“Then again, it’s not only how you think about things, but it’s how you react. Your medical training helps in this, far more than I expect Matt Gillespie gave you credit for. You’ve prepared yourself to handle dangerous situations throughout your professional life. It was the same thing I saw with Dr. Michaels, which suggested to me you would have many of the same skills. It’s a matter of shifting the way you think. In that respect, you have been a natural.”
“Where did he go?”
“Darvish went back to my private office. He prefers others not to know he’s returned.”
“Why not?”
“Because Darvish has been involved in some dangerous business.”
We wound our way through the warehouse, passing rows of computers with people clattering at keyboards. Every so often, I glanced at screens, noting symbols which suggested to me they were researching various runes, or other walls of text, but I didn’t have enough time to stop and see what exactly they were working on. Each time I came here, I couldn’t shake the curiosity I felt. One of these days, I’d have to take the time to understand what Barden was actually working on.
When we reached the back wall, Barden used a spell to open the door. It happened quickly, but like at the mage council, I recognized the nature of the pattern he triggered and could feel the spells and the order in which he used them. I didn’t know how to use those same spells, but when it came to the way I used magic, I didn’t need to. With the runes he had upon the doors, there was no need for me to be able to do so.
“Would you be able to open this door?” he asked.
I wondered if Barden wanted me to be honest or not, but knowing Barden, he wanted the truth. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took the fact I was able to open the door as a challenge, wanting to know whether or not he could find a way of preventing me from doing so. Could that have been his reason for bringing me to the mage council in the first place?
“Were you hoping I’d be able to open both this door and the one at the mage council?”
“I think it’s beneficial for them to know that even with little training, someone with the right skill can do something the rest of the council doesn’t believe is possible.”
“But you wouldn’t be too excited if I could open your door.”
“Can you?”
I shrugged, and stepped back, waiting for him to close it again. When a pulse of magic flowed through it, I hesitated, focusing on the symbols on the door. I’d been working with magic while sparring with Jessica, which was normally draining, but I didn’t feel particularly spent at this point. I was tired, but not so much for it to impact my ability to open the door.
I focused on the runes on the door and didn’t recognize any of them. That didn’t always matter. When it came to triggering the power within them, I didn’t have to recognize the runes. Really, all I needed to do was be able to follow the right sequence.
I had felt Barden triggering the door when he had come through it. Pulling on power, I tried to trigger the runes. There was a sequence of magic surging, flowing out from me, and it struck the door. This time, there was a strange reverberation, echoing, and I felt it bounce, striking me.
I staggered back, a hint of pain rolling through me, but nothing stronger. Strangely, there was enough power within the door that it would require more than I could draw on my own. Could I use one of my special spell coins? One of the things I’d worked on with Barden was creating a spell coin to allow me to trigger other spells. I could use it for various items like this and wondered if it would have enough power drawn from it to enable me to open the door.
Calling upon that power, I sent a surge of magic flowing through it, and the spell coin triggered the spells of the door. This time when there was a reverberation, it slammed into the spell coin and not into to me. The reverberation faded.
I let out a soft sigh, falling back. The door opened slowly.
Barden poked his head out and looked at me. “You opened it.”
“You didn’t think I could.”
“I must admit I hoped you wouldn’t be able to.”
“It was harder than it was at the mage council building.”
“How so?”
I looked at the door and could still feel the hint of pain from when it had been triggered open. “This one required I use one of my spell coins.”
“Interesting. What did you feel?”
“There was a sense of resistance. I pushed against it, and it took most of my remaining strength in order to open it.” Barden stood, staring at the door, and his nose wrinkled. “I get the sense it displeases you.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s not that it displeases me, it’s more that I thought I’d been effective in placing a certain resistance to someone like yourself.”
“You didn’t want me to get through the door?”
“It was more about testing you than it was about preventing you in particular from opening the door. If I can prevent you, then I can prevent someone like Matt Gillespie who does not have the same innate potential.”
“What if he creates a trigger spell coin the same way as I did?”
“That still relies upon your innate ability to trigger the spells. Without that, I don’t know he would be able to.”
“So you’re using me as some sort of bellwether to decide whether or not your protections are potent enough?”
“Somewhat,” Barden said, smiling. “Not all of them will be as painful.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to test them all,” I said.
“And perhaps you don’t need to. If we can find a series of protections you’re not able to push past, it may not matter. I can use those same protections to ensure there’s no other way for someone to overwhelm us.”
He guided me down the hallway, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was too reliant upon my ability. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do exactly what he needed from me, and if I couldn’t, and something were to happen because of that, I’d feel terrible. “I think you need somebody else to test these defenses,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Stone. I do.”
“Who else?”
“I have various others I have asked to help, and yet the door managed to deter even my shifter acquaintances.”
“Shifters have an ability to open locked doors?”
“They have many abilities outside what most people would typically associate with them. Not only can they shift their way past magical protections, but they are able to use their ability in a variety of techniques to ensure they are unharmed by spells such as I placed on that door. In the case of the shifter test, they were unable to open it.”
“And I could.”
Barden glanced over his shoulder at me. “And you could, Dr. Stone. As I said, you have a talent when it comes to triggering spells. We need to take advantage of it.”
“What happens when I can’t trigger a spell, but I need to?”
“If that happens, then we will be prepared for it.”
“That’s why you’re training me.”
“That and the fact I am always preparing for the possibility we have to deal with more than what we know.”
We reached the end of the hallway and the entrance to his private office. I’d been here enough times before to have a certain familiarity with it. I watched as Barden triggered another series of spells on the doorway. This time, I could feel the energy going into it, but if he were to ask me to replicate what he’d done, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I was now tired, not just from working with Jessica, but from what it had taken out of me to open the door leading back to this part of the warehouse.
Thankfully, Barden didn’t ask me to try to re-create what I’d done before. We headed into the office, and his pair of comfortable leather sofas greeted me. I threw myself down onto one of them, sinking back into it, before realizing someone was sitting on the other one.
Startled, I leaned forward, looking at the man seated across from me. He se
emed different from the last time I’d seen him. He had dark hair, eyes that seemed to swallow shadows, and thin cheeks that revealed high cheekbones. He was handsome, but in a dangerous way. I knew him to be a powerful mage, and from what Kate had said, he was a skilled martial artist as well.
“Darvish,” I said. “I’m Jen.”
“I’m well aware of you, Dr. Stone.”
“I know, but we haven’t seen each other in a while, so…” I reached for the bracelet, twisting on my wrist. “How is Kate?”
Barden stood near the hearth, his back to us. He stiffened when I mentioned Kate, and I suspected he wanted to know just as badly as I did how she was doing.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Dr. Michaels in some time,” Darvish said.
I looked from Darvish to where Barden was standing. “But Barden said you were traveling with her.”
“I was traveling with her, but we got separated. She had to go on and I couldn’t.”
“Where did you get separated?”
He glanced over to Barden who nodded. When he did, Darvish took a deep breath. “On the other side of the Veil.”
“What happened there?”
“A lot happened. I nearly died three times. Without Dr. Michaels, I would have. There was one time when she had to bring me back, and another when she intervened, and then…” Darvish smiled, looking down at his hands and then closing his eyes. “I used to think I was a powerful mage.”
“You used to?”
“I no longer believe I’m all that powerful. Unfortunately, I’ve come to terms with the fact there are those who have more magical strength than I will ever know. All I can do is try to survive when confronted with them.”
“What happened to her?”
“It’s a long story, and complicated, and there are parts of it I’m not at liberty to share. What I can tell you is that when I left her, she was still well.”
“What about now?”
“Now I don’t know,” Darvish said.
“Do you think she has been captured?”
“On this side of the Veil, there wouldn’t be anyone or anything with the strength to harm her, but the problem is that on the other side of the Veil, there are creatures of enough power to pose a real danger to her. For all of her strength, she isn’t unique as a highly powered individual.”
“I used to be able to detect her,” I said.
“So could I,” Darvish said softly. “That faded and has now disappeared. It’s why I returned.”
“Tell her how long you’ve been gone,” Barden said.
Darvish studied me for a moment, and I was curious about what he might say. As far as I knew, they’d been gone for nearly two years. “We’ve been gone for about two months,” Darvish said.
I glanced over Barden, frowning. “Two months?”
Darvish nodded. “I always knew time traveled differently on the other side of the Veil, but I didn’t realize how differently. We realized within the first week that something was off. We would periodically make contact with this side of the Veil, and we did, things felt off,” Darvish said.
“I felt Kate connecting to me,” I said.
“She told me about that. She warned me you had begun to connect to magic. I think she expected it, though she didn’t talk about a great deal. When it came to you, I know she wanted to protect you, which was part of the reason she encouraged you to stay in her home.”
I shook my head. “If we can’t detect her anymore, how do we know she’s even still alive?”
“Because I would have felt it,” Darvish said. “In the time we’ve been away, she sealed herself to me in such a way that I would be able to know if something it happened to her. The fact I didn’t detect anything tells me nothing has happened to her—not yet, but…”
“That’s why you’re here,” I said, looking at Darvish and then to Barden.”
“That’s why I’m here. I think we need to help her, though unfortunately, I don’t know how.”
“Because she’s on the other side of the Veil,” I said.
“That’s the reason,” Darvish said. “Worse, I don’t even know where to find her over there. She’s there, but—”
“There are seven different realms, and each of them is incredibly complicated to maneuver,” I said.
Darvish stared at me, mouth agape. “How is it you know there are seven realms on that side of the Veil? That’s not even something most of the council know.”
“Has Barden shared with you what we’ve been dealing with since you’ve been gone?”
“I haven’t heard much, other than there being a little bit of difficulty.”
Barden chortled. “A little bit of difficulty is probably the best way to phrase it. Unfortunately, it has been more than a little bit. We have come across the organization.”
“So, they’re real,” Darvish said.
“We always knew they were. We just hadn’t been able to find any evidence of them.”
“And you have now?” Darvish asked.
“Dr. Stone discovered an operative, and he led us towards something more, but you should know we have run afoul of them.”
Barden shared with them what we had gone through and hearing him retell it was a reminder of everything we’d suffered, the brutality of it, and the fact we were lucky to have survived it.
“We could use them,” I said to Barden.
“I don’t see how we would be able to use them,” Barden said.
“Well, we do have John Adams. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to use what he knows. He was the one who trained Matt, after all.”
“And yet, he also wanted to find and use Dr. Michaels. I don’t think that’s the right strategy.”
“If we need to figure out what happened to her, and if we somehow need to get ahold of her on the other side of the Veil, we need someone who has such knowledge.”
“Why did this suddenly become a ‘we?’” Barden asked.
“If it’s my friend involved—”
Barden turned back to me, shaking his head. His arms crossed over his chest, and magic swirled, leaving my arm cold. “I can’t allow you to cross the Veil, Dr. Stone.”
“You can’t allow it?”
“I understand you’ve gained competence, but what you’re talking about is something far more terrifying and deadly. The other side of the Veil is not for people like us.”
I nodded to Darvish. “He was on the other side of the Veil.”
“And he nearly died.”
“Multiple times,” Darvish said.
“Without having Dr. Michaels there, it’s likely he would have died.”
Darvish leaned back, closing his eyes. He looked tired, and there was a haunted expression in his eyes. “I barely made it back. I was lucky to have survived as I did.”
“You’re not just going to leave Kate out there,” I said.
“I think we need to consider the approach,” Barden said. “And there are others who would be interested—and properly motivated—to cross the Veil.”
He meant Veran and Cynthia. They were skilled mages, and likely far more capable when it came to traveling to the other side than I would be. The idea of going there, crossing the Veil and risking myself, didn’t appeal to me, but I felt as if it was something that needed to be done if it came down to trying to save Kate. She had come after me, and it was only because of her I had survived the attack which had nearly killed me, so I felt an obligation to her which was more than just our friendship. I felt as if I owed her my life.
It was more than just my actual life. I owed her for introducing me to the magical world. Had she not, I never would have known about this side of myself, or that there was more for me. Now I was a part of this world, I couldn’t imagine not being a part of it. I couldn’t imagine not knowing how to use the power working within me.
“At least let me be a part of the planning,” I said.
“That, I think, is appropriate,” Barden said. He turned away, staring at the
fire again. I knew that to be Barden’s way of dealing with his anxiety, and when it came to something happening to Kate, Barden had a certain possessiveness about him.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything that could even be done. The power on the other side of the Veil was incredible, far more than what I could even imagine. But I had access to resources even Barden didn’t, though it meant I would have to reach out to the vampire who had somewhat bonded me to him, making me his familiar, whatever that meant. So far, it had meant nothing. I’d not approached him, and I’d not taken advantage of whatever benefits serving as his familiar would offer, but maybe it was time I used it.
7
The monitor beeped, and I glanced at it, distracted. I had been distracted over the last two days, ever since learning of the possibility that Kate might need our help. Two days on this side of the Veil wouldn’t amount to nearly as much time on the other side, but it was time that left me worrying about her. Two days had passed, and in that time, Barden hadn’t gotten back to me about what plans he might have for finding a way to help Kate. Two days had passed, and though I had tried to call Veran and Cynthia, there had been no response. I suspected Barden had shared with them what had taken place, though I didn’t know for certain. It was possible that considering their tenuous relationship, he’d not shared anything about what had happened to Kate with them.
The only other thing I had done was reach out to Jean-Pierre. Like the others, there had been no word from him, either. I kept waiting to be surprised by him, and considering the skills the vampire had, I knew it wouldn’t take a lot for him to suddenly make an appearance, but he had remained absent so far.
Then again, it would take time for him to reach me. I had no idea where he lived normally, but it certainly wasn’t Minneapolis, and though I doubted he’d catch a flight like any normal human, it might take a while for him to find a mage able to transport him.
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