“What do you see?” I asked, standing next to him. I searched for a sense of magic in him, but didn’t detect anything. Not that I would if he was only a vampire, but if he had trained with Odian, I believed he would have to have some way of using power. He had placed those runes on the car. Furthermore, the power placed on the car would be drawn from someone. I didn’t know if it was given voluntarily or not, though I’d never had the sense from Jean-Pierre he would use somebody involuntarily.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Why do I get the sense that troubles you?”
“It should trouble you, Dr. Stone.”
“Why?”
“The shifters should be here.”
“I’m not so sure they aren’t.”
“Focus on what you can find on the other side of these trees. There should be something you can pick up on.”
Rather than arguing or questioning why he might know that, I stared, looking outward, and probed with my magic. I was drawing through Jean-Pierre, and in doing so, I didn’t know if I was draining him quickly, but I thought I might be. Rather than doing more, I reached for a coin. There was a particular coin which might be beneficial. Taking one of the trigger coins, a spell that augmented my own magic, I pushed out through it.
It exploded away from me. As it did, I focused on what I could feel, and let the sense of that power wash outward, and it flooded away, rolling toward the trees, then beyond them. When it struck the trees, there was a sense from them, almost a familiarity. There had been that sense when I had focused on it before. Then again, that had only been from my magic, without using the power from the coin too.
I reached for another trigger coin. I didn’t like the idea of expending them so quickly, but if it was going to help me understand something, then I thought I needed to use them.
As I called upon that power, letting it flow out through me, I focused on only one of the trees. The magic washed through the coin, through me, and outward. When it struck the nearest of the trees, it rolled along the trunk, washing up and down the surface of the tree, and then faded.
There was a sense of power within the tree, and I could practically feel it. There were runes within the trees. They weren’t visible on the bark, or anything on the surface, but the runes were definitely there. The more I focused on them, the more certain I was of what I detected.
“What are these two trees?” I whispered.
“What was that?” Barden asked, joining me. He cast a glance at the chauffeur, before turning his attention back to me.
“These trees. I can feel something about them.”
“What do you mean you can feel something about them?”
“When I use the power within the coin.” I handed over the trigger spell, and Barden took it, fingering it, and a spell built from him. It was faint, but as it flowed into the coin, I realized he had recharged it. It wouldn’t be as potent as if I were to place the trigger coin spell myself, but it would be far easier for me to use it than to keep trying to draw on power of my own. And I hadn’t noticed anything when I had used my own power. It was only in using the trigger coin I was able to detect anything within the tree.
“These are the sentries,” Ariel said. “They are the marker, the barrier between our den and the rest of the forest.”
“Why do they have runes within them?”
Ariel watched me. “How did you know?”
“Because I detect them.”
Even now, there was a sense of magic rolling through those trees. I pushed on the trigger coin Barden had recharged, firing again, and letting magic wash through me, through the tree. As it did, I could feel the spells worked within it. They were runes, but they were tightly wound and deep within the tree itself. I thought I might be able to trip those runes, to trigger them and fire them off, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe to do. I had no idea what purpose the trees carried. If they were sentries of some sort, and if they marked a border between here and the shifters’ side, I didn’t want to upset that in any way. I didn’t want to anger the shifters any more than I already had.
“We have had many mages here over the years, and none of them have detected these spells,” she said.
“Most mages aren’t Dr. Stone,” Barden said, smiling to himself. He pushed on power, and it reached the tree, but I could feel how that spell rebounded, bouncing back at him. Whatever he had done was different to what I had done. Mine was more of an attempt to try to probe the tree, trying to see if there was anything which might be triggered within it, and wasn’t attempting to use the tree itself. It was a difference, and it was subtle, but it was enough that I knew it mattered.
“It’s an interesting spell,” Barden said. He clenched his jaw, and he backed away from the tree.
I smiled at him, and he shook his head. “I don’t know if you can fire it,” I said.
“I wasn’t trying to fire it. I was trying to understand.”
“I’m not so sure it’s safe to do either.”
Barden stared at the tree. “You think you could trigger it?”
“Such a thing would be dangerous. It would reveal the protections upon the tree, and it would unsettle the rest of the forest,” Ariel said.
I didn’t have that sense from the spell within the tree, though it was possible. “I can feel there is something there, though I don’t know what would happen if I attempted to try to push through it. I have no interest in doing so.”
“Is the same thing on the other tree?” Barden asked.
I shuffled through my pouch, finding another trigger coin, and turned to the other large tree. This time I focused more intently on what I was able to tell. “There’s something there,” I said.
“What do you think it is?”
“That’s not how my power works,” I said.
Barden breathed out heavily. “It’s unfortunate it isn’t. I think it would be great if we would be able to know the spell the shifters have placed within these trees.”
“We didn’t place the spells on them,” Ariel said.
“Who did?”
“It wasn’t us.” She stepped forward between the two trees. As soon as she did, there came a shimmer of energy, but she didn’t disappear on the other side as I thought she might. I had begun to wonder if the point of the spell was to create an illusion, but there wasn’t any sign of that.
Barden glanced at me and then Jean-Pierre, before focusing on the chauffeur for a long moment. “Let’s see what this does,” he said. He stepped forward, and passed through the barrier.
Like Ariel, Barden was still visible on the other side of the barrier, and yet there was a sense something was different. I could see the way he’d changed, as if he were somehow different magically.
It wasn’t until Jean-Pierre crossed over that I understood the true nature of it. As soon as he stepped across, there was a drawing of power. It was almost as if the connection between Jean-Pierre and myself was altered. Though I could still feel him, and though I was still aware of him, there was a difference between the power we had shared before. It was there, but faint.
“What does this do?” I whispered. I stared at the trees, wondering if I might be able to uncover something if I were to stay here, continuing to work on trying to understand it, though I didn’t know if it were even going to be possible. The more I focused on the trees, the more I wondered if there would be anything I would be able to uncover from them.
“There are aspects to the spell which mask anyone on the other side,” the chauffeur observed.
“They don’t mask them completely,” I said to the chauffeur.
“Not completely, but there is something that has faded.”
I watched him, wondering just what he understood. “How is it you know that if you can’t use magic?”
“One doesn’t have to use magic to know it.” He stepped across, and I stared at him.
Then I stepped through the sentries. As soon as I did, there came a chill washing through me. It was the effect of magic, but it
didn’t seem as if anyone were using magic around me. It was a strange sensation, but there was nothing which seemed harmful to me.
I looked around. The forest didn’t seem any different to how it had on the other side. There was still the sense of power within it, but as I focused on my own magic, it felt different. Stronger.
There was something else about crossing through here that was familiar to me. It no longer felt like the same forest. Why would that be? I looked around, but I couldn’t place it.
Ariel was hurrying in front of us, moving through the trees, heading deeper into the forest. I followed, along with Jean-Pierre and Barden and the chauffeur, though none of us said anything. I looked around, searching for any understanding I might be able to gain, and feeling for the sense of power around me. There wasn’t anything I thought I would be able to pick up on, but the longer I focused, the more certain I was that power was here.
I reached for my connection to magic. It was the same as it always had been, though there was an aspect to it which felt a little bit different. The more I pulled on that sense of magic, the more certain I was that I was right. Something felt off.
We were moving quickly through the forest, almost more quickly than we should be able to. I glanced back, looking at the sentries, and found they were far behind us, so far I could barely see them. I could feel them magically, but even that was different to what I had expected.
My breath caught. I had experience moving like this before. “The Veil,” I whispered.
Barden paused and glanced back at me. “What was that, Dr. Stone?”
The chauffeur was watching me, saying nothing. Ariel continued through the forest, and I focused on her, watching as she went. The farther she went, the faster she moved, and the more certain I was this was right. There was no question in my mind what I was seeing now, only I didn’t understand how such a thing was possible. “Don’t you see it, Barden?”
“See what?”
“Watch Ariel move.”
“I don’t know that we have time for this, Dr. Stone,” he said.
“I think we have to make time for it.”
Barden turned toward Ariel, watching her as she hurried to the forest. It didn’t take long for her to disappear completely. As she did, Barden frowned, his eyes narrowing. I knew he understood what I was seeing. “How is that possible?”
“What is it?” Jean-Pierre asked.
“We have crossed the Veil,” I said.
“That’s not possible,” Jean-Pierre said.
“I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but the way Ariel moves is the same way we moved when we were on the other side of the Veil. There’s a sense of magic with every step, almost as if the movement draws us along.”
And the more I focused on it, the more certain I was of what I was detecting. I had no idea how it was even possible. How was this even real? All of this seemed impossible. When we had crossed the Veil before, there had been a distinct sense of the crossing. In this case, there had been a tingling of magic, nothing more. But perhaps we hadn’t actually crossed the Veil. That was another possibility I hadn’t given any thought to, but how would the shifters have borrowed aspects of that power? How would they be able to use it if we weren’t actually crossing it?
“Are you sure what you’re detecting?” Barden asked.
“We need to ask Ariel.”
By now, Ariel was far enough ahead of us it was a matter of racing forward to catch up to her. So we ran. The trees streaked past us, reminding me far too much of what was like to move on the other side of the Veil. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with Barden on this side, and didn’t know what his experience had been like – perhaps not at all like what I had experienced, though I had spent considerable time walking with John Adams, trying to find our way over, searching for a way to find the people we’d lost.
When we caught up to Ariel, she glanced back at us. “It took you long enough.”
“Your den is connected to the other side of the Veil,” I said.
She frowned at me. “What is that?”
“There’s power here. It’s like the power on the other side of the Veil.”
She narrowed her brow, and turned away from me.
“Why don’t you want to share that with us?”
“Because there’s nothing for me to share,” she said.
“There is something to share if what I’m suggesting is true.”
“What you’re saying is impossible,” she said.
I glanced back behind us, but the sentries were far beyond our sight. I wondered if there were others like that. There would have to be, if this was somehow a crossing, or if it were somehow drawing power from those of the Veil. I suspected the runes within the trees were used to draw that power. And if that were the case, then why would she not have admitted so?
Maybe she didn’t know, though as I watched her, noticing the stiffness to her back, I couldn’t help but think Ariel completely understood what we were doing and what had happened. She recognized power was there, and it was real.
“How is this possible?” I asked.
“It’s possible because it is my den,” she said.
We continued forward, and I shared a look with Barden and Jean-Pierre, but no one else was said anything. The only person who seemed unsurprised or bothered by all of this was the chauffeur. For some reason, he was staring straight ahead, a hint of a smile on his face.
There was something odd about the chauffeur. The more we traveled, the more I watched, the more certain I became that he was not at all what I had first believed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Jean-Pierre even knew. Considering what I knew of Jean-Pierre, he probably did. Jean-Pierre was no fool, and having lived for centuries in the ways he had, he likely knew things others didn’t. And he chose the people he worked with carefully.
Ariel slowed down, and when she did, she stared ahead, saying nothing. It took me a moment to realize why.
There were shifters in the clearing in front of us lying on the ground. None of them were moving.
10
I raced toward the nearest of the shifters. When I reached him, I checked his neck, searching for a pulse. There was none. I hurried to the next one, and the next, and all of them were the same. There was no pulse. There was no sign of blood, no sign of injury, and yet, all were dead.
I looked up at Ariel. Rage radiated from her.
“What happened here?” Barden whispered.
“The organization happened here,” she said.
“This wouldn’t be them.”
“Are you so sure?”
I walked through the clearing, checking on shifter after shifter. There were dozens and dozens. I stopped counting when I got to thirty, no longer thinking there would be any way for me to find anything more from them. How was this even possible? How had they been injured like this? The more I checked, the more certain I was there wouldn’t be anything I could do.
I wasn’t as convinced as Ariel that it was the organization. This wasn’t something John Adams would do. And though I had seen the way Matt was willing to attack, I didn’t think he would come in and destroy shifters, either.
“Is this all of your people?” Barden asked.
“Not all, but many,” Ariel said.
“Where would the rest have gone?”
“They would have gone to safety at the first sign of an attack,” she said.
“Why?” I asked, standing and turning toward her. “I thought they would stand and fight.”
“They would have, but if they realized there was a threat beyond them…” I could see it in her eyes, but Ariel was thinking that had she been here, she would have been among the dead. Had she not followed us, had she not raced out of the forest, tracking us, staying with us as we transported back to the warehouse, she would be here with them. So many gone.
“We could try to contact Kate,” I said.
Ariel growled. “No.”
“You understand what she is.” I wasn’t
sure just how long Ariel had spent with Kate, but I believed they’d spent time together, and I believed Ariel knew what Kate was. Because of that, I believed Ariel understood Kate could bring some of her people back.
“I understand what she is, but her power isn’t meant to be used like that.”
“It is, if they weren’t meant to die.”
“And who decides who is meant to die?” she asked.
It was a brutal response, and it left me shivering. I didn’t know how I would respond if I were in her shoes, but I thought I would want to bring back my people if given the opportunity. Considering she knew someone capable of doing that, why wouldn’t she want to do so now?
Maybe she didn’t think using Kate in that way was safe. Maybe she had enough experience with Kate and the way she could use her power to know that if Kate were to try return her people from the dead, it would leave them changed. There was no doubt in my mind it would leave them changed. I had enough experience with Kate and dying – my own personal experience – that told me it would change things. The people who returned would be different, connected somehow to Kate, but also depending on how long they were gone, they might not remember.
Thankfully, when I had died, Kate had brought me back right away. Because of that, she’d allowed me to recover in a way that had not taken too many of my memories. When Aron had died, her close friend, it had taken a lot longer for his memories to return. He had been different in the time they were gone, and I had no idea what memories he’d fully restored.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now we need to –“ Ariel cut off, and a loud growl erupted from her. She shifted, and went loping off.
Barden pulled on magic, and he stared around him.
I focused on everything around us, but I didn’t see or feel anything. There was power here, though I wasn’t able to detect what it was or where it came from. “What do you think she detected?” I asked Barden.
“It’s hard to say. With Ariel, she could have been able to uncover anything.”
“Not anything.”
I drew upon a trigger spell, and sent it washing through the clearing. It wouldn’t do a lot, but it would at least reveal whether there was any rune magic used.
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