Magic Unknown (The Elustria Chronicles: Magic Born Book 2)

by Caethes Faron

  Millhook shrugged. “How should I know? Mages are shit at detecting magic the way the fae do. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t know. And that’s why mages shouldn’t be toying with so much magic. They don’t understand it.”

  “But you called me a ‘halfling’ in front of Calista.”

  Millhook waved his hand dismissively. “She doesn’t listen to anything I say. Besides, that’s not the term they use for it. They’d call you a pidge.”

  “Pidge?”

  “It doesn’t have the nicest connotations,” Alex said. “It’s kind of like the word pariah.”

  “So they don’t know then.” That was a relief. I didn’t need anything else counting against me.

  “It’s not exactly the kind of thing your family would want people knowing about,” Alex said. “They probably worked hard to keep it quiet.”

  So I’d gone from being a loner, to being rejected at the Armory, to being a pariah in the mage world. Great. I had hoped I’d find a place in Elustria among the mages. Maybe I still could once this was over. If my family had kept the secret this long, perhaps I could too.

  “Enough of that,” Nicole said. “You’re a kick-ass magic wielder living in an alternate dimension. There are more important things to focus on, like the food. Do you have to cook? Or does it just kind of magically appear, Star Trek: The Next Generation style?”

  I could always count on Nicole to bring me out of dark thoughts. Before I answered, a knock sounded at the door. Nicole automatically rose to answer it, but Alex stopped her.

  “Millhook, is it a mage?” Alex asked.

  “Oh yeah.” Millhook nodded. “Definitely a mage.”

  I met Alex’s eyes in a panic, and as always he stayed calm and collected. “Come look out the peephole and see if it’s someone from the Council.”

  “Hee hee, peephole.” Millhook jumped off his char and headed toward the door. “What a funny word.”

  Alex rolled his eyes at Millhook, and I lifted him up to the peephole.

  The knocking continued, and Millhook gave us his verdict back at the table, out of earshot of the door. “Never seen him at the Citadel. He’s not one the Council’s mages.”

  “Shit.” A few hours apparently had been too much to ask for. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What? Where are you going? What’s going on?” Nicole asked.

  “If that mage isn’t from the Council, then we have to assume he means us harm. Grab your purse. We’re leaving for Vienna now.” It looked like Nicole got to come along after all. There was no question of leaving her to face that mage alone. There was about a fifty-fifty chance that whoever it was would leave her alone since she was human and of no use, but it wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.

  The banging on the door intensified. “Nicole,” the mage yelled through the door. “I only want to talk to you.”

  The doorknob jiggled as the mage tried to get in. The next step would be for him to use magic.

  “Come on, Nicole.” She retreated to her bedroom, and we followed to find her rummaging through things. “You just need your purse, your phone, some credit cards, that’s it.”

  “No, I need my passport. I can’t find it. It’s been forever since I used it.”

  “Trust me, you do not need your passport.”

  “Got it!” She held it up triumphantly.

  “Come on.” I grabbed her hand, and Alex got the other one. Together with Millhook we formed a circle, and I nodded to the imp. The front door crashed open, and we were gone.

  Chapter 21

  We appeared in the middle of a train station. No one seemed to take notice of the group of four people who had magically appeared. Everyone was too absorbed in their own business. I didn’t know how Millhook got us there without landing on top of someone else.

  “Oh my god, where are we?” Nicole looked around herself in a panic.

  “Vienna, like you wanted,” Millhook answered and walked off as if he knew exactly where he was going.

  “How’d you know how to get here?” I asked as I followed him. Portland had thrown him, but he didn’t need directions for Vienna.

  “Been here before,” Millhook said without looking back at me.

  Interesting. It was strange to think of Millhook traipsing around Earth running errands for the Council. At my side, Nicole appeared slightly shaken by what had just happened. “Since he was a mage and not a sorcerer, we have some time,” I assured her. “We should use this head start to open the vault.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. That’s why we’re headed toward the exit.” Millhook pointed up to a sign with an arrow pointing in the direction we are walking.

  “Wait a minute, how do you know we have time? Couldn’t this other mage get here just as fast as we did?” Nicole asked.

  “No, mages can’t do that kind of magic. Millhook here is the only one in our group who can. He can get here quickly, but the mage’ll have to find teleportation rings he’s used before that connect to rings nearby.”

  “I’m guessing that won’t be hard,” Alex said.

  From the look in his eyes, he was thinking the same thing I was: Casper was on my tail again. He was the only one who knew about Nicole. We wouldn’t have been able to be traced or followed just from Millhook’s portal. Whoever found me at Nicole’s apartment had to know I was friends with her. That left only Casper.

  “Nicole, does your credit card work internationally?”

  “Yeah, it should work just fine. They might freeze it since I just bought plane tickets back home and now I’m using it in Vienna, but other than that, it should work.”

  “Good, we need a cab to the vault.”

  A line of cabs waited outside the train station, and we climbed into the first one we saw. Nicole pulled up the address on her phone for the driver. I bounced my knee, willing the cab to go faster. This bastard following us had gotten too close for comfort. The threat felt more real now than it had when a guard I didn’t know showed up dead.

  Alex put a hand on my knee, and I stopped the bouncing. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  Alex shrugged. “Seems like a waste for you to survive this long only to have it end now.”

  I covered his hand with mine. The physical contact went a long way to calming me down. I needed to think straight. Whoever that mage was, he had changed his approach for a reason. I had to assume he had heard and seen everything. That meant he knew I had the key, and he knew where it went. Once he found teleportation rings, he would know exactly where to find me. I needed to get that vault open, grab whatever was inside, and get out of there.

  The cab stopped in front of a grand white stone building, exactly the sort of place you’d expect to find anonymous vaults used by the super wealthy. I had no idea how my mother had paid for it, but according to the company’s website, vaults could be purchased instead of just rented. That must’ve been what she’d done.

  While it was possible to walk straight to your vault since everything was anonymous and all you needed was a key, a receptionist waited at a desk to help anyone requiring it. Since time was not on our side, I approached her for directions. “Excuse me?”

  “How may I help you today?” She was polished and formal, clearly used to working with a higher-end clientele.

  We must’ve looked an odd bunch in front of her between Millhook’s strange appearance, and the other three of us in jeans and T-shirts.

  “I need directions to my vault.”

  “Certainly. Would you like me to show you on a map or would you like me to take you there directly?”

  “It might be better if you take us there.” I handed over my key for her to read the number on it: eleven eighty-nine.

  “Right this way please.”

  Despite the urgency of the situation, I couldn’t help but wonder what treasures we were passing. People didn’t get these vaults to store humdrum things such as insurance papers, deeds, things of that
sort that would normally appear in a safe-deposit box. This was where people stashed things they didn’t want anyone to find out they even owned, much less where they hid it. Jewelry, art, stolen goods, blackmail material. It could all be here.

  “Here is your vault. Would you like a private room in which to view the contents?” The receptionist handed back my key.

  “No, I’ll be taking everything with me.”

  “Very well then. Are you able to find your way out, or would you like me to escort you?”

  “No, you’ve been wonderful. Thank you. We can find our own way out.”

  “It’s been a pleasure to serve you.” She gave a little nod and walked back to the reception area.

  “Maybe we should have taken her up on the private room,” Alex said.

  “No, we’re not looking inside it here.” I used the key to unlock the door. The box inside had a little handle on the end. I pulled it out and handed it to Alex. “There, you can carry it. If something happens, run with it. Millhook, you try to teleport us all if someone gets too close, but the priority is making sure that box stays safe. We should go get a hotel room or something, and we’ll look inside it there. I don’t want to risk leaving anything behind for someone else to find. While my mother might’ve been clever hiding this stuff in such a human way, I don’t doubt that it won’t take a mage two seconds to get into this vault if they wanted to.”

  Out on the sidewalk, Alex and I scanned the crowds for any sign of the mage pursuing us while Nicole flagged down a cab. I hadn’t gotten a look at him, but I felt certain with the help of my talisman, I’d know him when I saw him.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked the driver when a cab pulled up to the curb.

  “Yes, where can I take you?” the man answered in thickly accented English.

  “We’re looking for a hotel room and we don’t have reservations. If you can take us somewhere out of the way, that would be great.”

  “I know the perfect place.” He pulled away from the curb, and I relaxed in my seat. At least we had the box. The cab felt strangely safe since I didn’t think a mage would find us there.

  “How long do you think it’ll take that mage to find us?” Nicole asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on who he’s working with or if he’s on his own.”

  “There’s no need to guess. He’s right there.” Millhook pointed out the window on his right.

  “Oh, shit. Everyone, duck down.” The mage was looking down the street, and I didn’t think he’d spotted us. At least now I knew what he looked like. “Do you think there’s any way he can track us right now?”

  “If he could, we wouldn’t have seen him,” Millhook said. “He looked confused.”

  I agreed. Hell, American tourists often get confused when traveling to another country. Unless this mage worked on Earth often, he wouldn’t be used to it. Having to interact with humans enough to find the vault would be even more disorienting. It wasn’t as if he was simply looking for us to kill us. He was hunting my mother’s vault. The brilliance of her plan saved us. Had she hidden whatever was in that box in a more conventional manner for a mage, we likely wouldn’t have made it this far.

  Paranoid, I didn’t give the go-ahead for us all to sit up until a few miles down the road when I had Millhook sneak a peek and give us the all clear.

  “You hiding from someone?” the driver asked.

  “Yeah, just some stalker who keeps trying to harass us,” Nicole said. “That’s why we asked for a hotel out of the way.”

  “I understand. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  The hotel the cab driver took us to was more of a bed-and-breakfast, well away from tourist areas in what looked like more of a residential area. Only a tiny sign even indicated what it was.

  Inside, Nicole paid for the only remaining room. The gentleman at the front desk handed her an actual metal key unlike the ubiquitous plastic cards places used these days. I kept a running tally in my head of all the money Nicole spent. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d pay her back with interest—though no amount of interest could make up for leading a murderous mage to her door.

  Chapter 22

  Our room only had one bed, but none of us cared. It was far from the mage hunting us, and more private than a hostel.

  Everyone gathered around on the bed to watch me open the box. Given the way my mother had left her clues so far, I wanted to lower everyone’s expectations. In all likelihood, whatever was inside would be an irritatingly difficult clue to something else.

  When I lifted the lid, everyone leaned in even further to see what was inside. Would it be a magical object? An actual riddle to decipher?

  “It’s another box?” Nicole asked.

  Not just any box. I recognized the material. “It’s made out of the same stone as the other boxes. Casper used one for his ring. Cloakers are made from the same material. It blocks the magic inside from being tracked.”

  Nicole’s eyes lit with the expectation of seeing an actual magic object. The lid lifted off the container easily and inside was…a portfolio of papers.

  Nicole deflated. “That’s it?”

  I pulled out the leather portfolio and laid the pages on the bed. A few small sheets of paper were blank, but the rest had the now familiar handwriting of my mother on them. I read aloud.

  Since my enemies draw closer every day, it has occurred to me that I must start thinking of the future. For that reason, I’m writing this letter for my heir.

  A swell of pride rose in me at being her heir. This was the first thing my mother had written directly to me. She didn’t name me because my parents had named me Kat, but she couldn’t be talking to anyone else. I had the talisman, and it had helped bring out my memories that had been the key to getting this far.

  My research has been a success. I had hoped to join the artifacts I’ve found to form a talisman, but other ways presented themselves and proved more fruitful. I’ve moved far past the theoretical and actually created several talismans. Make no mistake, these are not magical objects I’ve found on Earth that other beings from Elustria left in the past. I have been able to take a regular object and infuse it with magic. The applications are endless.

  For the time being, I’ve hidden the talismans throughout this world, all encased in tellenium to protect them from being found. I plan to combine them to see how much magic one talisman can hold. This means we will be able to give our mages even more magic than the sorcerers have.

  I’ve enclosed more of my notes including clues that my heir can follow to locate the other talismans. Continue my work as I did my mother’s before me. Everything I’ve done has been to protect this legacy. There are those who would kill for this knowledge—I assume they have succeeded in killing me. If you’ve gotten this far, then do not doubt your abilities. You possess the strength and wisdom to continue on. My only regret is that I am not there with you.

  Emotion overwhelmed me. Until now, my mother had been a person who other people knew. I had heard memories of her, read her private writings, but I’d never had any concrete evidence of my existence in her life. For the last twenty years, I had lived without any knowledge of my birth mother. While my parents had always taken care to make sure I felt loved and never abandoned, there was no getting around the fact that my birth mother had given me up when I was two years old. For the first time, I saw that I had a place in her life, that she thought about me, that her giving me up had been for my own good and not because she didn’t love me or think me worthy.

  “Are you all right?” Alex dipped his head to make eye contact with me.

  I nodded, not trusting my voice at first. “Yeah, I’m fine. It looks like I have a lot of reading to do. Maybe we should plan to stay here for the night as long as that mage doesn’t show up again. After I’m done reading all this, I think we’ll have a better idea of what to do next.”

  Alex straightened up. “Next we go to the Council. This is exactly what they asked for. It will
satisfy them.”

  “You don’t understand, Alex. This is the quest my mother sent me on. I can’t turn my back on that request the same way you couldn’t when your father asked you to deliver a necklace.”

  Alex shook his head. “This has gone way beyond any of that. Your mother worked for the Directorate. You have to understand that. Everything you’ve been told has pointed toward it.” He stood as his voice rose in volume. This was the most animated I had ever seen him. “How many more people is it going to take telling you she worked for the Directorate? Casper told you she worked with him and enchanted his code. The Council. Calista, a friend of your mother’s. Your aunt. Your two great-aunts. Everything everyone has said about Meglana points to her being in the Directorate. Not to cast aspersions on my father’s memory, but the fact that he was with her isn’t exactly a point in her favor.”

  “You gave up your parents voluntarily when you left them. I didn’t. You don’t know what that’s like. If it’s true that she worked for the Directorate, it will be just as true tomorrow, and it’ll be just as true when I go through this material and find what she wanted me to find. She wouldn’t lead me this far just to trap me. What would be the point in that? What’s the harm?”

  “What’s the harm? We are being hunted, yet again. You have a deadline to meet or you’ll be banished to the Vortex. She might’ve loved you, but she certainly had a knack for putting you in situations where your life is in danger. I know you think you can handle yourself because you killed the last mage sent after you, but that was luck. We can’t expect your luck to hold. That’s foolish.” He turned away from me to look at Millhook where he sat next to Nicole in a state of shock at what they were witnessing. “Make us a portal to Elustria. We’re going back now.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said firmly.

  Alex whirled back to me. “Yes, we are.”

  I shot to my feet holding the papers in my hand. “You might not think I’m much of a mage, but I know how to create fire. We’re staying, or I’m burning all of it.”