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already known about the affair and hadn’t bothered? An alarm bell went off inside of her.
    This seemed like a perfect case for the Hex Division.
    Hex Division was a group of secret magical investigators who worked on the most dangerous and classified cases for the council. Honora couldn’t stand Hexers. They were high achievers who didn’t think rules applied to them. She and Vivi recently had a run-in with a hotshot Hexer named Rye Finn. He was arrogant, cocky, and powerful, which also made him annoyingly attractive.
    Honora was sure the Hex Division would have worked this case, and if so, why was Jonathan Rainer’s wife seeking a private investigator on her own? She needed more information on this so-called affair.
    A knock rapped on the half-opened door to her office. “What’s up?” Sawyer said, a mug of fragrant tea in his hand.
    Honora had been so focused on the documents she hadn’t even heard her assistant come in. Sawyer personified hip and casual. His daily uniform consisted of jeans, a long-sleeve gray shirt, leather jacket, and big black boots. He was tall, had light brown skin, and wore his black hair buzzed short. He was an uncomplicated kind of wizard—loyal, dependable, and the smartest guy she’d ever met. She was lucky to have him, and she knew it. But sifting through the exclusive résumé of Jonathan Rainer made her curious about her overachieving assistant.
    “Why do you work for me?”
    “Because I need the gold card credit. A wizard has to eat,” he said, half-jokingly. “You aren’t thinking of replacing me, are you?” His smile collapsed.
    Honora stared out of her office window, her sight focused far off into the distance. “You’re smart, Sawyer. You could work for anyone and make triple what I can afford to pay you. You could work on important projects for the council.”
    “Actually, I could make quadruple what you pay, but who’s counting? And as far as the council goes, I’ll never work for them. Never.” He set his mug on the desk with a clank.
    “Why?” She looked up at him.
    “Because once you’re in with the council, you never get out.” He shook his head and frowned. “I value my freedom more than all the gold in Everland.”
    The words made her pause. “It can’t be that bad.”
    He grunted and changed the subject. “What’s up with you today? You’re acting stranger than usual.”
    Honora ran her fingers through her hair and sat up. “A case I picked up last night has my mind racing. What I thought was going to be a simple missing-wizard case just seemed to fall in my lap.” She motioned to the material on her desk, and he curiously scanned the pile.
    “This is good, right? We’ve been a little slow,” Sawyer said as he sifted through the parchments.
    “Sure, as far as the gold goes, but it’s turning out to be more complicated than I’d realized. From now on, this case is top priority. I’ll need you to review the material and go through our usual channels to investigate the subject.”
    “Who’s the subject?” he asked, pulling out a reed pen and thin parchment notepad that he kept in the inner pocket of his jacket, making him look like a reporter for Witch World Daily .
    She showed him the pictures and tapped the two of Jonathan Rainer. “That’s him, and that’s him, too.”
    Sawyer was a top researcher and practically lived in the city archives. He gleaned information from the public records, archives, libraries, and newspapers with unsurpassed speed and accuracy. His magical persuasion was intelligence-based, including speed-reading, retention, and memory. The two of them dug into the life of Jonathan Rainer with the materials Jane had given them and copies of records and data that Sawyer had amassed in the “library” he was building until it was time for her to head out and meet Harper. They found mostly easily verifiable résumé information, educational history, and known address. Nothing unusual or suspicious jumped