12. Velma Doomweaver
Velma Doomweaver
Gabriel
T he midday sun made a valiant effort to warm the cobblestones outside Rookgate Manor, though the house itself seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Gabriel leaned against the iron fence, watching the empty windows with suspicion.
“Do you think it missed us?” he asked, loud enough for the house to hear if it was listening. “We didn’t visit yesterday. Perhaps it’s been pining.”
Nikka raised an eyebrow, which made her spectacles slide down her nose. “Houses don’t have feelings, my lord.”
“This one does,” Gabriel and Miles said in unison.
Nikka frowned at them. She probably thought they were mad, although Gabriel thought that was a bit unfair given all she had seen of the manor thus far.
Or perhaps she was unusually perceptive.
She didn’t know about his antics at Halebourne yesterday.
He still felt the fizz of the lunacy and the fury that had driven him through the whole ordeal itching under his skin. Perhaps it was somehow visible to her.
Mages. One never knew.
“There.” Miles nodded toward the far end of the street.
Two figures approached. Genna and another woman, Velma Doomweaver, presumably.
Average height, angular build, hair scraped back in a bun.
She dressed in muted browns and greens, the kind of colors that encouraged the eye to slide right past. But when she drew closer, Gabriel noticed her eyes, a clear, stormy gray that seemed to look through him rather than at him .
“Miles, Gabriel, Nikka—this is Velma Doomweaver.” Genna gestured between them. “Velma, this is Lord Gabriel Fairfield, his partner Miles Beauchamp, and the Guild apprentice assisting with magical sanitation, Nikka Brightly.”
“Charmed.” Velma’s voice was flat, nasal, utterly devoid of said charm. Or any of the affectation Gabriel had expected from a mystic.
Gabriel blinked. “I’m sorry, I thought Genna said you’re a fortune teller?”
“Card-based divination specialist,” Velma said.
“And this helps us with a maybe-haunted house... how, exactly?” Miles looked almost as baffled as Gabriel felt. Where were the shawls? The dramatic hand gestures? This woman looked more like an accountant than a fortune teller.
“I told you. The house isn’t haunted. You know it’s not.” Genna frowned at them both, but Velma seemed used to skepticism.
“The cards reveal truth,” Velma said. “They don’t care if that truth is convenient. Unlike certain other investigative methods, they cannot be fooled by illusion, misdirection, or whatever is pretending to be a ghost in your attic.”
Genna crossed her arms. “Velma’s readings are accurate. Disturbingly so. If anyone can cut through the nonsense this manor is generating, it’s her.”
Gabriel studied the supposed fortune teller—her elegant hands, her unsettling gaze. She smelled faintly of vertiver. “I was expecting a medium or....”
“I charge extra for theatrical attire and mystical accouterments,” Velma said in a flat, nasal tone.
Huh.
“Well,” he said, “at least she’s not another bureaucrat.”
A strange expression flickered across Genna’s face, something between amusement and warning. “Let’s get on with it.”
They climbed the steps, and the front door swung open before Gabriel could touch it.
It was going to be like that again. He almost wished the manor would start flinging stuff at them or produce more Madaze specters, that it would behave more ghost-like again. He had a feeling that a ghost would have been much, much simpler to rid himself of than whatever this was.
Inside, their work two days ago had stripped away the worst of the decay. The corpse-stench was replaced by lemon and carbolic, the heavy curtains thrown wide to admit actual sunlight. The foyer’s red and gold wallpaper remained tasteless, but it could have been any unoccupied manor now .
Almost.
It should have felt empty. A cleaned-out house waiting for new occupants.
It didn’t.
The air held a quality Gabriel couldn’t name. An attention, a presence, like walking into a room where someone had been standing a moment before.
Ugh. Time to just get it over with. “Dining room. Let’s find out what the hell this place actually is.”
Miles took his arm as they walked, and they exchanged a look.
He was unsettled too, and Gabriel wasn’t sure if he was comforted by the fellow-feeling or disturbed that it wasn’t all in his head.
The dining table gleamed in the light from the wall sconces that flickered to life as they entered and the daylight from the large windows that occupied one wall.
“Let’s sit, shall we?” Genna pulled out a chair.
Velma sat, dispensed with pleasantries, and opened her satchel. She set a ledger to one side and removed several sheets of parchment.
“Before we begin,” she said, laying the papers out in front of her, “I’ll need you to complete these forms.”
Gabriel froze, his hand halfway to the back of a chair. “I beg your pardon?”
“Standard procedure,” Velma said, not looking up as she arranged the documents. “Client intake form, consent to consultation services, liability waiver, and the divination disclosure agreement.”
“You can’t be serious.” Gabriel’s voice rose in pitch. “We’ve spent days drowning in paperwork! I thought we were finally—”
“Gabriel,” Genna cut in, her voice sharp.
He turned to Miles for support, only to find his lover looking equally dismayed.
“I was under the impression we would be conducting some form of magical investigation,” Miles said, his usual diplomatic tone strained around the edges. “Not filing for tax exemption status.”
Velma’s expression remained impassive. “Section one, paragraph two of my standard contract clearly states that all consultations begin with proper documentation. I find it provides clarity for all parties involved and prevents misunderstandings about services rendered.”
Gabriel’s fingers twitched with the desire to flip the entire table. “Does the house need to sign a waiver as well? Since it’s the one causing all the trouble.”
The sconces in the room flared momentarily .
“Just complete the forms,” Genna insisted, sitting down and pushing a pen across the table toward them. “I promise you; Velma’s methods are unorthodox but effective. This is necessary groundwork.”
“It had better be.” Gabriel dropped into a chair.
Gabriel snatched up the pen and scanned the first page Velma gave him.
Client Intake Form: Divination Services.
The document requested his full legal name, current residence, nature of inquiry, and—he squinted— preferred method of truth delivery (blunt, gentle, or dramatically cryptic).
Dramatically cryptic listed a surcharge in parentheses.
“Blunt,” he muttered, checking the box. “Definitely blunt.”
The liability waiver proved more extensive.
He initialed beside clauses absolving Velma of responsibility for “emotional distress resulting from accurate predictions,” “relationship complications arising from revealed truths,” and “any actions taken by the client based on card interpretations, including but not limited to: ill-advised confrontations, impulsive relocations, or dramatic declarations of love.”
“This is absurd,” Gabriel said, scrawling an increasingly illegible signature on form after form. “I’ve signed fewer documents to inherit an entire estate.”
“The Crown’s paperwork lacks precision,” Velma said. “Mine does not.”
Gabriel shoved his forms toward Velma, who collected them without comment and filed them back in her satchel. Then she withdrew a plain wooden box, its surface worn smooth by handling.
“We may now begin the consultation phase.”
She opened the box, revealing cards nestled in gray velvet.
Gabriel leaned forward despite himself. The backs displayed intricate silver knotwork surrounding golden scales against a deep brown background.
Beautiful, if understated. As Velma lifted the deck, the cards seemed to catch light that wasn’t there, the metallic elements shifting like something alive.
She began to shuffle. Her elegant fingers moved with easy dexterity as she shuffled, the cards flowing between her fingers like water. Not a single word passed her lips. No invocations to ancient powers, no mystical incantations, not even a dramatic pause.
Gabriel’s mind raced ahead. Perhaps the cards would reveal a suitable heir.
Some ambitious merchant hungry for a title, willing to shoulder the debt and the haunted house and all its complications.
A distant and not-too-evil Goldmar cousin.
Perhaps they’d show a path through the bureaucratic maze, a shortcut to freedom.
Or perhaps they’d show Vellast’s face. The stolen diamonds. The war Gabriel had started.
“Shouldn’t you be asking me questions?” Gabriel asked, watching her hands with increasing irritation. “Or lighting incense? Creating some sort of atmosphere? At the very least, mumbling mysteriously?”
Velma continued shuffling without acknowledging him.
“Velma has her methods,” Genna said, her tone indicating he should be quiet.
A warm hand covered his where it gripped the chair arm. Gabriel turned to find Miles watching him, brown eyes soft with shared exasperation. The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but an acknowledgment. I know. This is ridiculous, but at least we have front row seats.
Gabriel exhaled. Fine. If they were going to play games with the supernatural, he might as well see what the prize was. They could always just ignore whatever nonsense she spouted.
Velma laid the first card on the table.
“The Past: The Artificer ,” she intoned, her voice flat.
On the card, a stylized figure raised a hammer over an anvil. But as Gabriel watched, the ink writhed. The hammer didn’t strike metal; it struck something soft, something that flinched. The figure wasn’t crafting; it was beating the subject into submission.
“This represents the transmutation of house into creature. A conscious construct created through high-level magical workings.”