Chapter 1

**Nine Hours Before Milo’s Murder**

Milo Vance’s day began the way most of his days did: with a profound sense of disappointment and a localized fire hazard.

He stood in the center of his Seattle micro-studio (a term real estate agents used to legally describe a shoebox with plumbing) and stared intensely at his stove. It was 7:00 AM. Outside, the city was draped in its customary shroud of oppressive gray drizzle. Inside, Milo was trying to make oatmeal.

He raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers. He took a deep breath, centered his aura, visualized the primordial forces of heat and combustion, and flicked his wrist.

A tiny, pathetic spark, no larger than a dying firefly, hiccuped from his fingertip and landed on the gas burner.

With a soft wump, a ring of blue flame sprang to life.

Milo slumped, exhausted. "Nailed it," he muttered to the empty room.

It was a neat trick. It was also the absolute zenith of his magical potential. While the heavy-hitters of the arcane world were out bending the fabric of reality, summoning elementals, and turning lead into gold, Milo could ignite a stove without a match. Sometimes, if he had a good night's sleep and plenty of electrolytes, he could light a candle from across the room. Once, at a college party, he had managed to warm up a cold slice of pizza, though it had given him a migraine for three days.

He was, by all technical classifications, a wizard. He just wasn't a very good one. Which is exactly why he worked in insurance.

...

Two hours later, Milo was sitting in a gray fabric cubicle on the fourth floor of a brutalist concrete building in Pioneer Square. The frosted glass door down the hall read: Hayclon Mutual: Insurance for the Unusual. This wasn’t Hayclon HQ but a small satellite office serving the Greater Seattle Area, nobody working here even knew where HQ was, standard security protocol apparently.

To the mundane world, Halcyon Mutual was a boutique insurance firm dealing in high-risk antiquities. To the magical community, it was the only thing standing between a rogue pyromancer and total financial ruin.

Milo booted up his computer, ignoring the frantic scratching sound coming from the ceiling tiles above his desk. It was just a family of nesting boggarts; maintenance had promised to smoke them out by Friday.

He opened his inbox and sighed.

CLAIM #4492: Insured requests payout for structural damage to garage. Claims their werewolf teenager scratched the paint off his 2018 Subaru Outback.

Milo thought for a moment, scratching the stubble on his chin while checking the large Exclusions handbook on his desk. He sorted through the massive book that was similar to a wizard's tome for some time before tapping on a particular passage and then typing in a response.

RESOLUTION: Denied. Lycanthropy is a pre-existing condition, and the insured failed to install silver-plated fencing (Clause 89).

CLAIM #4493: Total loss of kitchen. Insured attempted to bake a sourdough starter using approved enchanted yeast. Yeast achieved sentience and ate the refrigerator and one staff member.

RESOLUTION: Approved. Subject to $500 deductible and a mandatory apology to the yeast.

Milo took a sip of his coffee. It tasted like ash and disappointment, which meant the breakroom coffee machine was either broken again or harboring a minor curse. He was just about to dive into a particularly boring file about a cursed lawnmower when a shadow fell over his desk.

"Vance."

Milo looked up. Standing over him was Brenda, the Regional Claims Manager. She was a formidable woman standing at only 5,4", yet she managed to project an aura of pure, paralyzing dread that even the city's most powerful necromancers respected.

"Morning, Brenda," Milo said, instinctively sliding a hand over his unfinished paperwork. She dropped a manila folder onto his keyboard. It hit the plastic keys with a heavy, ominous thud.

"I have a field assignment for you," she said, her voice entirely devoid of warmth. "Belltown. High-rise penthouse. The insured is a potion brewer reporting water damage."

Milo frowned, glancing at the file. "Water damage? That’s it? Did a water sprite get loose in the plumbing? Did someone cry a river of literal tears? Sounds like I can probably review it without a visit, if they just send some pictures of-"