Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Wylder
Wylder had never been to this part of town. Probably because it looked abandoned. The streetlights were the only things breathing any life into graffiti-covered buildings with boarded-up windows.
Silva pulled the car to a stop in front of a building as dark and bereft as the rest of the street.
“So we’re going to bribe your contact that lives in an abandoned building with canned cheese? Should have bought some crackers.”
“Nah. He’s fussy about his crackers.” Silva pushed open his car door.
“And you only think it’s abandoned because that’s what they want you to see.
They use powerful illusion wards. Stronger than any glamour.
” Closing the door behind him, Silva rounded the front of the car and headed toward the building across the street.
Standing taller than its neighbors, Wylder guessed it was at least five stories high.
Gaping holes littered the front where the brick had crumbled away over time.
Wylder scrambled out of the car after Silva. It was hard to believe that anyone lived there and even harder to accept that somehow the desolation in front of him was all a facade.
Silva cut down a narrow alley along the side of the building. Wylder started to pull his phone out to use the flashlight, but Silva turned back, reaching out and taking his hand.
“Just stay with me.”
Throat dry, Wylder nodded. Darkness pressed against them from all sides the farther down the alley they went. He stuck close to Silva, trusting his guidance because he could barely see the shine of silver hair directly in front of his face.
Before they’d stopped walking, a door cracked open.
Golden light speared the dark alley. A man, a very short man, stood in the opening.
Silhouetted by the light, Wylder couldn’t make out the man’s features, but there was definitely spikes in his hair, and a leopard-print robe hung open from his shoulders, revealing a tank top and shorts.
“Silvanir.” The voice was deeper than Wylder expected.
Silva huffed. “Evening, Frederick.”
“Ugh. You know that’s not my name.” The man leaned to the side. “You brought a friend.” He tilted his head. “Oh. More than a friend. Hello, Wylder.”
Silva’s hand spasmed around his.
“Um, do I know you?”
“No.” The man—Frederick, apparently—turned from the door. “Come on and bring that cheese.”
Once they were through the door, it closed on its own behind Wylder with a soft click.
Wylder barely had the chance to look around before Silva was moving them forward, hand still firmly in Wylder’s.
Not that there was much to see. The hallway they stood in looked like a service entrance with a painted concrete floor and barren gray walls.
Glancing around, Wylder realized they were alone. “Where did he go?”
Silva looked back at him, reaching forward with his other hand to click the button to call an elevator. “Oh, he went ahead. Fred doesn’t like the slow way.”
Confused, Wylder stepped into the elevator when it arrived and decided to keep his questions to himself. The warmth of Silva’s hand in his was somehow electrifying and calming at the same time. He took a deep breath, letting the sensation ground him.
“There’s no danger here,” Silva said quietly as the elevator rose. “This is the Seers Guild.”
Holy shit. Wylder knew the seers had a place in Solston, but seers and mages weren’t something even paranormals talked much about.
Probably because no one knew that much about them.
Wylder had seen them, though. The mages, anyway.
When Uncle Sigurd’s gym had come under attack, they’d been there and undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives in the process.
What he did know was that they operated on a different level than most paranormals. Even the Council. They seemed to be a world unto themselves.
The elevator doors opened into a hall of white marble. Silver veins threaded through the walls and the floor, glistening in the soft light of candle flame. It was a far cry from the concrete of the entrance, and even further from the dilapidated appearance of the exterior.
“This is crazy,” Wylder whispered, mostly to himself.
Silva snorted, leading them to the only door in the hall. “That’s one way to put it.”
Tugging on Wylder’s hand, Silva led them toward the door at the end of the hall.
Pushing it open, they stepped into the dim room beyond.
For a moment, Wylder couldn’t see much beyond the large rectangular fire pit in the center.
He squinted. There wasn’t any smoke in the room and no opening or vents above the fire.
Goosebumps erupted over his arms as a foreign feeling slithered somehow over and beneath his skin.
Magic.
Strong magic. A kind he’d never felt before, despite living with a warlock his entire life.
Silva leaned close, his breath brushing over Wylder’s ear. “Just breathe. It’ll pass.”
At his words, Wylder sucked in breath. The room came more into focus, the walls materializing around them as if they’d been somehow shrouded before.
The room around them was a circle, and there were doors all along its dark wall.
They were different shapes, sizes, and colors, and completely at odds with the laws of physics.
After taking two more steps in, Fred appeared out of thin air directly in front of them.
“Shit!” Wylder jerked to a stop. Silva stopped, too, and the asshole actually chuckled. Wylder jerked his hand free of Silva’s grip. It only made Silva’s smirk widen.
Fred, for his part, wasn’t even looking at them. He had a sleeve of crackers tucked under one arm and was focused on squirting the canned cheese around and around onto the cracker in his hand. When he was satisfied, he popped the cracker into his mouth and crunched with absolute bliss on his face.
“That’s the stuff.” Crumbs rained down onto the lapels of his open robe.
Silva laughed again.
“You’re an asshole,” Wylder said to Silva, even as he fought back his own chuckle. This was crazy. He was standing in a room that made no logical sense with a man in a leopard-print robe eating Cheese Whiz like it was a delicacy after literally appearing out of thin air.
“Don’t think too much about it,” Fred said after swallowing. “You’ll only give yourself a headache.”
Wylder widened his eyes. Had Fred read his mind?
“Seer. Hello.” Fred squirted another massive dollop of cheese on a cracker and turned his attention to Silva. “Which door do you need?”
Silva raised an eyebrow. “Thought you were a seer?”
Fred sighed and looked back at Wylder. “I can’t actually read your mind. It’s not my talent. But I’m old. Like, so old. Your face wasn’t hiding much.”
Now that Wylder could clearly see Fred’s face, he knew it was true. His body didn’t look old, but his eyes. Deep lines surrounded eyes, the color of pennies, in an otherwise youthful face. In sunglasses, Wylder would think Fred was in his early twenties.
“How old?” Wylder asked before he thought better of it.
Fred tilted his head while he munched on another cracker and cheese. “I was born in a cave, I think.” He swallowed and looked at Silva. “Which door?”
“Chicago.”
“Ah.” Fred nodded and started toward the left side of the room. He stopped in front of a deep red door with a black knob and knocked twice. “Good luck and tell Zavia she still owes me five bucks.”