“What kind of magic did Ashlyn have?”

Brook and Barka looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Barka said. “I never asked.”

Whatever she was, she didn’t advertise it. Totally understandable. Seeing the color of magic was an invaluable tool for law enforcement, for mages, basically for anyone who dealt with it, so much so that people actually made a magic machine, called an m-scanner, to imitate it. My magic wasn’t just rare, it was exceptional. I was a hundred times more precise than any existing m-scanner. But in a fight, being a sensate didn’t do me any good at all. If I walked around telling everyone about it, sooner or later someone would try to use me and I had to use other means than my sensate ability to protect myself. It was easier to just keep my mouth shut.

Ashlyn could be that kind of magic user, something rare but not useful in combat.

Still didn’t explain her obsession with apples, though. Maybe she was using them to bribe her teachers. But then her grades would be better.

The shorter of the three girls to our left glared at me. Her magic, a solid indigo when I came in, now developed streaks of pale celery green. Normally the magic signature didn’t change. Ever. Except for Kate.

Hello, clue.

I pretended to look at the apples. “Did Ashlyn have any enemies?”

Barka picked up a pen and rolled it between his fingers. “Not that I noticed. She was quiet. A looker, but no personality.”

Brook pushed her glasses up at him. “Pervert.”

The girl took a step toward us. “What are you doing?”

“Dancing!” Barka said.

Brook didn’t even look in her direction. “Mind your own business, Lisa.”

Lisa skewed her mouth into a disapproving thin line, which was quite a fit because she had one of those pouty-lip mouths. Eyebrows plucked into two narrow lines, unnaturally straight hair, carefully parted, pink shiny on those big lips . . . Lisa was clearly the Take-Care-of-Myself type. Good clothes, too. Girls like that made my life miserable at the old school. I was never put together enough, my clothes were never expensive enough, and I didn’t stroll the halls broadcasting to everyone who cared that I was much better than they were.

But we weren’t at my old school, and a lot has changed since. Besides, she could be a perfectly nice person. Although somehow I doubted it.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Lisa said, entirely too loudly.

If I poked her, would her magic get even veinier? Was veinier even a word? “I’m looking for Ashlyn,” I told her.

“She’s dead,” Lisa announced and checked the room out of the corner of her eye.

Don’t worry, you have everyone’s attention.

“Here we go,” Brook muttered.

“How do you know that? Did you kill her?” Poke-poke-poke.

Lisa raised her chin. “I know because I spoke to her spirit.”

“Her spirit?” I asked.

“Yes, her spirit. Her ghost.”