"Speak with Dead is a third-circle spell, same as Dispel Magic. That's not peanuts. Most clerics you'd find on a random walk through the countryside have never cast this spell in their lives. They might not even know it exists, unless… is there a death god that tells all of Their clerics about it?"

"No. Pharasmin priests have their secret lore, but it's mostly to do with midwifery. I… I would expect most people to know that some clerics can talk to the spirits of the dead? But let's say you're right and the actual mechanics of it are obscure. Where are you going with this?"

"We don't know anything for certain yet, but let's narrow our suspect pool for a moment. There's a good chance that the murderer knows how Speak with Dead works, and a good chance the murderer is personally quite strong. Those characteristics can't make each other more likely than they'd be on their own – either being true is always a safer bet than both being true – but they do mesh nicely. Maybe the murderer has experience with third-circle clerics, maybe they are a third-circle cleric. We don't know yet. But, since one explains the other, let's suppose we're in a world where it's all true. Someone killed a man with a magic tattoo and some expensive kit, left his body mostly intact, and cut his head to bits after the fact."

She leans forward even further. The top button on her blazer slips out of its buttonhole. Her voice lowers to a whisper.

"Is this a murderer with a little knowledge, trying to cover their tracks? Or is this a murderer with a lot of knowledge, a murderer who used Speak with Dead to buy themselves time, then mutilated the corpse anyways to muddy the waters?"

The invasion of personal space coupled with the lack of headband is making her anxiety worse. Gwen puts a hand on her forehead and pushes gently. "Please stop that."

She relents. Her back was starting to hurt in that position anyways.

"You see what I mean, yeah? What kind of person visibly silences the body but doesn't destroy or hide it?"

"Someone without the time to cremate it. Someone afraid of it being tracked with divination. But, as I was about to say, it doesn't matter because I'm going to cast Blood Biography. That will get us the name of the victim, time of death, and anything about the cause of death he may have noticed before expiring. Unlike Speak with Dead there's no way to block this spell, unless he's a zombie holding really still, but I'd consider that informative in itself."

"That's awfully convenient. You couldn't have lead with the unbeatable homicide investigation spell?"

"I could have," she replies, leaving the 'fuck you' unspoken.

From beneath her cloak Gwen retrieves a scroll case, an oxidized aluminum ledger filled with paperwork, and a penknife. She runs the edge of the knife over the man's exposed fascia, collecting a small amount of congealed blood, and smears it over the surface of a pristine sheet of white paper like the world's least appetizing condiment.

"This will take one minute," she says, and begins casting the spell.

Sidelined! Sidelined in a good way! She's so glad she has a wizard to do the heavy lifting here; this case would be interminable if they didn't have the name of the victim or the killer. Soon they're going to have both! Oh, this is going to be a cinch!

She does wonder about the motive, an important piece of the puzzle that Blood Biography isn't going to share with them. Taking a life is a bit drastic, in her opinion. What turns a man into a killer?

You should know what it is, cop. It's been inside you all along.

The spell turns up the name of a mysterious woman as the killer, the two of you go on a merry chase across the island looking for Aspexia Q. Public, only to discover that the murder was coming from inside the police force all along… nah. That's way too slapstick to be true.

Kill me? Hah. But you're a stone-cold Starwatch motherfucker. There are notches on your pistol.

Takes one to know one, freakshow. Go around making enemies and eventually you'll get whacked – or do they not teach that in wizard school?

You've got me figured. Nothing left in this room-temperature cadaver for you to tease out; you're just that good. A real superstar cop. Maybe someday you'll even solve the mystery of who you are and what you ate for breakfast yesterday.

Okay, first: she does not need any of this sass. Everyone can bring it down a touch. Second: why is his voice so deep and rich? Aren't dead wizards supposed to sound like they've been gargling with acid?

Sorry, that one's on me. If you want, I can—

No, keep it.

You're a sensitive cop. Hah, hah, hah. Why are you so sure I'm a wizard, coppolina?

Aren't you?

I'm in the dead book, copper. When you're standing on the bank of the river of souls, you're not anything anymore. You're not a cop or a wizard. You're unmade. All that's left of me are my deeds.

Did your deeds happen to include authoring a spellbook, or perhaps owning a familiar?

Still too confident, cop-a-loppo. You don't understand wizards half as well as you think you do.

Ugh. Fine, you oddly odorless former malcontent. If you're so smart, how come you're so dead?

Love did me in, sister. It was love all along…

Gwen finishes chanting, and as she looks down at the bloodstained sheet of paper lain atop the ledger her already neutral expression grows steadily less expressive until she could pass for one of the inscrutable statues watching them from the shadows. She passes the result to her partner, wordless.