II
“The incidents are related.”
“Take a seat, Hamilton.”
I draped my winter coat over the back of a chair positioned in front of Moore’s desk, sat, crossed my legs, and let my bowler rest on my knee.
The private office was aglow with warm yellow bulbs.
Outside the window behind Moore’s desk were tendrils of light from a green streetlamp four stories down and a blue safety light atop our building to warn any illegal, low-flying airships in the night.
The illumination met in the middle, catching falling snow in a medley of color.
Moore shut the door, hung his suit coat on the brass rack beside it, then moved around me. Still standing, he tapped ash from his pipe into a glass tray atop the desk. “We have no evidence that this Tick Tock character is directly, or even indirectly, related to your incident in Shallow Grave.”
I sighed audibly.
“But,” Moore continued, setting his pipe down, “your tone aside—”
His pause was enough to make me squirm.
“I do agree that the probability of two criminals simultaneously unlocking the secret to storing elemental magic in a tangible manner is not likely.” He smiled, and there was an amused twinkle in his brown eyes.
“Yes, sir.”
Moore turned and fetched a decanter from the shelf to the right of the window. “What’s wrong, Hamilton?”
“I’ve lived a long life.”
He pulled the stopper, poured a splash of amber liquid into two squat glasses, and offered one. “This’ll help.”
I thanked him as I reached out and accepted the crystal.
Our fingers brushed in the exchange, and a single arc of electricity briefly joined us before snuffing out of existence in a plume of smoke.
The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, per se.
It left a sort of drunk-just-under-the-surface feeling.
Moore and I were each high-level casters, but thankfully not elemental opposites—fire and electricity, respectively.
That sort of touch was still dangerous, though, and was meant to be avoided at all costs.
Magics interacted with one another. There was no way of controlling an automatic function.
It would be like asking a caster to simply stop breathing.
That was why the Bureau paired us magically inclined with bruisers—agents who hadn’t a single spell in their blood.
It was why the new hires at our field office were given explicit instructions I’d heard repeated so many times, they’d long ago been memorized.
Special Agent Gillian Hamilton works alone.
This is a safety measure put into place, and we cannot stress this enough, as a precaution for you.
Should you find yourself in a situation that includes distress to Hamilton’s physical well-being, do not touch him.
Contact Director Moore on your Personal Discussion Device.
You can find his code on page two of your manual.
That was one of the many reasons I was starving.
For Approval. Attention. Affection. I knew this about myself. Knew that in October, I was a skeleton—so deprived of human intimacy and all its subtle forms, I had been wasting away.
And then I had met Gunner.
Gunner had been impressed by me almost immediately.
He’d approved of my abilities instead of shying away like everyone else, be them other agents or civilians.
His attention had been flattering, thrilling.
God , it had been almost terrifying, the way he’d studied me and picked up on such inconsequential details, such as the brand of my perfume.
And the affection… the brush of his nose against mine, kisses so erotic that simply thinking of them took my breath away.
And perhaps what had touched my neglected heart the most: the way he had cared for me while I was in a compromised state.
Gunner had put me to bed and seen to my belongings, shown care to everything from my expensive Richmond Bros.
shoes to the Everyday Man brand of my shirt cuffs.
I used to yearn for these moments with Moore—moments when he would pass me something and a thumb or finger would touch my own, or when he stepped a bit too close, perhaps even brushing my shoulder as he did.
These moments were the catalyst in what, long ago, had me questioning the intentions of Moore’s bachelorhood.
But whether he was interested in men in the same manner as myself, or I was simply overthinking every minute action made by an older, attractive man, the point was, those shared seconds had been just enough to keep me alive over the years.
Hopeless for what I didn’t deserve.
But shamelessly yearning anyway.
Until now.
Because that spark and smoke between us was nothing when compared to merely the way Gunner looked at me from across a room.
“Hamilton.”
I hastily took a sip of the whiskey. Smooth and malty, with a hint of caramel on its way down. “Excellent, thank you,” I answered automatically.
“Dublin, twelve years. How’re your hands?”
I glanced up. Moore had taken a seat. He watched me, smoothing his manicured beard with one hand. I looked at the glass in my hold. The crystal had caught the light of a nearby lamp and cast skittering prisms across the wooden floor. I switched hands and flexed the left absently. “It’s nothing.”
Milo Ferguson—Tinkerer—had very nearly blown my hands off in October.
He’d utilized the first elemental bullet known to exist. The spell had gone haywire without a proper caster to control it, overpowered my own lightning magic, and absolutely torched my nerves from the inside out.
A doctor in Tucson had performed what I considered a miracle and saved all ten fingers, but I hadn’t dared admit to anyone that while I could feel the weight of the glass in my hand, I couldn’t feel the glass.
“I wonder how stable that fire ammunition is,” I said, putting an end to the silence. “Considering how volatile Ferguson’s had been.”
Moore hummed in acknowledgment. “The community feared this moment would come. Had any other agent gone to Shallow Grave, they wouldn’t even be alive to investigate this.”
I raised my brows.
“That’s the truth and we both know it, Hamilton.” Moore sipped his whiskey.
My cheeks flushed and I hoped he’d only think it was the alcohol.
“For two months we haven’t gotten a single scrap of intelligence about who in the country might be behind the construction of the bullets Ferguson had on his person,” Moore said, in an almost thinking-out-loud sense.
“Correct.”
“Until tonight.”
“Which could mean any number of things,” I answered.
“I think it means only one.”
“That is?”
“The prototype has been perfected.” Moore leaned back in his chair and rested the tumbler against his knee. “Why else would we go from merely the two rounds Ferguson fired to the anonymous report of Fishback seen hauling an entire case ?”
“If only I’d found him before he was able to ditch the evidence….”
“Yes, well, that’d have been preferable,” Moore replied, “but I’m still looking forward to hanging this over Inspector Byrnes’s head.”
“Are you intentionally picking fights with the police?”
“Allow me this pleasure, Hamilton,” Moore said around a chuckle. He had an easy laugh and a handsome smile. “Watching Byrnes’s face turn as red as a radish makes me feel young.”
I turned the crystal glass in my hold. “I suspect Tick Tock intentionally hired Fishback to middle-man his incoming packages. Tick Tock is a new-to-me gangster, in a city already overrun with gangs. But Fishback’s an established name who’d lend legitimacy to Tick Tock.”
“Makes sense,” Moore answered. “I’d also add that Tick Tock must be a local boy.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why do you say that? The packages are coming from, and I quote, out West. Tick Tock could be from anywhere and merely looking to establish roots in a heavily populated area.”
“This mysterious architect is from out West,” Moore corrected. “Fishback has made a career out of killing coppers in New York, and yet, he isn’t on the national wanted list. He’s hardly even known upstate.”
I raised my tumbler and asked before taking a sip, “Police department ego?”
“Byrnes would be the laughingstock of this country if the likes of Boston or Philadelphia knew he couldn’t apprehend a single man. And yet that’s exactly who Tick Tock hired—a man who the police cower from. I’m certain it was intentional.”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“I like that you don’t pull your punches.”
“I pull.”
“Even with me?”
“Of course.”
Moore set his glass aside and threaded his fingers together in his lap. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
A palpable silence settled between us, and the rest of the building came to life in the absence of our conversation.
Steam ping , ping , ping ed in the piping.
A scholar laughed in the bullpen down the hall from Moore’s office.
Someone else popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, no doubt dipping into holiday celebrations early.
I shifted focus to watch the magic in the room, glittering tendrils ebbing and flowing like the tides of the East River.
But when the fiddleheads reached Moore, they unfurled and burst as if he was a lighthouse and the magic an ocean storm.
Moore cleared his throat and opened a desk drawer.
My vision snapped back to the magic-free plane.
“This is for you,” Moore said as he set a small brown-paper-wrapped package before me.
I set my glass aside. “What is it?”
“A gift for the new year.”
I’d begun to push forward in my chair, but paused. “Sir?”
Moore picked up his tumbler again and motioned to the package with the other hand. “Just open it, Hamilton.”