I rolled a shoulder in a shrug. "Necromancy is the practice of using magic to muck around with dead things. Necromancers can animate and control corpses, manipulate ghosts, access the knowledge stored in dead brains—"

Butters blurted out, "That's impos—" Then he stopped himself and coughed. "Oh. Right. Sorry."

"They can also do a lot of really freaky things involving the soul," I said. "Even in the weird circles, it isn't the kind of thing you talk about casually. But I've heard stories that they can inhabit corpses with their consciousness, possess others. I've even heard that they can bring people back from the dead."

"Jesus," Butters swore.

"I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one."

"No, no, I meant—"

"I know what you meant. It was a joke, Butters."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." He swigged more coffee, and started looking around at the streets again. "But bringing the dead to life? That doesn't sound so bad."

"You're assuming that what the necromancer brings them back to is better than death. From what I've heard, they don't generally do it for humanitarian reasons. But that might be a load of crap. Like I said, no one talks about it."

"Why not?" Butters asked.

"Because it's forbidden," I told him. "The practice of necromancy violates one of the Laws of Magic laid down by the White Council. Capital punishment is the only sentence, and no one wants to even come close to being suspected by the Council."

"Why? Who are they?"

"They're me," I said. "Sort of. The White Council is a… well, most people would call it a governing body for wizards all over the world, but it's really more like a Masonic lodge. Or maybe a frat."

"I've never heard of a fraternity handing out a death sentence."

"Yeah. Well the Council has only seven laws, but if you break them…" I drew my thumb across my neck. "By the way, they aren't fond of regular folks knowing about them. So don't talk about them to anyone else."

Butters swallowed and touched the fingers of one hand to his throat. "Oh. So this guy, Grevane. He was like you?"

"He's not like me," I said, and it came out in a snarl that surprised even me. Butters twitched violently. I sighed and made an effort to lower my voice again. "But he's probably a wizard, yeah."

"Who is he? What does he want?"

I blew out a breath. "He's most likely a student of this badass black magic messiah named Kemmler. The Council burned Kemmler down a while back, but several of his disciples may have escaped. I think Grevane is looking for a book his teacher hid before he died."

"A magic book?"

I snorted. "Nah. Trinkets aren't too hard to come by. If my guess is correct, this book contains more of the knowledge and theory Kemmler used in his most powerful magics."