by SA Magnusson
I took a deep breath, closing the door behind me as I followed her into the warehouse. The main part of the warehouse was now banks of cubicles, and it was late enough that most of the cubicles were empty. One row had a single person sitting, hunched over a computer screen, and focused. The steady tap-tapping of the keyboard caught my attention, but Florence headed straight toward the back of the warehouse, so I followed her rather than going to see what Barden might be up to. He wasn’t going to share that with me if he didn’t have to and I wasn’t going to push, not when it came to something like this and with him. Whatever it was likely involved criminal activity, and I figured it was best that I simply not know.
When we reached the back of the warehouse, she pressed her hand against the door and magic surged. I felt it much more acutely than I had before, and I suspected that the protections placed throughout here were much more stout than they had been.
Was Barden that concerned about what the mage council might do?
Or did he worry about something else?
He had been there following the strange mage attack, and I wouldn’t put it past Barden to think to protect himself and his people from the possibility of another attack. He no longer hid his presence, not worried about trying to keep ahead of the mage council, so I wasn’t surprised that he would want to fortify this place, but what was it that he feared?
When the door opened, she stepped through, leading me down the familiar hallway. The room that had once had contained a bank of computers was now different. The door was open, something that it didn’t used to be, and rows of file cabinets filled it.
What was Barden up to?
She stopped at another door along the hall, this one leading into a room that was too much like the one where I had been trapped, held in order to heal Barden’s son Rory. I hadn’t seen him since that attack long ago and didn’t know what had come of him, though I hadn’t really asked, either. It was a sort of thing that Barden would keep to himself, which didn’t surprise me. His personal life was kept separate, at least as much as was possible when it came to the magical world.
Two desks occupied this room, and computer monitors sat on the top of both. Florence took a seat at one of the computers and punched in a password. If I were faster, maybe I would’ve been able to pick up on what her password was, but what reason would I have for that?
“This is the one we found last night,” she said, pulling up a picture.
I stared at it, recognizing the pattern from having seen it. “I’m quite familiar with it. And I think that I was the one who found it, not we.”
Florence arched a brow at me and flicked to the next picture. “This is the one that we found previously. You can see that there are similarities between them.” She flipped them so that they were side by side. The patterns were similar, though not the same. She did something, removing the background, leaving only the burned-out shape of the spell, and layered them over each other. As she did, it was even more clear how similar the two patterns were.
“There are differences,” she said, pointing to an extra triangular structure on what was situated as the top of one image. “We’re not quite certain what these differences mean.”
“What if the various patterns are tied to the particular ley line?”
“It would be possible, but such control over the ley lines isn’t known.”
“It isn’t known by the mage council—or the Dark Council—but what if there is someone who does know about these things?”
“Having some way of controlling it would make them incredibly powerful.”
I debated how much to share with Florence. “It’s more than simply a matter of controlling the ley lines, I think. I’m not exactly sure, but when I was there, I went into the Mississippi River, and I could feel how it had been modified.”
Florence sat staring at the screen for a moment before swiveling in her chair and looking up at me. “You did what?”
“I told you. I felt the difference of the power from the ley line after the spell was placed.”
“A single spell shouldn’t be enough to influence the ley line. I mean, when there was the drought—”
“Also magically induced.”
Florence nodded. “Right. When the drought that was magically induced happened a year ago or so ago, it influenced the ley lines, making them weaker, but it didn’t modify them in any way. It simply took power from them.”
She was right. It was one thing to diminish the strength of the ley lines, which could be done through some difficult but understandable magical spell. From what my grandparents had said, influencing weather patterns was challenging but wasn’t beyond the means of serious magic users.
What I had detected was quite a bit different. It was powerful magic, the kind that suggested someone had a familiarity with magic and spells that had control over deep powers of the world. There couldn’t be that many people who had control over that sort of power, could there?
“What if whoever placed that spell—or any of the spells—isn’t from this side of the Veil?”
“We would know if there was a crossing.”
“I’m not so sure that we would. I didn’t detect any magic used by this mage. Whatever she can do is different—significantly different—than other magic users.”
“You can feel the use of magic?”
I nodded.
“What sort of spell is it?”
“It’s no spell. Listen, if you intend to challenge me on my magic, this will take a long time. Barden has been working with me, trying to help me understand what sort of magic I have. It’s different than yours and different from those of the mage council. I don’t think that I’m one of the fae, especially since my mother would have been descended from mages, but I don’t know what my other half is.”
She started building a spell and I nodded.
“Interesting. And you didn’t detect anything last night?”
“Not when I was attacked. I felt the spell and that’s it.” Did that have to do with how much power went into placing the spells? “The only other time that I felt anything like that was when we faced the vampires with the runes and their magic wands.”
“Magic wands?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t really sure what else to call them. They had runes placed on metal rods, drawing power from your people. Magic wand seemed to fit.”
“I suppose, but it makes it seem too much like movies.”
“Just because it’s in the movies doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“Yes. I’m well aware of that fact.”
“Have you seen anything else that would help us?” I asked.
Florence stared at me for a moment before turning back to the computer. She tapped on the keys and brought up a series of pictures. Each of them represented one of the spells that had been placed on the ground, each of them from somewhat different terrain. Overall, there were significant similarities. Most of them had a circular pattern, and on those were various other patterns that were added, a series of shapes that were designed to add more to the spell. I suspected that knowledge of runes would be helpful, especially when it came to understanding how to form the spells, but didn’t understand all the aspects involved.
“There is nothing that really ties into any of the others,” Florence said. “Most of these have some similarities, but when I run them through the database of known patterns, nothing pops out.”
“You have a database of known patterns?”
“Barden asked that we compile one after the last attack.”
I started to ask how they would’ve compiled a database of known patterns but realized that they wouldn’t have had any challenge in doing so. How many of the dark mages had patterns that had been stolen from them? They could have documented each of those, using the knowledge of runes to understand what they might mean, but even with that database, they might not have any way of knowing what each pattern was used for.
There was one way that didn’t involve going t
o Solera, but I didn’t like it any more than I liked trying to speak with her.
“Why do you look like you swallowed a bug?” Florence asked.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how we can understand the intent behind these runes.”
“Shapes and patterns are important for magic. I understand that you’re not the same type of mage as the rest of us, but you have to understand that.”
“I understand how shapes and patterns have purpose, but the sequence is complicated. Most of these runes are different than anything other mages have used.”
“They are different,” Florence agreed.
“And with those differences, there is one place that we could go to try to understand they are different.”
“You mean the vampires.”
I nodded.
“I’m not sure Barden would agree with that.”
“Barden might not, but then, it’s not up to Barden, is it?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Serious about what?”
“Serious about going by yourself.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“For one, you’re outside of the treaty. You said it yourself. You’re not a mage, and you certainly aren’t a shifter, which means that you wouldn’t fall under the same benefit of the treaty.”
It was the same reason that the dark mages had been used by the vampires and the familiars for a source of power. If I went, not only would I be placing myself in danger—possibly unnecessarily—but there would be no protections either.
But maybe that was what was needed.
“I don’t know that I have any other choice.”
“There is another choice. You don’t go. Let us continue to analyze these patterns. Eventually we’re going to come up with something. Especially now that we have the…”
“Now that you have the what?”
“It’s nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like it’s nothing.”
“We borrowed a few volumes from the archives.”
“The mage council archives?”
Florence nodded, keeping her gaze focused on the computer. The books that had been stacked on the table in the shack outside of town had a new meaning now.
I started laughing.
“Why is that funny?”
“It’s funny that you still feel the need to hide that from them.”
“You haven’t been chased and attacked for centuries. You don’t understand what it’s like.”
“I don’t understand what it’s like, though for a long time, I thought I had dark magic.”
“And yet you chose not to use it.”
“I chose not to use it because I didn’t think I had enough control, and I didn’t want to have it burned off of me.”
“You know what it’s like to have someone you care about have their magic burned off?” Florence asked.
I met her eyes. “I don’t.”
“It takes something from them. The mage council claims that it doesn’t, but it most definitely does. There is something that is altered, modified, and they are no longer the person they once had been.”
That explained her reaction, then. “Who did you lose?”
“My brother.”
“What happened to him?”
“When the council found him—and they always went after those with negligible power, not mages of any considerable strength—they brought him before the council. He was convicted of the crime of practicing dark magic and his powers were burned from him.”
“From what I understand, it doesn’t truly burn power off. It only seals it off.”
“And is that so different? If you don’t have access to magic, it’s no different than having it burned off of you. It doesn’t matter. My brother couldn’t stand not being able to reach that magic. He remembered what it was like, and remembered being able to perform spells. He was young, early with his magical talent, and the two of us had agreed that we would keep an eye on each other. Protecting each other. And I failed him.”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. It was one thing to know in nonspecific terms that dark magic users had their powers burned off, and it was quite another to come face to face with someone who had known—and loved—someone who it had been done to.
“They weren’t supposed to go after those of negligible power,” I said.
“They couldn’t catch anyone with any real power. The knights like to think that they could, but they rarely were successful. It’s how Barden and Darvish and others like them have managed to say free all these years.”
That fit, though it went against what Gran and Gramps had said. They claimed that only those who were significant dark magic users had ever been captured and had their magic burned from them. It wasn’t supposed to be those with minimal power.
Could that be why they had hidden me?
I would’ve been an easy target. And then, I had believed that I would be a target my entire life.
“What happened to your brother?”
“What happens to all too many people who have lost something important to them. He no longer wanted to go on. Not that I could blame him.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that he decided that he had enough. He decided that he wasn’t going to suffer any longer. He took his life.”
“How many others have done the same?”
“I don’t think you want to know the answer to that.”
“I do want to know the answer.”
“More than you would care to know about,” she said.
I swallowed. Could that really be true? Could it be that so many dark magic users had decided that they couldn’t go on without their connection to magic that they simply took their own lives?
And if it was true, what did that say about the mage council and their willingness to act?
It meant they were brutal. It meant that they were cruel.
And these were the people I had sided with. These are the people who had been my family. People who my grandparents worked with.
“I’m not like that,” I said.
She stared at me and I didn’t know what she might say or do, but I didn’t look away.
“I know you’re not like that. If you were, Barden would never have welcomed you.”
“Barden has welcomed me?”
“As much as he can welcome anyone who’s not a dark magic user. You’re the one who saved him, after all. He credits the rest of us for helping, but he knows that he wouldn’t have been rescued if you hadn’t gone after him.”
“What choice did I have?”
“Aren’t you a doctor?”
I nodded.
“You don’t need the magical world. You didn’t have to go after him.”
“I couldn’t have let someone suffer and die, especially if there was something I could do for them.”
“Which is why he respects you, Dr. Michaels.”
It was good that Barden respected me, but there is a part of me that wanted something more. I wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but I wanted to be a part of something.
“You won’t help?”
Florence shook her head. “I don’t know that I can. Barden made it clear that we weren’t to intervene while we were attempting to reconcile with the mage council.”
I couldn’t force the issue, not with someone who was doing exactly as I had hoped they would, forming the connection that I had hoped would happen.
“If I find anything out, I’ll let you know.”
“You’re not still going to go through with it, are you?”
“I am.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I can.”
“Dr. Michaels—”
“I might not be part of the treaty among the vampires, the shifters, and the mages, but I recognize the need to ensure the stability of the Veil.”
Florence frowned. “What was that?”
“The stability of the Veil. That’s what this is a
bout. If something happens and shifts the ley lines in such a way that they are no longer stable the way they are supposed to be, then the treaty won’t matter.”
“Maybe I can come with you.”
“What about Barden?”
“What about him?”
I spun around and saw Barden standing in the doorway. He frowned when he saw me, though it seemed almost as if there were a hint of amusement marked on his face.
“I am going to the vampires.”
“I’m not certain that’s a very good idea,” Barden said.
“Probably not, but we need to understand these markings so that we can know what’s happening to the ley lines.”
Barden glanced from me to Florence, who shrank back from his stare. That surprised me. I didn’t have much experience with Florence, but she didn’t strike me as someone who was quite so passive. “And you believe that the vampires hold the key?”
“The vampires might not hold the key, but I suspect they learned from someone who does.”
“This Odian.”
“He knows about runes.”
“And you thought him responsible for this until you encountered the mage.”
I shrugged. “I did, but I’m not sure that he’s still not involved.”
“We haven’t seen anything that would suggest anyone else.”
“We don’t know anything about this. It could be some hidden cartel working together, all of them trying to place these spells throughout the city.”
“Dr. Michaels. I would never have taken you for such a conspiratorial type.”
“I never would have been before realizing just how strange the magical world could be.”
Barden smiled darkly. “It certainly can be. I will accompany you.”
“You will?” Florence said.
“I’ve learned that when it comes to Dr. Michaels, whatever she finds herself entangled in often has interesting consequences. Now that we have been legitimized however slightly by the mage council, we can at least enforce our right to be a part of what’s taking place within the treaty.”
“We could ask the shifters to come with us,” I said.
“I doubt you would have much luck.”
