Somebody had been in the house.

She hadn’t noticed when she got in the shower, stumbling sweat soaked out of nightmares into cold water and a semblance of humanity. Now, clear-headed and dripping on the bathroom tile, she could smell something off.

The house felt right magically, no foreign presences, lingering magical traces, or broken wards, but the smell...

Coffee. It was coffee.

Claire had been getting coffee at a cafe down the street. It was Dalgan coffee, so it was watery and bland, but she was paying to get her foot in the door with the locals, not drink good coffee.

This smelled like good coffee, rich and spiced. It smelled like she was back home in Avairne. Perhaps that’s why she hadn’t noticed when she woke up; her nightmares always smelled like home too.

She forced herself to relax, rolling back her shoulders and grabbing the first clothes she could find. She was being ridiculous. What, had some criminal had gotten past her many protections, brewed a cup of Avairnian coffee, and left? Birch had probably crashed on the couch and made coffee before she left.

Still, it was hard to relax. Claire kept stretching out her senses, triple checking nobody was in the house. She checked the wards and the latches on the windows before heading downstairs. She really should have gotten a more modest place. Checking this place was going to be a pain, and it wasn’t like she was going to clean it or use the damn guest room.

The blankets on the couch had been neatly folded, but the dirty dishes had been left in the sink.

Finally, Claire let herself fully relax. People here almost all had cooked fruit over cracked wheat for breakfast, but it looked like somebody had made eggs and rice, even if somebody hadn’t made enough for two.

She smiled. Knowing Birch, she’d left them in the sink knowing it would soothe Claire’s paranoia. And annoy her. For fuck’s sake, the cezve was on the drying rack, so she’d clearly done some dishes. The coffee was probably her way of wishing Claire luck on her first day of work.

Of course, she could have left a note. Better yet, she could have stayed for breakfast, but this was the best Claire was going to get.

She sipped the coffee slow. Even more than the taste, she’d missed the texture of it. Maybe it really was worth brewing it at home. It probably wouldn’t be as good as this, she never had the patience to triple boil it, but it would certainly be better.

She dismissed the thought as soon as it came. It was her first day, and she had already decided any sort of morning routine was going to be too much of a bother.

Her first day.

Maybe she should dress up more, show she was a professional? No, her skills would speak for themselves. They got what they got. Besides, no outfit would make a worse impression than her accent.

She poured her coffee down the drain and threw on a jacket. She’d get coffee at the cafe down the street.

*

On paper, Theo had crafted the perfect position for himself. He didn’t work for the military or the church, so he got to pick his own team and his own jobs. Since he contracted for both, his parents had no room to complain as long as he kept building a good reputation.

On paper, he had the kind of freedom he’d never thought was possible as a child.

But taking homicide cases as an independent agency meant keeping his certification, and that gave the government room to meddle. Usually, that just meant solving high profile murders. That was no issue. The city was large enough that Theo made a living on almost exclusively unsolved homicides, but small enough he rarely had to choose between cases. Until now, he’d never been pressured to do anything he didn’t agree with, but this wasn’t a case; this was his team.

To be fair, he had been looking for a good tracer almost since he started taking cases. It simply wasn’t a popular skill to develop. Most good casters developed a bit of magical sense along the way. Abigail could recognize another caster on sight, or give them a warning if a big cast was coming, but she couldn’t tell you what type of cast she felt or what had been done five minutes earlier.

In the time it took to build the sensitivity to tell healing from smiting from gas manipulation, you could learn to level a town with a fireball or cure a virus with a single touch. There was simply more glory, money, and spectacle in other branches. Any good tracer was usually snapped up by the church in seconds. All three registered tracers in the city were. He’d worked with them a few times, but they only took certain cases and usually walked away with half the cash.

He’d been hoping he could eventually recruit some fresh-faced dreamer and sponsor their training, but even that was proving difficult.

That was the first reason Clarisse James was suspicious. If she was as good as her file said, she could do a hell of a lot better than his little team.

Her background, however, was the larger concern. Over a decade as a tracer for the Avairenian government was a qualification, but it was like being told your new hire would be a great butcher because she’d been cutting up squirrels for fun since childhood. Qualified, but it raised bigger issues.

The official he’d met with had straight up told him that was why he should hire her. They needed ‘a smart man with proper loyalties to keep an eye on her’. Theo’s team was practically family. He trusted them with his life, and they trusted him with theirs. He didn’t think ‘not suspected as a fascist spy’ was a large ask for a potential hire.

He could push back. It wasn’t like the government had true control over his business, but he had to choose where he pushed carefully. Spend his goodwill refusing this, he wouldn’t have the capital to keep his license after refusing to air the dirty laundry of some priest’s ex-lover or go on a chase after a military deserter.

If Clarisse James wasn’t a spy, she’d be able to help him do a lot of good. If she was a spy- well, proving it was just another way to do good, wasn’t it?

He’d told the team to expect her today, but he hadn’t told them that it wasn’t his choice. It was a shameful thing to tell people who relied on him. More importantly, they were all awful liars. Abigail and Cam would be awkward, while Linn would probably just ask the woman upfront if she was a spy. All they needed to know was that a tracer would be joining the team today.

Linn hadn’t bothered to show up on time, which was fine. Cam and Abigail were both chattering nervously, trying to clean up their cluttered little office.

“We should have ordered pastries. Do you think she’d want- I mean everyone likes pastries. Unless they’re allergic. Or don’t like sweets. Ugh, we should have done this yesterday!” Cam was saying, continually trying to push back his curls in stress.

“It’ll be fine,” Abigail said sympathetically. She was trying to wash some of the coffee mugs that had slowly accumulated on the desks. Theo found trying to keep the office clean was a bit of a Sisyphian task and easier not to bother with, which was probably, in retrospect, the reason it got so dirty in the first place. “She’s not going to quit because we don’t have pastries.”

“It’s not about quitting, it’s about feeling comfortable! I mean, it’s awkward, going into a group of people who’ve known each other for ages, right? We want her to feel welcome.”

“No amount of pastries,” Theo reminded them, “is going to counteract Linn.”

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“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Abigail said, stripping her dish gloves and drumming the back counter for attention. “I can feel a caster coming.”

Cam jumped into his desk chair, and Theo tucked his mouth behind his hand to hide his smile.

The door opened with the soft jingle of the bell.

Clarisse James had very much not dressed up. Not that Linn or Abigail ever did, but they had at least on their first day. James showed up in a black tank-top, heavy boots, and a stony expression.

She cut an imposing figure. It was clear she’d been military. Her arms were muscular and scarred, and her hair was cropped short. Though her file put her in her early thirties, she looked older, with rough skin and more grey in her hair than black.

Theo stood up, putting on his best smile.

“Miss James, welcome. I’m Theodore Dryden.”

She didn’t smile back or take his offered hand. Instead, she put her hands to her heart and dropped her head in a formal bow.

As if summoned, Linn walked in behind her, looking around in confusion, probably trying to figure out why a client had her head lowered. Cam mouthed ‘new co-worker’.

“Thank you,” James said, ignoring Linn’s entry. She turned to look at the office. “I’m Clarisse James. I’ll be working as your team’s tracer starting today. I hope I’ll be an asset to your team.”

There was a moment of silence. Theo had hoped her accent would be milder so they’d have a chance to get to know her, but she sounded just like the villain from a radio drama. Cam opened his mouth to break the awkwardness, but Linn beat him to it.

“You sound Avairnian,” Linn said, smiling as if that made it sound any less of an accusation.

“Yes. That is because I’m Avernian,” James responded. There was a hint of an expression there, but it wasn’t anger, it was the slightest edge of amusement. Perhaps Linn would be less of a problem than he’d worried.

“Why are you here then?” Linn asked, putting a casual elbow on James’s shoulder.

Finally, James smiled, calm and polite as her bow.

“I’m wanted for execution in Avairne for desertion, so I thought it would be a bit more pleasant working here. Don’t worry, my loyalty is to my work, not my birthplace. If you have any concerns, I’m sure a government official would be happy to confirm my allegiances.”

Not enough, Theo thought, if they were asking him to spy, but he kept up his smile.

“Well, we’re lucky to have you. I’m the team leader, so you can come to me with any problems. That’s Linn Miller, our medical examiner, Campbell handles paperwork, and Abigail Stephanson, our muscle.”

At her introduction, Abigail jumped forward to shake James’s hand like a puppy finally allowed to grab a treat balanced on its nose.

“I’m so excited to have another caster on the team! I’ve never been any good with sense magic. I’m a kinetic manipulation specialist, but I’m not too bad with air manipulation. What about you?”

“I mostly stick to sensory work, but I’m not bad with energy manipulation,” James said.

Energy meant fire in particular, Theo knew from her file.

“What can you sense about me?” Abigail asked, still holding James’ hand. James’ muscles were tensed, as if it took effort not to recoil.

“Abigail, she doesn’t have to. She hasn’t even been here a minute.” Abigail should know not to treat another caster like a stage show.

“It’s fine. I don’t mind. As long as Miss Stephanson doesn’t mind,” James said.

“Course not! I’m an open book!”

James closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then looked Abigail up and down.

“When you started training, you focused on strengthening your whole body at once. That’s the most common method, so that isn’t surprising, but you got a pretty bad knee injury around five years ago. It took...” she tilted her head, “around a half a year to heal, I think. After that, you started learning how to switch your strength between your legs and your arms.I’m guessing you also took up free-running. About two years ago, you started learning to use your casting to weaken your opponent as well, but it doesn’t come naturally to you. You’ve probably strengthened opponents on accident a few times, huh? Still, you’re good in a fight and haven’t suffered any major injuries since your knee.”

That was… far more than Theo had expected. Hell, it was far more than he knew was even possible. If she wasn’t doing a hot read, he might have lucked out more than he’d thought.

“You’re dead on! How’d you know?” Abigail asked. “I thought traces faded away in like a month.”

“Usually, but repeated magic uses leave pathways, sort of like building a callous. The rest is knowing how to interpret what you see. There’s some really old healing magic around your knee. The fact that I can see it at all means it had to be treated a lot. The pathways for whole body strengthening are about the same age, which makes me think you got the injury because you weren’t spreading your strength well enough and decided to start a different casting method. That said, the imprint shows quicker switches between legs and arms than most fighters use. People usually only redistribute strength two or three times in a fight. Switching strength tends to telegraph your moves if you use it a lot, but most gymnasts have patterns like yours. With this job, I imagine you wouldn’t have much time to spend in a gym, so my guess is free-running, as that’s actually quite practical for you.”

James tapped her knuckles with her index finger as she spoke, still calm but talking a bit fast, rattling off information.

“There’s no focused healing residue like on the knee, but there’s a general feeling of it, especially around the shins and forearms. Lots of injuries, no severe ones, so I guessed lots of fights and lots of wins. Am I right?”

Linn grinned.

“Not bad at all. Keep it up, we might even pay you!”

“Cam, if you could start taking her through the paperwork. Linn, Abigail, I still need your reports from Monday’s robbery in.”

The morning was pleasantly quiet. Linn complained about her paperwork less than usual, and Abigail got them all lunch.

As the day wore on, Theo began checking the paired glass panes on his desk compulsively. Some cases would walk through the door, but most requests came through official channels.He needed a case desperately, though he tried not to show his nerves.

‘I’m wanted for execution in Avairne for desertion’ his ass. He’d read her file. Clarisse James had deserted her post in Avairne, but not before killing her commander. Besides, that had been almost three years ago. The file had nothing on how she had spent that time before she crossed the border into Dalgerra six months ago.

That wasn’t even asking how the hell she’d crossed the border. Avairne made enemies of everyone, so they left most of their borders as crystalline wastelands. The few openings were guarded with the paranoid violence of a country built around total control. He didn’t care how powerful James was, she wasn’t a priest, she couldn’t have survived the defiled lands.

There were too many unknowns, and they were all sitting in a chair across from Cam in Theo’s office, with Theo’s people.

As late afternoon approached, he was counting down the minutes. Linn had disappeared into the morgue, Cam was still doing paperwork, and Abigail was awkwardly trying to make conversation with James. Theo was flipping through a cold case for the tenth time, not really reading it. Thirteen more minutes until six. Thirteen minutes and he could go home and see his family.

Twelve minutes to six, a message appeared on the paired glass sheet connected to the church.