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could just wait and have the Council take care of it?”
    “Was it an escapee?”
    I nodded. “Yeah, Talisid and I were wondering that. If it was some mage’s fault that the thing was there, then it makes sense they’d want to clean it up quietly. But we couldn’t find any trace that it used to be someone’s property. Besides, if they really wanted to keep it quiet, they would have gated away the body—oh. And another thing. There were signs of a battle at the lair—fire and ice magic—but no freeze or scorch marks on the barghest.”
    “What killed it, then?”
    “Nothing. At least, nothing I could see.”
    The
ftt-ftt-ftt
stopped. I looked up to see that Arachne was watching me, her needles still. “Elaborate.”
    “Um …” I tried to think of what to say. “It was just … dead. Wolf form. No marks. I thought it might have been death magic but …”
    Arachne didn’t answer. “Arachne?” I asked.
    Arachne seemed to twitch, then returned to her sewing, the
ftt-ftt
starting up again. “I see.”
    “Something wrong?”
    “Perhaps.” Arachne paused. “If you could establish the cause of death, I would appreciate knowing.”
    I hesitated a second before nodding. “Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
    Arachne went back to her work. She didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t ask. “How many of them do you think there are?” I said after a pause.
    “Of which?”
    “Magical creatures like that barghest. Living here in our world.”
    “Few. Fewer each year.” Arachne continued to work, but there was something a little distant about her voice. “So many have been killed or enslaved. The survivors have hidden themselves in remote places or in other worlds. Perhaps what you saw today was the body of the last barghest.”

    A n hour later, walking back home through the darkness of the Heath, I found my thoughts going back to Arachne’s words. I’m so comfortable with Arachne that I forget other mages think of creatures like her as aliens at best and monsters at worst. This was the first time I’d gone on this sort of hunt, and I’d had a good reason—but that didn’t change the fact that the creature I’d been intending to kill was basically not that different from Arachne.
    For the first time I wondered exactly how long magical creatures would still be around. As far back as mage histories go, they’ve always been there, but for a long time the number’s been decreasing, mostly because of expeditions like the one I’d been on today. Usually it’s only the dangerous ones that mages go after … but not always, and
dangerous
is pretty subjective. Now that I thought about it, the only magical creatures I’d seen over the past few months had been either working with mages or under their control. I hadn’t come across one in the wild for a long time. If things kept going the way they had been, then the only creatures left would be property, powerful enough to hide themselves, or dead. It would mean no more killings like the ones the barghest had been responsible for … but it would mean none of the gentler or more wondrous creatures, either.
    I wasn’t sure how much I liked the idea, and I wasn’t so sure any more that I’d done the right thing by agreeing to help Talisid. I headed home to sleep and to see what the next day would bring.

chapter 2
    I t was a new day and it was raining.
    My shop’s tucked away down a little side street in Camden, only a minute’s walk from the canal. The rail and road bridges that interlock the area make it tricky to find, but plenty of tourists still filter through. The sign above my door says
Arcana Emporium
, along with a description of the contents that’s technical enough to stop most people immediately thinking
magic shop
. A notice on the door lists my opening times as ten A.M. to five P.M. Mondays to Saturdays, and every now and again it’s actually right.
    As far as I know, I’m the only mage in England who runs a shop. Most mages think