The Other Witch; A missing minister

Cast; Salvia Hex
If Salvia Hex had to describe herself, and she found that she often did, she would have started off by pointing out the obvious; she was a professional witch.  After that it got a bit more complex; she was a native Gascan, but travelled a lot.  Her favorite colors were black and purple, which was good because those were traditional witch colors and she'd have had to wear them anyways.  Her role model was whoever she thought the person she was talking to's role model was, but her personal hero's were Petra Demonsbane and her fourth year combat magic instructor Miss Newtsey.  She felt like that said a lot about her; they were both strong women and capable fighters.  And her least favorite thing about her job was the paperwork, such as the reports she'd stowed in subspace while she took the shuttle down to the surface. 
Not that she was poor, it paid well enough.  But a private ship just screamed 'I think I'm too important for civilian space travel', and she really didn't want to give that impression to the people who had requested her help.  Local covens hated it when freelancers like herself put on airs.  And she had to agree with them; it was bad enough asking people for help without then having them look down their noses at you.  The fact that she'd failed her piloting test every year for the past twenty years had nothing to do with it. 

She was quite surprised to find that she recognized most of the welcoming party.  With a few younger exceptions, It seemed that all of her old Sisters had turned out to greet her with a large, obnoxiously sparkly sign that read 'Welcome Home Salvia Hex!!!!'  Salvia felt as though the second and all succeeding exclamations were superfluous, but that was probably Lizzy's idea. 
"There she is!  Salvia!  Salvia, over here!"  A witch a few years older than herself began jumping up and down behind the sign while waving as though her life depended upon it.  Elizabeth Jones, the perkiest witch on all Gasca.  If you didn't know it from the way she acted, you'd easily guess it on seeing her almost neon colored shirts and mismatched rainbow colored socks.  The fact that she was the only witch who embroidered little pink hearts onto all of the black lace in her cottage came as no surprise to anyone who'd met her and any self-respecting witch.  And somehow none of that detracted from the fact that she was the most skilled witch in the coven and could hold her own in a fight, a karaoke competition, or a drinking contest; all of which Salvia could attest to from personal experience, although she preferred not to think of the karaoke competition. 
The other sisters were less familiar.  She could see Mother Newcombe, the elderly witch who had been in charge before Lizzy had been placed in charge, talking to the lady at the ticket counter.  And the twins were over there, flirting with some poor military officer, navy from the looks of him.  The rest were all sort of piled behind the banner with Lizzy; Jess, Candi, and Callen were there.  Gindra was missing.  She was probably in the hospital; injured child or injured self would be equally good guesses. 

"Hi Lizzy.  I must say, I really wasn't expecting to see you all.  Did you hear I was coming and turned out to just to visit?"  Salvia set her bag in front of the highly distracting array of exclamations.  It wasn't a large bag, a witch's bag didn't have to be. 
"Well, we're actually the one's who sent for you.  I mean, we could have just sent Callen or Jess, but I couldn't bear the thought of you coming all the way out here to take care of something like this for us and then not even get to see most of us.  So I just had to round everyone up to come visit."
"Where's Gindra?"
Lizzy's smile faded.  Slowly, a real testament to her inner joy that she managed to hold it as long as she had before letting it go.  "She's dead.  That's part of why we called.  You see, Gindra was investigating a local monastery when imperial guards attacked.  They burned it to the ground about a month ago.  We don't know much about it, but we know it started when she was looking into the disappearance of.."
"Of who Lizzy?  I need to know where to start."
"Father Krell.  You see, about a week before Gindra died he went missing.  She went to the monastery following a lead she'd gotten from the post office, something about a letter he'd sent.  There's a company of soldiers stationed by the ruins and we thought..with your clearance."
"..That maybe I could find some answers."  Normally this would have been rather standard work; investigating odd and likely private abuse of the military against civilians.  There would probably be a squad thirteen guard along the trail somewhere tracking down the same crooks.  But they'd killed Gindra, and that made it personal.  And worse still, Father Krell was involved. 
She'd known him since she was little.  He was the one who'd introduced her to Mother Newcombe, paid her way into the academy.  He was sort of an odd, sad sort of man, but rarely unkind and always good.  The coven had tried to find out who he'd been before he'd entered the order but someone had covered his track well, the administrators insisted that a witch had done it.  So she'd simply satisfied her curiosity with the hope of one day being able to stumble across his path again and get her answers.  And maybe..repay him for everything he'd done for her. 
And it looked like this was just the chance she'd been waiting for.