browsing, trying to get a better angle. If those damn customers would just move a step to the left—
But the “customers” didn’t seem interested in the merchandise. One of them leaned over the table, whispering intently before hoisting the brown-haired witch from his seat. Soleil caught a flash of rings on fingers—at this distance she couldn’t have sworn that they were enchanted rings, but her skin prickled with a sixth sense, an awareness of magic in the air. They hustled him out of the booth and along the aisle towards the back of the warehouse.
Maybe they were detectives, investigators—maybe the guy was involved in some drug trafficking thing, wanted for assault, theft, child porn—it could be any number of crimes, really. Probably just a human legal infraction, nothing magical. Almost certainly.
So why did she feel the compulsion to follow them?
With a quick excuse to the seller whose wares she’d been browsing, Soleil sidled out of the booth and hurried down the aisle. The suit-coated men and the brown-haired witch were already disappearing out the back door of the warehouse.
Soleil bit her lip until the skin punctured, releasing a bead of blood. She touched the blood to one of her rings, opening up its latent ability—enhanced hearing for a handful of minutes. Then she approached the exit and leaned against the wall beside it, trying to appear normal and casual. Trying to look like anything but a witch magically listening in on a conversation that she wasn’t supposed to hear.
The brown-haired witch was babbling a shrill protest. “Honest to goddess, I ain’t done nothin’, I swear. Not a lick of magic—I can’t, you know, since you locked me down. Nothing. I don’t so much as touch anything magical. Okay, may a few herbs, for luck and protection, but no one ever said I couldn’t do that!”
Another voice cut in, the bored drone of someone weary of their job. “Your restraining cuff has been picking up a magical signature for the past week. Have you been in contact with other witches lately?”
“For a week? No, of course not! I don’t know what could have—”