Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 48

Raven was far too in love with research and problem-solving for that to happen. Cass buried her smile
in her own coffee. Though he never said so, he was
amused by unraveling mysteries and undoing wards
that stumped the organization that had once rejected
him.
Sherlock took another dainty bite of scone, chewed,
and swallowed. “Do try him again. Remind him that it
was not Guardian International that rejected him.
Though recruitment is generally through the local
Guardians, you know that I do have some discretion.”
She flashed Chuckie a look. “It’s not like he’d be the
only one here with a dark past.”
Chuckie grinned and popped the final quarter of his
cookie into his mouth.
GII boasted the most talented, powerful, and creative
mages to ever take an interest in investigation and
defensive magic. The profile was as likely to turn out
troublemakers as stars, and when you added youthful
impulsiveness and lack of judgment. . . well, as Sherlock often pointed out with a sigh, if they turned away
everyone with a past, they’d be renting out an awful
lot of empty cubicle space.
“Perhaps we haven’t had anyone yet with Raven’s
level of notoriety,” Sherlock went on. “Still, he might
find that—”
A knock on the jamb of the open office door announced Sherlock’s office assistant. “Excuse me,
ma’am, but your message crystal is flashing red.”
Sherlock shared a look with Cass and Chuckie. Red
meant ‘urgent’. And ‘urgent’ at GII was seldom good.
She excused herself. Cass exchanged worried glances
with Chuckie. He shrugged, as if to say ‘we’ll find out
soon enough’.
She tried to focus her attention on the case file she had
been reviewing, but after finding herself reading the
same sentence over and over without comprehension,
she gave up and started fidgeting instead, straighten-

ing the mess on her desk, recycling outdated memos.
She still didn’t know which joker had added a second
‘inbox’ to her desk, one with a life-like plush raven
stooped over it as though awaiting fresh carrion.
(She also had never discovered where one could buy
a lifelike plush raven. She wanted to get Raven one
for Yule. He’d claim to hate it.) She had yet to prove
that Chuckie was the one responsible for dressing the
raven up for the holidays. It wore a Santa hat for Yule,
and had had a rose crammed into its beak for Valentine’s Day. Paddy’s Day brought a little green bowler,
and Eoster a ridiculous set of floppy pink bunny ears.
About fifteen minutes passed— but it seemed much
longer— before Sherlock returned. Her face had
drained of color.
“Cass.” Sherlock’s voice caught, and she cleared her
throat. “Can you step into my office for a moment?”
Cass got up and followed Sherlock down the long,
polished hallway. Ice balled in her gut. What could
have so thrown the unfla ppable Sherlock?
Her supervisor had handled with aplomb the whole
debacle last year, the one involving a senior council
member’s youngest son and the international smuggling of rare and dangerous magical artifacts. That
mess had very nearly ended in the literal disappearance of a small town in Nebraska. She had a feeling
that this was going to be worse. Much worse.
Sherlock closed her office door behind her.
“The Ravensblood has been stolen.”
The Ravensblood.
Stolen.
The words sank into her soul like a cannonball into icy
water. Her mind refused to make sense of them, but
her body, her body knew, and it started to shake.
Only the Ravensblood had allowed Raven to survive
spying for the Council against the dark mage who had

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