Balthazar hesitated before answering. “Is there something you ought to tell me?”

  “I don’t think so.” In the files drawer she found dozens of manila folders, all labeled with the dull needs of business: bills, rent, takeout menus, insurance, bookseller organizations with acronyms: ABA, IOBA, NEIBA. “It was a puppeteer, wasn’t it?”

  “There were several underlings from carapace who wanted the folio, and yes, a puppeteer. A very wealthy puppeteer.” He paused, as though troubled. “Now do you want to tell me how you knew that?”

  She fought down the urge to show off, to mention that she was aware Raven was the one they’d been taken from.

  “It’s my job to know stuff,” Charlie said innocently. She ought to thank Balthazar, hang up, and leave things at that, but she owed him something in the way of information. “Remember that job you said I should do, finding the Liber Noctem? Salt basically told me he’d kill me and everyone I love if I don’t.”

  “Good thing I’m not likely to find myself in that category,” said Balthazar.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re growing on me,” she told him as her fingers went to the far back of the files in the bottom drawer, stopping on a thin folder marked “Porn.” It was empty.

  “You’re trouble, Charlatan,” he said, but with fondness.

  “Goodbye, Balthazar,” she told him, and hung up.

  Turning to the computer, she typed “Porn” into the search bar. A folder came up. Inside, were a half dozen .jpgs, three .mov files, and another folder marked “Geriatric Porn.” That contained a single .xl file. When she clicked it, a new inventory opened, listing a collection of occult books that might be of interest to gloamists. This spreadsheet included the year created, the specialty of the gloamist, whether it was a one-off or mass printed, whether there were other editions, what shelf it was on, and how Paul had acquired it.

  Then there was a list of gloamist ephemera. To hide knowledge from one another, gloamists had taken to writing out their secrets in nontraditional ways. Stitched into the lining of a leather coat. Written in tiny letters inside of artwork. Objects whose real value was disguised so thoroughly that they might be thrown out or sold for pennies at a flea market.

  And then there were NFTs. Popular among the wealthy, and still far from commonplace among most gloamists. Paul had one in his inventory, and seemed to have listed it for a hundred grand two weeks ago.

  Charlie scanned down the list of sellers, looking for Remy, Edmund, Vincent, Red, even Salt. But the only name she recognized was Liam Clovin.

  Liam Clovin, MD. Vince’s old school chum.

  It looked as though he’d sold Paul Ecco three books within a week of the time that Edmund was supposed to have died. According to the entries, two were memoirs from the eighteenth century, worth five hundred bucks a piece, which had been kept in the shattered glass cabinet—clearly, those were gone. The third was Umbramagists Through History, self-published through Lulu in 2011. Instead of a shelf, the book was marked as being in a cardboard box on the other end of the room marked with a “7-A.”

  Charlie went to retrieve it. As she did, a knock on the door startled her.

  “Paul?” A gruff voice came from the hall.

  Book in hand, Charlie went still. The door was slightly ajar and she saw the moment that it began to swing inward. She ducked down behind some boxes.

  Someone in heavy work boots crossed the floor toward the desk. “Come on, man,” the person said in exasperation. “Paul! You owe me the goddamn rent. You can’t hide from me forever.”

  He exited the room with a slammed door.

  Charlie liked to think of herself as light-footed when she wanted to be, but in an old building, it was almost impossible to tell which floorboards were likely to creak and groan. She figured it would be the better part of valor to stay where she was for fifteen minutes, until she was sure Paul Ecco’s landlord had gone.

  With nothing else to do, she opened up Umbramagists Through History and read it by the light of her cell phone.

  It contained a collection of curated excerpts taken from other books. And although the introduction of misinformation was often a concern with reprints, there was an air of authenticity in the sheer neglect with which the author had put it together. Each page was clearly just scans of the original material, in the original font.

  Charlie scanned through the excerpts from newspapers, histories, and other documents. Whatever she’d thought of how it had been put together, the actual information in the book was compelling.

  A warrior in Thebes fell in a field of blood, but his shadow fought on until his killer died.

  A member of a shadowy secret society operating around the time of the Order of the Golden Dawn claimed she was able to send her consciousness out of her body at night and discover her enemies in their most private moments. That same account suggested that while her shadow was on a mission, she was vulnerable to other shadows taking control of her body.

  A mystic attempted to feed his shadow all of his blood and live on through it.

  A woman had woken on a hillside to three elderly folks trying to cut off her shadow at her feet. She shouted and they ran. She never found out exactly what they’d been doing, but she had a sense that if they had succeeded, something terrible would have happened.

  A man had nearly choked to death when a dark figure had turned to smoke and gone down his throat. A servant carrying a candle and entering the room by chance caused it to flee before its dread mission was accomplished.

  By the time Charlie looked up from the book, the building was quiet. Tucking the book into her bag, she slipped out the door and down the stairs.

  She’d have to talk to Liam Clovin, but there was someone she wanted to talk to first. If Red had really murdered Knight Singh, then what was Raven doing with his papers? And if Salt was the very wealthy puppeteer looking for them, why would he be scrambling to get the notes of someone from carapace when he was supposed to be obsessed with the return of the Liber Noctem?

  In the car, Charlie turned to the empty seat beside her where her own shadow fell.

  “Okay, kid,” she told it. “The universe belongs to the curious.”

  23

  BEAR CLAWS

  Charlie pulled into the parking lot in front of Eclipse Piercing & Shadow Modifications in Amherst around ten that night. It was in a strip mall, positioned between a Korean chicken place and a laundromat. Charlie parked in the back, against a thin copse of trees. The chilly night air carried the scent of beer and fried things from a bar one lot over.

  Grabbing a Dunkin’ Donuts bag from the back seat, she went to the door near the dumpster, a red bulb burning above it. She knocked, knuckles hard on the wood. A sliver of light peeked out the edge of blackout curtains hanging inside the window.

  Moments later, a Black woman opened the door. She wore a tank top and ripped jean shorts. Her curls were dyed the color of flames, with yellow at the root, red for most of the way, and little licks of blue at the tips. Tattoos covered her arms, from a dark-skinned moon goddess new enough to be shiny with moisturizer to older and less well-rendered spiderwebs, roses, and a skull with a serpent snaking through its eyes.

  Folding her arms across her chest, Raven regarded Charlie suspiciously. “I don’t take walk-in clients, especially at this hour.”

  “You had something stolen from you recently,” Charlie said. “I want to talk to you about Knight Singh, and his book of observations. Tell me what I want to know, and you can have it back when I’m done with them—less than a week, I promise.”

  Raven narrowed her eyes, then stepped back so that Charlie could come inside. As Raven closed the door, Charlie saw the words “El arte es largo y la vida breve” ran down the inside of her left arm in large gothic script.

  Scabs dotted her legs, as from fleabites. Marks made by feeding her shadow.

  Charlie held up the Dunkin’ Donuts bag. “I brought coffee, if it’s any consolation.”

  “Okay, thief, let’s hear what you want.” Raven poked around in the bag, then looked up. “Fuck yeah. You got bear claws.”

  The first part of any con was winning someone’s trust, and every conversation was a little like a con. Coffee and pastries couldn’t hurt.

  “How did you wind up with his papers?” Charlie asked. “From what I heard, his death was unexpected.”

  “You could say that.” Raven raised her eyebrows and took a sip of coffee. “They found him in his home, on the rug near his desk. The walls were painted with gore. The Cabal didn’t want anyone to know details, but I found out.” Raven went on, not leaving space for comforting words or horrified astonishment. “Another gloamist said they heard a man’s voice screaming, someone other than Knight. To do what was done to him required a kind of strength that could only come from a shadow—a very powerful one, glutted on energy and blood.”

  “That’s awful,” Charlie said.

  Raven nodded. “Knight was the first gloamist I ever met, the one that taught me how to use my magic properly. Got pissed when I decided I wanted to focus on alteration. Said I was chasing money. Maybe he was right.

  “The thing was, though, he gave me that book, a week before he was murdered. Told me to keep it safe. He had information that could bring down someone important. Holding it over that person’s head kept him safe, and not just him. I guess he was wrong about that.”

  “Lionel Salt?” Charlie asked.

  Raven gave her an odd look. “Maybe. That old man is a freak. Stole the shadow he’s wearing. Lots of people are supposed to have disappeared into his house.”

  “If that’s common knowledge, how come the Cabal never did anything? How come Knight Singh never used what he had?” Charlie asked.

  Raven went to a cabinet near a kitchenette and took down a metal dog dish. “I’ve got a couple of things to do. Do you mind if I work while I talk?”

  “Go ahead,” said Charlie.

  Raven opened a mini fridge jammed into a corner behind the counter and took out a plastic bag of blood. She ripped open the edge with her teeth.

  “Hand me one of those coffee mugs?” she asked, nodding toward a sink where a few clean forks and cups rested on a scratched plastic drying rack.

  Charlie stared at her incredulously. “You want me to do what now?”

  Raven smiled. “Mugs. By the sink. Get one.”

  Charlie chose one at random. It read: “KICK TODAY IN THE DICK.”

  Raven poured the blood into the cup and then stuck it in the microwave, setting the timer for a minute and a half.

  “To get the chill off it,” she said, as though that explained anything.

  As the mug went around in circles, Raven turned to her. “Nobody has any real proof. And Salt’s rich. That’s why the Cabal won’t do anything. As for why Knight didn’t use what he had, I don’t know. Depends on what he had.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe you didn’t read through Knight’s book while you had it,” Charlie said.

  Raven smiled. “Oh, I did. Lots of information, most more relevant to shadow-wearers than alterationists, but absolutely nothing that seemed like it could take down anyone.”

  Charlie frowned. “Other than whatever Knight had, would Salt have any reason to want him out of the way?”

  “Knight was against his being a Cabal member, and now that Knight’s gone they’re bending the rules and letting Salt join, even though Malik’s already representing the puppeteers.”

  “So they’re not going to have anyone from carapace?”

  Raven’s gaze went to the mug, turning on the plate, her expression remote. “It’s not fair. Knight helped build the Cabal. He was one of the early gloamists to be open about shadow magic.”

  Charlie opened her coffee and took a sip, thinking about Red, and what Salt had said about Vince. “What was Knight’s connection to the Liber Noctem?” He might not have one, but she hoped that by putting it like that, Raven would believe she knew more than she did.

  “The Book of Blights?” The microwave beeped and Raven dumped the contents of the mug into the stainless dog dish. “He thought it was hilarious that Salt got scammed into paying so much for it, I guess.

  “That’s the problem with rich gloamists. They buy up all the magical books, because they can, and then use that knowledge to tie other gloamists to them. Salt wouldn’t follow anyone’s rules, and now he’s going to be the one making the rules.”

  There were stories of cults formed by gloamists in the early days of shadow magic becoming public. Lots of bloodletting to juice up their shadows. Lots of creepy robes and creepy sex. And in the end, lots and lots of death.

  When Charlie thought of what a gloamist organization run by Salt would look like, she imagined the high-class, corporate version of those cults. But people would join. He had the books and the money. And the bigger his organization became, the more influence he’d have with the other gloamists. His seat on the Cabal would mean no one could stop him.

  Shoving the empty, bloodstained mug back into Charlie’s hands, Raven went to the door and set the dog dish down on the step.

  “Do I want to know?” Charlie asked, eyebrows raised.

  “You will in a minute, whether you want to or not.” Raven appeared immensely amused. “Why do you want to know about the Liber Noctem—didn’t Salt’s grandson make off with that before he kicked the bucket? Why do you want to know any of this?”

  Charlie flopped down on a bench, near a stack of flash magazines. “Something’s gone wrong, and I guess I’m caught up in it. I can’t walk away now, even if I wanted to—and I don’t. What I really want is to figure out who’s been lying, and about what.”

  Raven snorted. “Probably all of them, about everything.”

  Outside, a passing cloud changed the way the moonlight fell. Charlie saw a few shadows slipping toward the bowl.

  They were faint, indistinct things even as they moved into the strong light of the bulb over the door. Barely noticeable. But the area around the bowl grew ever darker as more congregated.

  The surface of the blood rippled, as though disturbed by some phantom cat tongue. Then it was all ripples.

  “There is one thing about the Liber Noctem,” Raven said softly. “Knight knew a guy at an auction house and they let him put on white gloves and take a look before Salt bought it. He copied out some notes on the binding of Blights, but nothing else.”

  Could he have overlooked the ritual to give Blights weight and form, or had it seemed so terrible that he simply didn’t want to know it?

  Charlie sat there, more frustrated than ever, watching blood drain from the bowl. The shadows thickened around it, dense and dark. “How about the Hierophant? He’s supposed to be hunting down Blights, and you said it must be a powerful shadow that killed Knight Singh. It could be a Blight, couldn’t it?”

  Raven sighed and looked out toward the edge of the parking lot, near the trees. “That guy, Stephen. I knew him a little before he was the Hierophant. It wasn’t even that he was a bad thief, it was that he stole the wrong thing from the wrong person. The gloamist who’d hired him hung him out to dry. Then they punished him by stitching that old Blight to him and, well, I don’t think things are going well. A shadow like that—conscious and whispering in your ear? Creepy as fuck. I doubt he’s going to catch anything.”

  Charlie recalled Salt’s comment about powerful Blights being tethered to new wearers.

  She recalled the Hierophant’s words too. Tell Red I want the book. Tell Red we can share. Tell Red that I will rip him to pieces.

  “Why would a Blight agree to be tethered?” Charlie asked.

  Raven shrugged. “Most don’t.”

  Charlie gestured toward the bowl. “Those are Blights, right? But giving them blood, that gives them power, right?”

  “A little,” Raven agreed. “You’re wondering why I’d want to do that.”

  Charlie eyed them, thinking about Red, and the Hierophant, and the feeling of a shadow making her mouth move. “I was actually wondering how much blood it would take to make a shadow powerful enough to be a Blight, without its gloamist dying.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Raven, standing. “I’ll give you a demonstration of both.”

  Her shadow shrouded her hand in what appeared to be a glove of fog. She reached out and plucked one shade up from where it licked at the bowl. It wriggled in her hand, but the other was holding what appeared to be a needle and thread, all formed from shadow.

  It continued to twist, like an eel, or jellyfish, or some internal organ dragged outside of the body. And also like none of those things. If you looked fast, it might seem that Raven was miming holding something. That she stabbed an imaginary needle into an imaginary thing.

  Charlie couldn’t decide if she was more disgusted or fascinated.

  Raven saw her expression and smiled. “Every time an alterationist changes someone, we have to use some of our own shadow to do it. If we’re not careful, we’ll give ourselves away, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left. But I’m careful.

  “These little shadows—they’re nothing. No cleverness in them, barely any consciousness. Might not even survive being stitched to a person. But you’re right that, strictly speaking, they’re Blights. Shadows that have survived being apart from their wearer.”

  On the steps, Charlie could see a few slinking off now that their feast was over, but some still remained, a translucent darkness, like a film in the air.

  “This part might freak you out,” Raven said. “You can close your eyes if you want.”

  There was absolutely no way she was going to look away, like a coward. “I’m good.”

  Raven took the shadow and dropped it into her open mouth.

  Charlie bit her lip to keep from making an astonished sound. That hadn’t been at all what she was expecting.

  Raven continued with a smile. “When a gloamist puts a piece of their consciousness into their shadow, they grow a kind of homunculus. Power is only part of what makes a Blight. If you don’t want your shadow to be separate from you, don’t consider it as separate. Never name it. And never feed it blood that’s not yours, because that’s giving it energy that also isn’t yours.”