Even Vampires Get The Blues

"I wish I could help you, but alas"—Caspar spread his hands again, showing me they were empty—"I know little more about it than you. I do not know who authored it, although I have heard the name of Samaria Magnus mentioned in connection with the Coda."

"Samaria Magnus?" I asked, making a note of that name for further research. "A woman?"

"No, it was a false name, one taken to protect the identity of the individual from charges of heresy. No doubt his origins were in Samaria. Magnus was a common surname adopted by mages over the centuries."

"Ah. That makes sense. So this Samaria Magnus wrote a manuscript about the origins of a bunch of different people, and then… what?"

"No one knows. Both Magnus and the Coda disappeared for several hundreds of years. The latter made an appearance in the late seventeenth century, when it was the cause of much infighting between the mages of the time. But it, too, slipped from view. Few know it ever existed, let alone know much about it. I'm afraid that is the extent of my knowledge about both the Coda and Samaria Magnus."

"Well, I appreciate both," I said, tucking away my PDA and taking a sip of tea before setting the delicate china teacup on the table next to me. "There's not a lot to be found about it, but this should give me a little more to go on. Thank you so much for your time."

"It is my pleasure," Caspar said, escorting me to the door. "If I can assist you any further with mages, thirteenth century or otherwise, I am at your disposal."

He made me an elegant bow, his smile lingering in my mind as I tromped down the stairs to the street, aware by the prickling of my back that something wasn't as it should be. It wasn't until I was on the bus, halfway to Diviners' House, that something occurred to me—at no point during our conversation did Caspar Green express the slightest bit of curiosity as to my interest in Samaria Magnus or the Coda.

"What do you think that means?" I asked Jake a good forty minutes later, as we were on another bus, this one headed for Butterfly World, an insect zoo of sorts.

Jake looked pensive—not an unnatural state for a Diviner, but a stranger to his usually sunny countenance. "I'm not sure. It could be that he has no interest in the Coda or this mage, despite his academic studies."

"Or it could be something he's not telling me," I said. "My elf warning system was into the red zone while I was in his apartment."

"Your elf warning system is notoriously unreliable," he answered, giving me a look.

"It's not unreliable. Just a bit… touchy."

"Touchy? Like the time you swore your room was haunted, and you conducted nightly séances to try to contact the haunting spirit?"

I looked out the window and tried my best to ignore him.

"You had everyone up for three nights in a row, convinced that your room contained a poor, lost spirit who was stuck in this dimension, unable to get to the next, isn't that right?"

It's amazing how hard it is to ignore someone sitting right next to you.

"You even demanded that Brother Immanuel conduct a ritual of purification in your room, in an attempt to help the spirit on its way."

I gritted my teeth.

"And what was it that turned out to be inhabiting your room?" Jake asked, laughter rife in his voice.

I turned around just enough to glare at him. "You know full well it was a mouse, so stop smirking. I never said my elf sense was very highly attuned. I just said it's there, and it warns me about things."

"Not always Otherworld things, though," Jake pointed out gently.

I let that go, partly because he was doing me a favor in agreeing to monitor me while I scryed, but mostly because he was right.

"Tell me again why we're doing this at Butterfly World?" Jake asked as I paid our entrance fee (Diviners take a vow of poverty not to purify their souls, but to keep them from being tempted to divine locations of material goods that could make them impossibly wealthy). He looked with interest at the brochure that was given to us with our admittance tickets. "Will we have time to see the poison arrow frogs and the royal python?"

"If you're good, yes. And we're here because this is the sunniest, warmest place in Edinburgh, thanks to their industrial-strength sunlamps. I think the jungle area is going to be our best bet," I said, consulting the giant map posted at the entrance. "Hopefully we can find a quiet, out-of-the-way corner where no one will bother us."

Jake followed docilely as we entered what looked like a huge, outsized greenhouse, happily perusing the informational pamphlet. "Did you know that the life span of your average butterfly is only a fortnight? There is one type, a zebra butterfly, that can live ten months, though."