“Well,” Marcus admitted, “your friend Standish wasn’t wrong about them finding nothing. I didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to send their most politically powerful researchers instead of their most competent ones. Where I come from, Magic Society officials know how to let their skilled researchers do the work and then exploit them after. What kind of idiots try to do it themselves?” “You felt their auras,” Jason said. “There’s no way you missed that level of self-delusion.” “Yeah,” Marcus grumbled. “I just needed to complain out loud. I detest incompetent people.”
