Pet Psychic Mysteries Boxset Books 5-8 (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Johnson (simple ebook reader .txt) 📕

way through the maze of cubicles, put slightly on edge by the deafening clack of enchanted typewriters, ringing bells, and the threat of flying manila folders as articles zoomed from desk to desk.

I slid to the right to make way for a young man staggering along with a pile of scrolls in his arms that towered high above his head, then ducked into Madeline’s cubicle.

“Knock knock.”

She didn’t even look up from where she stood poring over a collage of papers, scrolls, and magically moving photographs on her desk.

“Hey, honey.”

I crossed my arms and ankles and leaned against the fuzzy cubicle wall. It was a faded brown that matched the carpet. I bit my lip—what color had it originally been about a thousand years ago when it was new?

“What can I do for you?” She swapped two photos out with a couple more she pulled from a file folder that balanced precariously on top of a half-empty pot of coffee. I sniffed—it smelled stale, though the whole office had a faint mildewed smell to it. I glanced to my right at the wall of dingy windows, battered by falling rain. The moisture wasn’t helping.

I shook myself and brought myself back to the task at hand. “You rang?” I raised my brows. “I got your note—you found something on Ludolf?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nibbled her lower lip, still engrossed in the task in front of her. “Ah.” She grabbed a quill and scratched out a whole paragraph, jotted down a couple of sentences, then finally looked up.

She wore reading glasses on her head and her long black hair loose over her shoulders. She grinned and waved me closer. “Come sit.”

I stepped closer and eyed the stack of books in the guest chair. She whipped her wand out of her back pocket, and with a flick of her wrist the books slid onto the floor. She murmured another spell as I settled into the cracked leather seat.

She grinned. “Silencing spell.”

I leaned forward, my lips twitching toward a matching grin. “Does that mean you found something good?”

She shrugged a slim shoulder. “You’ll have to be the judge of that.” She winked. “But, yeah.”

She came around to my side of the desk and perched on it, one leg hiked up. “So you and Officer Hot Stuff asked me to look into Carclaustra, which I already had a lot of information on—did I mention all the awards I won for that piece?”

I shot her a flat look. “Maybe once or twice.”

She grinned wider. “Have I told you about all the connections to Prince Harry I have? He personally thanked me for that.”

I rolled my eyes.

She quirked her lips to the side. “Though Princess Imogen doesn’t seem to be a fan of all those Is She Pregnant or Just Bad at Fashion? spreads I do on her.”

I shook my head at her. “Yeah. So weird.”

She winked, then clapped her hands. “Alright, bad news first—while I have no doubt that Señor Caterwaul is taking out his enemies, none of them seem to have ended up in Carclaustra.”

I frowned. “Wait—what do you mean?”

She waved a hand. “King Roch—may the sea slug rot in a deep ocean crevice—”

I nodded my agreement.

“—might have used the prison system to hide his enemies, political dissidents—basically anyone inconvenient, but Ludolf’s not doing the same.”

I frowned. “Okay. So what’s the good news?”

Her dark eyes lit up. “I did find some other stuff I think is pretty juicy. And I’m a good judge of juicy.” She talked with her hands. “I found a bunch of old records, dug into the lengthy King Roch depositions that he gave pre-trial and during it, and found that near the end of the Monster Wars, Roch started his propaganda against shifters—likening them to being part monster.”

I frowned. “Why?”

She shot me a flat look. “Why else? The spineless coward wanted scapegoats—something to shift the public’s attention away from all the atrocities he’d committed.”

I crossed my arms, anger brewing in my chest. “You mean atrocities like siccing monsters on a bunch of innocent people, which invited retaliation from other kingdoms?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Right! Those. Anyway, before that, shifters were respected members of society, by all accounts. But by likening shifters to monsters, since they can turn into animals, spy on you, infiltrate your family as the household pet, etcetera—” She held up a finger. “—his words, not mine—he was able to shift all the post-war fear and anger to a minority population and deflect it from himself. Took a lot of propaganda, but he got it done.”

I’d need Peter to massage out the massive knot that was forming in my neck later. “Did people not stand up to him? How could this happen?”

She splayed her hands. “Fear, especially in desperate times, can be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.” She held up a finger. “I did find some information that a bunch of prominent shifter rights activists rose up.” She grew grim. “There was a secret meeting among all of them—someone ratted them out, and Roch raided the meeting and they ‘disappeared.’” She made air quotes.

My stomach clenched. “You mean?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t find any information on any of them after that. I don’t know what happened to them.”

I clenched my hands into fists. I wanted to simultaneously punch something and cry.

“Guess who that someone was?”

I jerked my head up. “Don’t tell me—”

She nodded. “Mr. Ludolf Caterwaul himself.”

I scoffed. “How did you find that out?”

She sniffed. “I’d like to pretend it’s my amazing journalistic skills, but it was actually pretty easy. There’s a bunch of letters between the former King Roch and Ludolf. Ludolf actually brags about it—tries to leverage the fact that he gave up the location of the secret meeting to gain favor with the king.”

I shook my head. “That’s despicable. He betrayed his own people.”

“Well, that’s only the half of it. I dug into Ludolf a little more.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, despite the fact that she’d put a spell around her