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the fever of the times.” She shrugged. “And, of course, there were all those lovely tests once they’d brought someone in for questioning. It’s hard to protest that you’re not a Dragon when your skin won’t burn, no matter how hot the fire.”
    The Kobold jiggled nervously in his spot outside the circle. No Paranormal, major or minor, liked to talk about those years. Just about everyone had lost family and friends. Sometimes entire clans had been wiped out. It had been a hellish time.
    Farmingham looked gloomy. “Well, those were certainly a part of the equation. But a few of the most powerful Inquisitors also had another tool they used to discover hidden Paranormals: they called them the Pentacle Pentimentos.”
    â€œHey,” Donata said, “you mentioned that name before. What the heck is a Pentacle Pentimento?”
    She pulled out the silver pentacle necklace she wore underneath her shirt and showed it to him. “I know what a pentacle is, of course—the Witch’s symbol: a five-pointed star within a circle, with each point representing one of the five elements—Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit—and the circle representing unity. But what is a pentimento?”
    The restorer put his teacher’s face on again. Donata made a silent bet with herself that if she checked his records, she’d find he’d spent some time as a lecturer at the local arts college.
    â€œ
Pentimento
, the usual kind, anyway, is an art term. It can mean either a technique for restoring paintings by removing a top layer of paint to reveal a second painting underneath, or it can be the name for the revealed painting itself.” He paused for breath, even though he didn’t actually need to do so anymore.
    â€œThe Pentacle Pentimentos were special paintings commissioned by the Church to aid in detecting and defeating the major Paranormal races. In recent years, many experts have come to believe that such things never actually existed—but the one you saw today clearly proves that they weren’t just a myth.”
    Donata thought back to the painting she had dropped off at the precinct. “So, that corner where you had been working . . . that wasn’t just a cleaned-up bit of the paint? It was actually a piece of a second painting underneath?” She shook her head. “I only caught a glimpse of it, but it didn’t look important.”
    Farmingham gnawed on his lower lip, causing tiny bits of incense to swirl in and out around his mouth. “The edges wouldn’t have shown anything. It was the figures that were significant. According to the old records I dug up—with great difficulty, I might add—each of the six figures in the painting represented one of the major races. They were delineated in a way that showed their more ‘public’ faces, like the way the Fae tend to be enchantingly beautiful, and Ghouls are grayish and shabby looking. They provided clues for how to distinguish the Paranormal races from regular Humans, if you knew what you were looking for.”
    â€œHow does that work?” Donata asked. “Like you said, most of us don’t look that different. I don’t see how it would help.”
    The restorer shook his head. “It wasn’t the top layer that was crucial, Officer Santori. It was the pentimento underneath that caused so much destruction and misery.” His misty eyes filled with phantom tears in memory of those who had been lost.
    â€œSince it was a deep Church secret, the bottom painting could be accessed only by those who were told the secret of its use: a very few specially trained Inquisitors. But once revealed, that layer showed not only the Paranormal traits and abilities of each race, but also symbols that represented what each race needed to survive, and how to destroy them. Think of it as a Paranormal Most Wanted poster, but one which could only be used by people who