Chapter 27: A Price on His Head

To cast prophecy magic on someone, a practitioner needed materials that could establish an occult link to the target.

Unlike most privateer captains, whose strengths lay in combat, Lucan, captain of the White Crystal and known as Mirrorbound, possessed a distinctive form of forbidden knowledge devoted to divination. Besides a wanted poster bearing Julian’s portrait, he had acquired a handkerchief that had once belonged to him.

After all, following the war for the throne, Sweetwater Palace, House Ravenshaw’s residence, had fallen entirely into House Ashcombe’s hands. Finding personal belongings the Ravenshaws had used was hardly difficult.

Ordinary people, however, could scarcely imagine the precautions ancient royal houses and great noble families took to protect themselves on the occult plane. Personal possessions were one thing. Hair or blood, which offered a much stronger link to a specific individual, was absolutely out of the question.

Even the materials most closely linked to Julian amounted to no more than a few pieces of freshly laundered clothing.

That severely limited the effectiveness of divination. Picking up Julian’s trail somewhere on the vast ocean was no easy task.

Mirrorbound Lucan watched the spiritual glow flicker across his silver mirror with increasing frequency, growing more excited by the moment.

“I may only be a low-Sequence supernatural practitioner, and a handkerchief’s occult link to its owner may be weak. I can only pinpoint Hellborn when he’s close enough. But now I’m certain he’s nearby. We might even run into him just wandering around the port!

“Once I take him, I’ll receive the full five-thousand-pound bounty. And for the next three years, I won’t have to hand ten percent of every prize over to those vampires at the Hastings Admiralty Court. No more tiresome expiration date on my letter of marque, either. That’s all money! Worth far more than the five thousand pounds alone!”

The thought almost made him jump for joy.

Then he caught sight of the dozen or so pirate flags flying over the port, and his excitement abruptly cooled.

Those gold-fringed flags belonged to the pirate lords who sat on the Captains’ Council. Every one of them was a middle-Sequence supernatural practitioner of Rank 3 or higher.

Brawling was permitted anywhere in Iron Anchor Bay. Open murder was strictly forbidden.

If a killing in the street brought the enforcement patrol down on them, they would not even be able to escape. They needed a Pilot to lead them through the mistward.

“I want the bounty, and I want that tax exemption on my letter of marque. Thinking about all that money going to waste hurts worse than being killed. But I’ll have to use less conventional means to take him without offending the pirate lords.