A Hero at the End of the World Read Online Free

when he twisted around in his chair, he spotted a cube on the floor, mere inches from his desk. With a jolt, he realized she had just saved him from a head injury.
    Sophie extended her hand, and the cube floated up and landed gently in her open palm. This particular one was covered in a Celtic stag relief, and when she twisted it, it easily split apart into two halves.
    Frowning, Sophie pulled out a folded, beige-colored paper.
    “New assignment. Looks like it’s—”
    She broke off suddenly, making a startled noise.
    That piqued his curiosity. “Yeah? Disappearing homes, unexplained weather changes, unicorn stampedes...?”
    “A sacrifice.”
    How routine. His heart sank.
    “A human sacrifice,” she added, looking perplexed.
    “
Human sacrifice
?” Oliver repeated. “Please tell me they weren’t trying to open another portal.”
    “Don’t even joke about that sort of thing,” Sophie said sternly. “I’m still traumatized from the last time.”
    As she swept her knee-length pea coat off the back of her chair, Oliver’s nose picked up the dusty smell of the herbal remedy she used to slow down the rate of depletion of her power. The impolite word for her type of magic user was
dréag
: a ghost, an otlomancer, someone who used her own energy to fuel her magic. They were twice as powerful as alapomancers, but Oliver would happily deal with the hassle of keeping a totem within arm’s reach for the rest of his life if it meant he’d live an extra ten or fifteen years.
    “Let’s go, hero,” Sophie ordered, directing him to the lift.
    ¤
    The crime scene was in Whitechapel, down a tiny alley and in an abandoned building that had once housed restaurant wholesale items. From there, the noises of the busy Commercial Road, only two streets over, were almost too faint to hear over the sounds of nearby building sites. Aside from the view of cranes posed, motionless, over the boxy warehouse, the scene felt strangely dislocated, as though it were hardly part of London at all.
    A row of finches perched silently on the edge of the roof. They were dull-colored with keen eyes: Government-issue sentries, most likely.
    By the time Oliver and Sophie made it inside, the dim interior of the building had been bisected by bright yellow police tape. Above them, the lights flickered. To their left were the Scene of Crime Officers combing over the scene, and on the right were roughly ten people sitting against the dirty wall with their hands cuffed in front of them, all wearing hooded black robes that hid their faces. One man’s head was bare, and he had a pink-stained bandage on his arm. He was being treated by a paramedic: his wrist must have been slit, but the police, tipped off by the sentries, had arrived before he had bled out.

    Sophie headed directly to the arresting inspector. “You called in an attempted human sacrifice?”
    Leaving her to the finer details, Oliver approached the suspects. None of them stirred.
    “Hello there,” he said, crouching down so that they were nearly at eye level. He ignored the faint twinge in his upper thighs, which were still a little sore from that morning’s run. “I’m Oliver. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
    At first, there was no reaction. Then, finally, one of them replied, “We have the right to freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, and freedom of magical expression.”
    “Aye, this is religious persecution,” another person added.
    A murmur of agreement rippled through the group.
    “All right,” said Oliver. “Mind telling me what religion it is you belong to?”
    The figure closest to him reached up to their neck—Oliver mentally braced himself, ready to tackle them if need be—but when they drew their cuffed hands away, he saw they were only pulling out a shiny, silver locket.
    “The officers should’ve confiscated that,” Sophie said from behind him in a low mutter.
    Oliver stood. “It’s all right, it’s safe.”
    Sophie’s dark brows pinched,