“This way,” Bottomfield said as his smooth leather soles made barely a sound on the polished floor. Once they reached the end of the hall, the constable escorted Ian up a set of stairs to where a burly desk sergeant, dressed in a similar long black coat and silk top hat, stood behind a massive wooden desk. Its corners were embellished with rowan, ivy, and oak leaves carved into a winding trellis pattern.
Ian nodded and said, “Afternoon,” to the sergeant, who merely looked at him over the top of his tea mug and shook his head in disgust.
The constable directed Ian up the next flight of stairs to where a corner office hummed with activity. “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair beside a fern where a great arched window embellished with black mullions in a spiderweb pattern overlooked the busy street below. “The CI will want to have a word soon.”
Ian unbuttoned his jacket and sat, hoping he hadn’t pushed his luck too far by deliberately breaking the law to gain entry. But the Constabulary wasn’t like the mortal police force, with station houses situated conveniently around the city. The Constabulary had a single central command center that never seemed to stay in the same place for very long. Last time he’d been in the city on a case, he’d had to navigate the underground vaults below the city’s namesake bridge to get to their headquarters. Tucked away beneath the southern abutment, he thought the secret tunnels were an ideal location until the Constabulary suddenly picked up stakes and moved again. The rumors blamed poor ventilation for the relocation after a mere ten months, but Ian was able to later suss out the truth about too many ghosts interfering in the hallways for anyone to get their work done. Even when one knows apparitions are present, the heart shows a tendency to fright in dark, claustrophobic spaces.
“Cameron!”
His name had been spoken as if it were about to be snapped in two. The source of the threat came from a woman wearing a long white jacket over a white skirt and carrying a file folder. He knew nothing of women’s fashions, but the lace bodice of her blouse was spellbinding for the way it climbed up her neck in a delicate pattern that eerily matched the mullions on the windows. The silver buttons on the sleeves, each slightly different from the next, were a nice touch to indicate her rank.
“Chief Inspector Singh,” he said, standing. “Good to see you again.”
Riya Singh, first sorceress to be named inspector in the Isle Division, and ten years later the first woman promoted to chief, folded her arms, which only showed off her impressive silver button insignias to greater effect. “What are you doing back here breaking the law in my jurisdiction again so soon?”
“So soon?” Of course. He’d already attempted to find Elvanfoot’s son by getting arrested and making contact with the Constabulary. He was nothing if not consistent. “Tell me again, how long ago was that?”
Singh turned to Constable Bottomfield in disbelief, then back to Ian. “I haven’t seen you in three years and now I get the honor of arresting you twice in one week. Are you saying you don’t remember you were in here three days ago?”
When he explained the reason he had no recollection of the events of the past few days, while keeping somewhat vague about the specifics of Edwina and her sister, Singh’s eyebrow quirked as if her instinct and curiosity had been equally piqued, and so she invited him into her office. “We’ll take tea, Bottomfield,” she called to the constable before shutting the door.
If he had been in her office before, he found it difficult to believe he could have ever forgotten such a place. At least two dozen glass terrarium domes sat atop a pair of file credenzas, each with a fat orb-weaver spider sitting in the middle of a delicate web. Singh caught him looking.
“They’re part of the latest advancements in enforcement techniques. We’ve enlisted twenty-five of them, one for each ward in the city. They’re enchanted to react whenever a filament in their web is disturbed.”
“Isn’t that what all spiders do?” Ian asked.
“Naturally,” she said, swiveling in her chair to take a closer look. “But these are trained to react when people like you choose to conduct unwarranted magic in public. Their webs are enchanted to intricately entwine with the streets they watch over. When a thread gets triggered by illegal magic, they glow.” She pointed to one of the domes on the far right and leaned in. “This is the one that caught you today. Two days ago, it was that one,” she said, nudging her head at one nearer the middle.