Ariel stood in the middle of the room, hands on her hips as she surveyed it. She was long and lean, with light brown skin and dark curly hair that was pulled back into a poof away from her gorgeous face. Her eyes were wide and the color of amber, her lipsgenerous and colored today a somber tint in an eggplant shade. She wore a T-shirt of the same shade with the MVD’s logo in an orangey yellow, boots in that same bright color, and fitted jeans. Credit where credit was due: the woman had style.
She looked back as we tromped in, nodded. And a flush rose on her cheeks when she caught sight of Connor.
“You know me, Connor, and Theo,” I said. “This is Petra Jassim. Petra, Ariel Shaw.”
“Hi,” Ariel said.
“Hi,” Petra said. “I’d offer a handshake, but...” She held up a gloved hand.
Ariel just looked at it blankly. “But... you have an infection?”
“She’s an aeromancer,” I said. “She’ll shock you. Literally.”
Ariel’s eyebrows lifted in interest. “No shit.”
“Zero. Necromancer, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
I had a feeling we were witnessing the blooming of a very weird friendship.
“I reserved the party room for two hours,” Ariel said. “I have a roommate, and she doesn’t like ghosts in the apartment.”
Who could blame her?
“So what am I working from?”
Petra pulled out the vial from yesterday. “Will this be enough?”
Ariel grimaced as she took it, held it up to the light. “It’s very green.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked.
“No clue.” She lowered the vial again, looked at us. “We usually have stuff that belonged to the deceased. A watch. A hat. That kind of thing. Not their... fluids.”
“There were no watches or hats at the gate,” I said. “We’re working with what we’ve got.”
“Which is 1872?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “If it helps, the magic probably wasn’t done by a sorcerer.”
“Well, obviously,” Ariel said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s ghosts. I mean, at most a sorcerer might help kindle the magic, but this is necromancer territory.”
That confirmed Uncle Malik’s take.
“How does this work, exactly?” Theo asked. “The necromancing?”
“With eye of newt and graveyard dust,” Ariel said.
His gaze remained level. “I’m pretty sure you’re kidding, but as I’ve never been at a séance before, I’m not entirely sure.”
“I’ll do my prep, try to make contact. I’m powerful enough to share the ghost’s image, or at least as much of it as I can produce on short notice. Go get a drink if you want, then find a spot and stay there. We want as little movement as possible while we’re communicating. It’s distracting.”
Theo took a coffee stirrer and was shoving it into his cast. He closed his eyes, and I was half-surprised his back leg didn’t wiggle like a dog’s as he scratched with obvious enjoyment.