Ian

The rakes are a little different, but fundamentally, detectives and journalists rake the same muck. It makes it easy to pose as press when I need to get in somewhere a detective wouldn't be welcome. I loitered in the teams' concourse near Tenebrae's stable, keeping my head down. The regular Imperial League press pack all knew each other. I could pass as a local Rindburg guy on the sports beat, following the city's new rising star, but not for long.

This trip was expensive, but Ike's money covered it, and there was only one dragon racing team he could possibly have meant. Nine of the active IL teams were multimillion-Royal companies with beautiful, high-tech stabling facilities. If Phoebe Tenryuu's tiny Tenebrae outfit wasn't a mob effort, they were getting their backing from somewhere equally unsavoury.

By the same token, they were the hardest team to spot. I'd seen Tenryuu herself a couple of times, but if there was a mob link, the young star was probably being kept ignorant of it, and she'd made it clear she wasn't speaking to reporters today. The tiny pink-haired girl in the red dress who'd come out to speak to the press pack before the second practice session started barely looked old enough to be out of school, but there was a ferocity to her that made her a bad bet for a casual enquiry.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I'd been waiting hours by the time I saw my chance. Another tiny young lady – was everyone on this team like that? – emerged from the Tenebrae stable, wearing overalls in their black livery, and scuttled towards the toilets. Her dark hair had blonde highlights and a high cowlick at the back that reminded me of nothing so much as the sorcerer from Pure Darkness.

When she re-emerged, heading back to the stable, I separated myself from the wall and intercepted her as gently as I could. I'm hardly the tallest man in the world, but I towered over her enough to give me vertigo, and the way her eyes widened as she realised I was trying to get her attention suggested she felt it too.

I ducked my head and kept my voice soft. "Sorry to bother you, miss, you're from Tenebrae, right?" I didn't give her a chance to answer. "Do you know where Mr. Castelloro is? I was hoping to catch him this afternoon."

"I don't know who that is, I'm sorry." I watched her face closely, but the name didn't provoke even the slightest flinch. She just wanted to get back to work.

"Sorry, my mistake." I bobbed my head again and backed out of the conversation. If the name of the most notorious mob family in Rindburg didn't ring even the slightest bell for a member of this understaffed team, then whatever the link was had to be much subtler than just Angelo Castelloro or one of his rivals having a new hobby. That made the job harder, but maybe a little safer, at least for now.