A Practice in Truth

Fairy tales have to come from somewhere… When Professor Gant Santos hires Char to recover stolen property, she thinks it's just a routine legal matter. But then she discovers that the property is a glass sarcophagus thousands of years old, and her employer is the angel she's been dreaming about for weeks. The director of the Gainesville Museum of Art, Science, and History is preparing to retire in style, and he doesn't care what it costs. He's been gathering illegal magickal artifacts from every corner of the globe for years, and now he plans to auction them off to the worst parahumans in three realms. When he's offered the Clochroi, a ruby soul stone with the power to reveal the truth about any person or situation, he jumps at the chance to add millions to his retirement fund. But the stone has secrets. Not only is it unfettered – owned only by the person who holds it at the moment – but it isn't really a stone at all. The ruby's true nature is stranger and more horrifying than Char could ever have guessed. And that is only the beginning. What is the connection between the stone and the sarcophagus? Kept apart for centuries, what will happen when they are reunited? Char must find a way to bring them together before the sarcophagus is opened, and all hope is lost.