Sam awoke crumpled over her desk because the phone wouldn't stop ringing. Her office was dark despite the daylight. She'd pulled the shades shut and confined herself to the slim light that still slipped through. A cigarette sat in the ashtray half smoked and half burned as she slept. An empty bottle of whiskey faced her like an eager secretary.

  Sam's gray suit jacket hung in a lazy pile over the chair reserved for clients. Ash stains dotted her pants by the waistband. Her suspenders stretched over her chest.

  Sam's head pounded under her black hair. She felt every strand as she regained herself. Sweat only half produced by the heat of her office slicked the skin under her hair. A black leather patch covered her left eye. Her remaining eye opened a sliver to aim an angry blue iris at the incessant phone.

  She grumbled at a nonexistent secretary who she resolved to hire. Her hand reached out for the phone and managed to knock it from the cradle. She caught it before it clattered to the desk. She wanted to sound professional.

  Sam cleared her throat before speaking but her voice still filled with gravel.

  "Fontaine Detective Agency. How can I help you?"

  “Samantha Fontaine” the voice on the other end of the phone assumed Sam answered her own phone. “My name is Victor Adebayo. I’m calling on behalf of my employer, Seraphina Van Thorne. Miss Van Thorne would like to retain your services with regard to a personal matter.”

  Sam knew of the Van Thorne family. Notorious for their wealth and their secrecy, they were one of the most powerful families in the entire city. Rich families have deep pockets and her line of work seldom paid well.

  “Mr. Adebayo, thank you for your call. And you may consider me at your service. When can we meet to discuss the particulars?”

  Sam agreed to the meeting and, later that evening, took a cab to the address provided. A palace fit for an emperor, it nestled into the hills above the city. A long, circular driveway with a fountain at the center led to the entrance. Two stone angels stood in the fountain with pitchers dumping water. Their wings crossed in a way that made them appear to Sam to be a single monstrous beast with too many arms.

  Great, dark iron double doors served as the entrance. As Sam walked up to the front door and wondered how one rings the doorbell for a door this large, it opened.

  "Ms. Fontaine," said the towering, lean man. His dark skin shone in sharp contrast with the crisp white of his collar. Long tails hung from his black suit jacket. He held his hands clasped at his waist. His white gloves looked like they'd never been dirty. The man’s eyes, sharp and quick, flickered between the receding taxicab and Sam. Sam wondered if a cab ever drove up that driveway before tonight.

  “Thank you for coming. I am Victor Adebayo. We spoke on the telephone.” The butler reached out a gloved hand and shook Sam’s.

  “Please follow me to an office where we can be more comfortable. Would you care for coffee or tea?”

  “A cup of coffee would be great, thank you.” said Sam.

  Sam followed the butler through a maze of immaculate hallways. Soft carpet cushioned each step. Paintings of people Sam assumed had some significance lined the walls. Gilded mirrors in the corners gave her a chance to see how out of place she was in her wrinkled overcoat.

  The butler took her into a room with dark wood walls. A matching desk sat in the far end of the room. A single lamp carved of a darker wood sat beside the desk. Its light allowed Sam to see the other man’s stern expression.

  Sam eased herself into a chair across from the desk. The dark, cushioned velvet felt comfortable, more than any chair Sam's behind ever graced. Her headache subsided enough for her to pay attention to her new client.

  Victor signaled to a waiting maid to attend to the coffee as he sat behind the desk. He reached into a drawer and produced a slim envelope. His movements, precise and quick, conveyed no other body language for Sam to interpret. He spoke with a thick, pleasant accent. Sam didn’t recognize its origin.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing some materials to explain the specific details. In brief, someone burgled this house. The thief stole only one item: a pair of earrings. They hold both personal and financial significance to the Van Thorne family. Miss Van Thorne would be grateful for their return. We’ve elected to contact you rather than the police. Your reputation implies the necessary level of discretion and professionalism. We’ve also heard you have solved a number of difficult cases.”

  Sam considered the butler’s words before she answered. These earrings were valuable but not as valuable as secrecy. She didn’t know much about the rich but the powerful needed to maintain appearances. A stolen family heirloom would look bad.

  “Can you tell me more about these earrings? What’s their significance? If you’ll excuse a clumsy question, why not buy new ones?”

  “As I mentioned, they are significant to the Van Thorne family. Five generations of the family have passed these earrings from mother to daughter. Of equal importance is finding out who perpetrated the crime. We would also like to know how they managed to evade our extensive security.”

  Sam was right. But calling a detective rather than a diviner still seemed strange.

  “OK, fair enough. Why not call a diviner?” asked Sam. Diviners were the Imperial magicians who, for a price, would answer any question. Ordinary people couldn't afford them. Sam didn’t mind because diviners charging too much enabled her entire profession. If you couldn't afford a diviner you hired Sam. She assumed the expense wasn’t the problem.

  “We did. The diviner was unable to determine the location of the earrings or whoever took them.” Sam almost choked on her coffee. A diviner could answer any question. Sam’s training told her there was room for error. Even a diviner can have a bad day. But if they paid the price there should have been an answer.

  “What do you mean? You paid the price, you get the answer. Isn't that the whole point?”

  “The diviner said they could see nothing and could not tell us why. I can thus provide you with no further clarification. It's possible the diviner lied or magic more powerful protected the thief.” The butler sounded frustrated, both with the situation and with the conversation. Turning to Sam must have been a last resort.

  “I hope you got your money back.”

  “The thief broke into and stole the jewels from Miss Van Thorne's bedchamber. You may investigate. Follow me, please.”

  The bedroom displayed a collection of dark velvet and bright gold. The ground level room looked out onto a vast manicured garden. The bed, centered in the room, stood on a platform with floor length maroon curtains. Plush ivory carpet lined the room. The matriarch of the family and her ostensible client, Serafina Van Thorne, remained unmarried. Sam wondered if any men joined her here. She found the ways of the ultra-wealthy foreign.

  The wall beside the window held a long dresser. Its polished ebony shined in the dim light of the room. Above it, a plain wooden case's doors hung open. It stood out amid the opulence of the rest of the room for its simplicity. The dry wood appeared older than anything else in the house. A single shelf with a pillowed recess suitable for holding the missing jewelry waited, empty.

  A stained-glass window spanned the distance between the bed and dresser. Broken glass lay near the window's handle. Sam thought the sheer brazenness of the theft made it successful. Someone smashed the pane and took the earrings. They knew what panel to smash and where to find the most valuable item in the room without alerting anyone.

  A member of the staff did this or knew who did.

  "Mr. Adebayo, I believe I've concluded my investigation," said Sam. "I need to interview the household staff."

  "Of course, we also suspected the necessity of questioning them," replied the butler. "As a matter of some personal import, please understand the employees under my direct supervision fulfill a dual role as butlers and as our security. The decision to employ your services came from me. This incident represents a stain on my otherwise unblemished record. I want it corrected as soon as possible."

  The unexpected candor from the reserved man surprised Sam. "I understand, Mr. Adebayo. I'll see the crime solved. You have my word. It'll help the process along if we can set up the interviews all at once according to specific instructions. I'll need three rooms."

  The butler set up the rooms according to Sam's instructions. Sam positioned herself in a central office with a single table. Across from the table sat a single chair meant for the person she questioned. She requested interviews with household staff with knowledge of the house's security. They all waited in a room beyond the office. A third room was prepared for those already interrogated. They had instructions to remain until the process completed. This way no one would be able to pass information about the interviews. There would be no time to prepare the guilty or warn accomplices. The military trained her well.

  Sam sat at her makeshift desk and lifted the patch over her left eye. A coarse, black thread sewn in an intricate pattern held her eyelids shut. She undid the knot at the center and unthreaded the stitching. She winced as the waxed thread slid through the holes in her skin. With the binding thread out, she blinked a few times against the dryness and the relief of being able to open her blind eye. A polished onyx stone occupied the socket. Silver symbols of a strange language inlaid the stone in circular patterns. She didn't know what the symbols said or meant.

  The eye would be inert rock unless someone lied to her. It would waken when they did and restore Sam’s vision. She replaced the patch. No one needed to see the prosthetic. It would work after removing the stitching. She could cover it or close it. Nothing would hide the truth from her. She wondered if his new client hired her with knowledge of her former career.

  The charmed prosthetic came from her military service. America's Imperial Army gave these rare items to its most elite investigators. Sam joined with the hope of acquiring this eye. She earned it through years of service and the extraction of her left eye. Undoing the stitching brought memories of the ritual back. Sam avoided it as much as possible.

  Sam began the parade of interrogations. One by one, maids, cooks, and gardeners came before her.

  "Did you or anyone you know take anything from Miss Van Thorne's bedroom?" She asked the same questions each time. "Did you or anyone you know steal from the Van Thorne family?"

  The questions revealed a few petty thefts here and there. Further questioning revealed these to be household supplies, silverware, and small decorations. Nothing she felt the need to report back. As she saw it a little bit of theft happened in every job.

  Sam made it about halfway through the gathered household staff. Victor escorted in the next one and motioned for her to sit. Her light ochre skin shone in the light of the lamp where she stood. The customary bun of household staff held up her black hair. She appeared young to Sam.

  She sat down and Sam asked her first question. "Did you or anyone you know take anything from Miss Van Thorne's bedroom?"

  The woman looked down and whispered "No." Her voice quivered. Sam could tell she lied without the eye providing sudden vision of her.

  Sam said, "Did you or anyone you know ever steal anything from the Van Thorne family?"

  Again, she whispered "No." Again, Sam's eye showed the full sight of her.

  She began to weep without an accusation from Sam. She put her face into her hands.

  "Oh, please don't let them arrest me. You have no idea what the jails are like.'"

  But Sam did. She spent a bit of time there herself. She knew the inquisitors in the jails mistreated and killed the prisoners. She knew the diviner doctors would use them for experiments.

  Diviners drove all science and medicine in the American Empire. Research became a simple matter of trading blood or flesh for answers to questions of scientific import. Prisoners represented a ready source of both. As a result, vast advancements in both scientific understanding and medicine came at the small price of indigent lives.

  "What's your name?"

  "Min Lee." Her family must have immigrated with the war back in her home country. She would be victimized by the jail system. Without much political power in this country, immigrants fared poorly.

  "Please tell me what you know," said Sam "and I'll make sure you're treated well."

  She began to sob into her hands. Sam noted the Van Thorns preferred hiring immigrants over citizens.

  "Now, Min," she said, "you have to tell me everything. And you have to tell me now.”

  She gathered herself from her sobbing and calmed herself down. Sam admired her force of will.

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  "The man I am seeing, Aldous, he told me he would take the earrings and we would run away together and sell them and buy a house in the beautiful countryside. And there we would live and raise a family and we would bring my mother and father over to this country. So, I told him how the house works. And he came and stole them. But I haven't heard from him since. And I worry something terrible happened to him or he lied to me."

  "Please tell me everything you can about this man, Aldous."

  Min Lee’s confession came up like rotten food between sobbing breaths. Disgust and sadness tainted her voice when she told Sam where to find the man, Aldous. Her sobs turned to frantic pleas for mercy as they took her from the room.

  Sam left the Van Thorne mansion and lit a cigarette. Its sunset red glow filled her face as she inhaled. She didn’t want to know what would happen to Min Lee. Her mind slid instead to the work at hand. A thief waited in the night, in the city.

  Sam made her way to the neighborhood where the unfortunate maid said she could find Aldous, the thief. She knew the place. Everybody knew this place. It was a slum. It was a place to be avoided with ramshackle houses propped up by boards that can't hold up houses, tin roofs, rats, maggots, and desperation.

  Sam started asking around. The residents of the neighborhood were tight-lipped with regard to those asking unprovoked questions. Sam found a few dollar bills or a promise of drugs would be enough to open their lips. She first stopped by a local dealer, scored a few portions of devil's snuff, which is rumored to be the ground up fingernails of demons. It’s traded for a lump of flesh or blood.

  Throughout the neighborhood, addicts with missing fingers or eyes haunted the dark corners. It didn't take long for Sam to find someone who claimed to know the couple she mentioned. In exchange for a bit of cast-off from a demon, she got an address. A place she could go investigate.

  She made her way to the building. This was a palace in comparison to the other buildings in the neighborhood. Made of brick, with a front door, and windows. It was a four-story walk-up building. Sam made her way inside. An electric lantern in the foyer flickered as if to greet her.

  Sam made her way to the basement apartment where the couple was said to hold up. She knew she was in for a treat. When the smell of a dead body hit her, she heard the buzzing of flies from inside. She opened the door. The dark apartment stank of death and rot. As soon as she opened the door, someone leapt from her blind side, scratching her face and screaming. Sam fought back but the attacker overpowered her. Her fists struck air. The flailing woman on top of her grabbed her head with both hands. She pushed backward and, despite Sam’s training, smashed her head into the open brick wall.

  The last she saw as the blackness took her, a woman stared down at her, her face full of rage. A single red earring hung from her ear.

  She came to with her head pounding worse than from the day drinking. She gathered her bearings and noted the sun hung a little further down in the sky than when she entered the house. She must have been out for a while. She started to take note of her surroundings.

  The apartment held two rooms. One had a kitchen that looked like nobody had ever used it. The other was a bedroom with a man on a mattress. Sam stumbled over to begin her investigation.

  The man lay lifeless. He matched the description of Aldous, including tattoos. Sam found the thief. Whoever had attacked Sam must have killed him. The man clutched his hands to his chest, as if holding something precious. The stiff body resisted Sam’s attempts to open his hands. She managed to break the dead man’s finger enough to pry out the gold and ruby earring.

  When Sam’s fingers touched the earring, the filth began to seep into her mind. Images of gold and money filled her vision. The world spun around her and, at the center, a voice whispered promises of riches. The whisper congealed into a voice, thick and gluttonous.

  “I will give thee thy dreams, Samantha.” Each word slipped against her ears like wet rot. “I will give thee all the wealth of the world. Take me into thy flesh, offer me blood and honey. I will give thee knowledge of secret things.”

  “Offer unto me flesh and sweat. I will teach thee hidden words, oh Samantha, and make thee sacred.” Sam tried to drop the earring but her hand wouldn’t open. Her stomach filled with bitter bile. She retched but could not empty the corruption. Her legs trembled and gave out beneath her. “Give me spittle and bone, offer them to me. I will show thee who slew thy mother.”

  “Oh, Samantha, I will free thee from thy curse. I will give thee jewels and fill thy mind. None shall stand over thee.”

  The demon’s temptation broke its way past Sam’s instinctive disgust. Her family’s curse was a secret kept for years, known only to her. It’s what drove her to the military. It’s why she let them pull out her eye and replace it with the Sentry Stone. It’s why she spent every night alone hunting devils and ghosts.

  The Fontaine family were minor nobility. When still a baby her mother was killed by a curse. This left her father in poverty. He raised her in the city until he succumbed to disease. Sam spent her life since then trying to find out who cursed her family. The demon offered an end to the questions and the searching.

  But the demon didn’t understand Sam. It didn’t know what the years on the streets had done to her. It didn’t know how Sam shivered in the cold night. It couldn’t imagine watching through windows as happy families ate more food than Sam would eat in a month. Nothing came easy. Everything had to be earned.

  Sam used her free hand to pry her fingers open and drop the earring. The voice stopped the moment the jewel no longer touched her skin. The world stopped spinning. Sam felt her stomach turn and settle in place before she emptied its contents all over the floor. She fished out the earring with a scrap of cloth torn from the bedsheets under the dead man. She dropped it into her pocket and resolved to remember not to stick her hand in there.

  She needed to find this woman. If the first earring was any indication, the second earring would also be home to a demon.

  Sam had no other options but to resort to magic. It always came at a price - blood or suffering. Sam didn't like to pay the price. She had a friend, Emil Vargas, who practiced magic for the wealthy and owed Sam a favor. But this favor would still cost.

  She arrived at Emil's building. Carved wooden doors, stained glass windows, and gargoyles guarded the front entrance. Sam made her way up to Emil's apartment and knocked on the door. The man was always home and always disheveled. His gray, wiry hair peeked out around the frames of his glasses. His long beard hung to his chest and hid crumbs.

  He opened the door at the knock and said, "Uh, it's you."

  "Great to see you too, Emil. I've run into a bit of a problem in a case. A dead end, you might say. And I need some help."

  Emil began to close the door. "Not today, Sam. I've already done my bits for you."

  Sam jammed her foot in the doorframe before Emil shut it. "Now hold on," she said, "you should reconsider. Look at this.” She held up the earring, dangling it in front of the shorter man’s eyes. “It's got a demon in it.”

  Emil's eyes widened. "Such magic is rare and dangerous."

  The bruises on Sam's face indicated she knew the danger involved. Emil squinted in the darkness. When he noticed Sam's wounds, he opened the door.

  "All right, come in. But you are paying the price yourself," said the magician as he let Sam enter.

  Emil's apartment looked like a library got sick and vomited all over an ordinary room. Books stacked in towers in every corner. Bits of parchment topped the books with obscure writings written in either ink or blood.

  "Come back to the ritual room," said Emil. Sam followed him.

  The older, balding man began to set up for a divination. He grunted as he prepared a bowl. For Emil, the price was always blood. It made the visions appear. Emil lit candles and intoned the secret words his family taught him. He held out his hand. In the other hand, a sharp knife. Sam offered her forearm. The knife was sharp. It cut a little too deep. More than it needed to be. Emil didn't like Sam.

  The drops of blood fell into the waiting ceramic. Emil lit incense meant to produce the visions, and inhaled. He bent over the bowl. His eyes rolled back into his head. He convulsed when the vision began. He coughed. His eyes unfurled from his skull. When they regained their focus, he stared at Sam.

  "She's in a strip club on the south side of town, past the river. You've got to get there fast. I sensed the demon in the earring. It's ancient and hungry. They're already causing chaos."

  "I need one more favor, Emil," said Sam. "Can I borrow your ritual room?"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to prepare a seal to hold the demon until I can take it away and exorcise it."

  "The price would be extraordinary for such a monster."

  "I know. I think the cost will be less than what I'll have to pay without it."

  Emil nodded and exited the room. "Don't make a mess.”

  Emil heard scraping and clawing from behind the door. Sam screamed and cried out words taught to military investigators as a last resort. The sounds stopped and Sam emerged, wiping blood from her nose. Emil noted the missing finger on her left hand. The old magician knew he would not find it in the room.

  "Sorry Emil, I did end up leaving a bit of a mess."

  Sam held in her pocket a way to stop the demon's power from influencing her or anything outside of the earring. She hoped to have a chance to use it before anybody even noticed her.

  She made her way to the south side of the city. This was the industrial section, propped up with smoking factories. The infernal engines inside powered the creation of machines and trade. Sam didn't know much about them. The rumors said the demons offered science to diviners in exchange for eyesight or sanity. A new way to understand the universe and make things work without magic. Sam thought the price couldn't be too high because a world with no magic would be better.

  Sam arrived at the strip club. The place reeked with neglect and trash. Sam first noticed the missing bouncer. Every club like this needed a bouncer sitting at the door. They served as a warning. Any patrons that acted up would be rewarded with violence. Their absence stood out as much as their presence.

  Sam walked toward the building. She could feel the thick force of evil, like stinking tar, wafting from the building. The place felt alive with malice. She opened the door to the club's darkness. A few flickering lights illuminated the room. Bodies lay everywhere, prostrated before a woman sitting on a throne.

  She wore almost nothing. A strip of fabric circled her waist, but nothing else. The second earring hung from her ear, nestled in greasy hair. Sam recognized the woman who attacked her. Her high heeled shoes lay off to the side. Her eyes lulled half closed and, in her lap, sat a bag with enough devil's snuff to kill an elephant.

  The patrons of the club knelt before her, or prostrated on the ground. The sight of her enraptured them. The strength of the effect made Sam suspect it came from the earring.

  She entered the room and tried to step past one of the patrons. A filthy hand reached up to stop her.

  "You're not getting closer than me," said the frenzied man. Earlier today he could have been an office worker. Blood and sweat stained his brown wool suit.

  He began to claw at Sam. Sam kicked him in the face. It knocked him back down. The man went to stand up. Sam kicked him in the face again. This time it knocked him out.

  The fight aroused the attention of the woman on the stage. She turned her head towards the earring as if listening to someone speak.

  "You're not taking this from me." she said, to no one in particular, which meant she said it to everyone in the room. "Stop her!"

  All eyes turned towards Sam. Every man in the room enslaved to the figure on the stage rose up to attack. They clawed at her.

  Sam started beating them all. They were untrained fighters, but there were many of them. Sam realized she would soon be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of their bodies.

  She sprinted towards the woman on the stage who started to run away. She leapt, stepping on the back of one of the patrons. They tried to stop her from reaching the earring. She grabbed her shoulders, wrenched her head back, and ripped the earring from her ear.

  The demon's howling filled her mind. It threatened to pull her into its filth. This time, she resisted.

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out the wrinkled leather pouch she exchanged for her finger. She placed the earring inside of it. The howling of the demon silenced as soon as the drawstring shut.

  Blinking, the woman said, "What did you do?"

  She tried to pick up the demon's snuff, which scattered all over the floor. The patrons, now coming to their senses, started to remember their wives and jobs. Shock and horror filled their faces as they looked around the room at each other. They began to back away from the unfolding scene on the stage. The girl, naked and sobbing, bleeding from her ear.

  Sam, holding a pouch containing ruby earrings.

  Sam made her way back to her office. She would need to get ready for an exorcism. But first she needed a stiff drink.

  When she arrived, she poured herself a double whiskey, neat, and collapsed into her swivel chair. She laid the earrings in their pouch on the desk in front of her. The earrings and their blessings tempted her to open the pouch. One of the earrings offered wealth, one offered power. But the price would be too high. Nothing came free. Everything came at a price.

  She passed out with her hand over the pouch. She awoke the next morning and showered the grime from under her fingernails. She washed away the sweat and blood. The wound where her small finger on her left hand used to be throbbed. She bandaged it so she wouldn’t have to see the blackened stump.

  She dressed herself. She began preparing for the exorcism by scrawling a circle onto the floor of her office with white chalk. She inscribed symbols she learned in the military. They told her to stop asking questions when she wondered what the symbols meant. Instead, she memorized their shapes and placement. The military taught high ranked investigators methods of exorcism for times they came across entities they couldn’t otherwise subjugate. They taught investigators to first make use of demons, then to destroy them.

  She lit the candles and placed the earrings in the center of the circle. She began chanting and offered blood from her palm. As the blood dripped onto the center of the circle the candles dimmed. The blood began to sizzle and smoke on the bare wood floor.

  The demons in the earrings began to howl. She heard them offer their promises of money and subjugation. She ignored them. As the demons’ tumult reached its zenith a black void opened under the earrings. She tied the earrings together so they wouldn’t fall into the void. The darkness at the center of her office floor pulled the demons in.

  She saw their malevolent spirits emerge from the earrings. One, full of fat and too corpulent to move. The other emaciated with deep set eyes and hungry for all they saw. Their faces showed terror and rage as the pit drew them in.

  “We shall unmake thy soul until the end of time! We shall uncover thy organ meat from thy skin! We shall never forget thee!” The demons’ pathetic threats held no fear for Sam. She’d heard it before.

  Sudden silence filled the room. No black circle, no howling demons. Quiet. She picked up the earrings and nothing spoke to her.

  She picked up the phone. “Good morning, Mr. Adebayo. You’ll be happy to hear I’ve recovered your earrings. Would you like to swing by my office to pick them up?”

  Seraphina Van Thorne awaited the return of her butler with her earrings. She had taken a small trip abroad and returned to absolute disaster. She sat in her personal offices. Green silk curtains adorned the walls. The curtains covered paneled windows that looked out on the gardeners plying their trade. Soft, emerald velvet carpet covered the floor.

  She wore no shoes, according to the custom of her family. Her dress shimmered green and gold in the slim daylight. Her alabaster skin glistened, pale and untouched by the sun. Her golden hair hung in gathered braids that took the household hairdresser an hour this morning to arrange. Her icy eyes never held a smile until she had prey in her sight.

  Victor Adebayo arrived and she took the earrings from him. Relief washed over her as she reached out her hand. Rage replaced her relief as the total silence from the jewels dawned on her. She didn’t let any emotion play on her face. Years of practice taught her to never show what she felt. She allowed herself a small smile. Patience and calm, like her mother taught her, no matter what boils inside.

  “Mr. Adebayo.” The butler stiffened at the sound of his name. He prepared himself for thanks, or gratitude.

  “Your failure is complete. You have, in my brief absence, allowed my family’s most treasured heirloom to be stolen. What you’ve returned are shadows of their former glory. You hired a common detective - a woman - to return my Eyes. But you knew nothing of their blessings. You knew nothing of what you risked and you know nothing of what you’ve lost.”

  Victor’s eyes fell at the condemnation. He stared straight ahead, not daring to look his employer in the eye.

  “My ancestor, the first Van Thorne of note, was a great sorcerer. She put our family in the position of power we hold. She believed power should descend from the mother to the daughter because proof of motherhood is absolute. Proof of fatherhood is often a matter of pride or modesty.”

  “She created these Eyes to ensure our family's prosperity through the generations. It took the sacrifice of souls and an offering of blood. She bound demons to them, and wrote the contract such that only women would be offered their power. So, you, in your ignorance, employed the single worst possible person in this shriveled city.”

  Seraphina Van Thorne found herself impressed that someone had been able to undo her ancestor’s work. They would have to be skilled and determined. This Fontaine person would have to be watched, studied, and killed. Not for revenge, but because no one beneath the Van Thorne family should be allowed to have power.

  “But all is not lost. You can redeem yourself. You see, my ancient grandmother was not the only sorcerer in the family.”