Chapter 36
Half the dark mages resumed their attack on them while the rest scattered through the opera house, the shadow creatures they brought forth causing even more havoc.
Evander gritted his teeth and maintained a solid elemental defence in the face of the corrupt magic battering their box. The walls and ground fairly shook beneath the onslaught and his own violent powers.
Richter gripped a small gun tightly where he crouched in front of Laurenz next to the wall, his face pale. His head snapped to the left as a dark mage burst in through the door.
Viggo’s fist connected with the man’s jaw before he could take another step.
Shadow creatures swarmed their box from the corridor. Richter swore as they shot toward him and Laurenz.
Viggo stepped into the path of the monsters, the brightening ring on his finger causing them to shriek and recoil even as he batted them away with his bare hands.
“Evander!”
Evander looked over his shoulder at Viggo’s panicked shout. A dark mage had emerged from a pool of darkness at the far side of the box. The man hurled a dagger at him.
Evander deflected the blade with his wind magic and sent it clattering to the floor.
The dark mage cursed as ice bloomed around his feet and quickly encased his legs. Viggo knocked him out where he stood. He slumped against the wall.
The assault stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
Evander’s ears rang as a sudden hush descended inside the auditorium.
He hesitated before carefully withdrawing the magic protecting them, tension tightening his spine. He scanned the space below.
The dark mages had disappeared.
His relief was short-lived. Footsteps were rapidly approaching the door.
Evander joined Viggo as the Brute prepared to attack whoever came through.
It was Fairbridge. Rufus and Solomon weren’t far behind.
“Are you hurt?” Fairbridge snapped, his gaze roaming Evander’s figure.
“No,” Evander replied, surprised at the intensity of his stare and the anger smouldering in the depths of his eyes.
Viggo noticed Fairbridge’s reaction but didn’t say anything.
“How are the guests?” Richter asked tensely, helping Laurenz to his feet.
“A few of them sustained minor injuries,” Fairbridge said in a clipped tone. “There are no fatalities as far as I could gather.”
Rufus and Solomon confirmed the same.
Relief shot through Evander at this news. He frowned faintly and looked over their shoulders. “Where’s Ginny and Shaw?”
It took a good twenty minutes racing through corridors and boxes for them to search the opera house from top to bottom.
Ginny and Shaw were nowhere to be found.
Dread pooled inside Evander’s belly with every passing second.
Something was wrong.
“Your Grace.”
Evander whirled around where he stood on a landing of the grand staircase.
Richter approached with Laurenz, his expression troubled. “This was attached to the knife that dark mage hurled at you.”
He passed Evander a slip of paper.
Evander’s blood turned to ice when he read the brief message.
We have something of yours. Withdraw from Vienna immediately or they die. You have until dawn.
The note crinkled in his fist.
Rufus appeared, his expression pale.
“I found this near a side entrance, along with Shaw’s shoe.”
Lying in the middle of his palm like a glittering accusation was one of Ginny’s earrings.
“Is that—?!” someone asked hoarsely.
Solomon was approaching with Viggo, his gaze locked unblinkingly on Ginny’s earring.
Evander swallowed, fury and guilt curdling his stomach.
“Ginny and Shaw are missing. The dark mages took them.”
He passed Viggo and Solomon the paper wordlessly.
Solomon’s face drained of colour. He made a sound like a wounded animal. Viggo gripped his shoulder, holding him in place.
“We’ll find them,” the Brute said, his voice hard as iron even as apprehension tightened his face. “Both of them.”
Evander’s nails dug into his palms.
The enemy had planned to abduct Ginny and Shaw from the beginning. It had to be Winchester. The timing was too precise to be coincidental. They’d been watched and tracked from the moment they arrived in Vienna, maybe even longer.
It was clear they wanted him to run. To abandon the investigation and flee back to England with his tail between his legs.
Resolve tightened Evander’s jaw. They didn’t know him very well.
And they were going to regret ever touching his people.
“The dark mage we captured,” he said icily. “We need to question—”
“He’s dead,” Richter said darkly. “He drank a vial of poison when we left the box.”
Evander’s mouth soured. He levelled a hard look at the inspector, his mind racing. “I need every resource your division can spare.”
Richter nodded curtly. “Consider them yours. After what happened tonight, my commander will not hesitate to offer any and all aid.”
Evander released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“Thank you.”
They left the opera house just as the local police swarmed the place, Solomon’s anguish a palpable thing that filled the grim silence in their carriage.
Richter had gone ahead to mobilise his division.
Laurenz had retreated to his estate with police protection, still shaken but determined to help however he could.
Evander’s mind raced through possibilities and strategies. Anything that might lead them to Ginny and Shaw before morning came.
Frustration burned through him when no avenue presented itself.
They needed more information. And they needed it now.
They arrived at the hotel and gathered in their suite, the tension thick enough to choke on.
“We need to move,” Solomon said, his voice raw. “Every minute we waste—”
“We have no idea where they’ve been taken,” Rufus said heavily. “Charging off blindly won’t help them.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Solomon snarled. “Sit here and wait for their bodies to turn up?!”
“Solomon.” Viggo’s voice was quiet but firm. “Rufus is right. We need a plan.”
Evander walked restlessly to the window and stared out at Vienna’s glittering lights without seeing them. His reflection gazed back at him, hollow-eyed and grim.
They still had St. Aegidius to investigate. But they couldn’t do so yet. Not without finding Ginny and Shaw first.
“A word, your Grace,” Fairbridge said coldly.
Something in his tone made Evander’s stomach twist.
He turned and met Fairbridge’s gaze. The spy’s expression was carved from granite.
“In private,” Fairbridge added.
Evander hesitated, then nodded. He followed Fairbridge into the adjoining room and closed the door behind them, conscious of Viggo’s gaze tracking them.
Fairbridge rounded on him the moment they were alone.
“What in God’s name were you thinking?!”
Evander blinked at the venom in his voice. “I beg your pardon?”
“At the opera.” Fairbridge’s composure cracked, revealing the anger that had been simmering beneath. “You ordered everyone to evacuate while you stayed behind to face God knows how many dark mages. You put yourself directly in the line of fire with no regard for your safety—”
“My safety hardly mattered in that moment!” Evander snapped. “I’m an Archmage and a Special Arcane Investigator. It is my job to defend ordinary civilians.”
Fairbridge’s voice dropped to a furious hiss. “You’re also related to Queen Victoria, Your Royal Highness!”
Evander went very still. Blood roared in his skull, a cacophony that drowned out everything else.
“What did you just call me?” he mumbled numbly.
“You heard me right the first time.” Fairbridge stepped closer, his tall frame rigid with tension. “Why did you think General Hartwick sent me on this mission?”
Evander swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “To report our activities to the Ministry?”
A harsh bark left Fairbridge. “If you believe that, then you believe in fairytales, your Grace. My primary mission—my only mission—is to ensure you return to England alive.”
The words struck Evander like physical blows. He stared at Fairbridge, his heart slamming painfully against his ribs as he processed this revelation.
“The Queen sent you to protect me,” he said slowly.
“Yes.” Fairbridge’s jaw tightened. “And you’ve made that task remarkably difficult.
Charging into danger at every opportunity, treating your own life as if it were expendable—” He broke off, visibly mastering himself.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but no less intense.
“You are not expendable, your Grace. Not to Her Majesty. Not to England. And not to the people in that room behind me, who would be devastated if anything were to happen to you.”
Evander thought of Viggo. Of the fear he’d often seen flash across his lover’s face during their battles with dark mages. Of his admonition and warning in Paris.
“I will not deny that I tend to put my own safety last,” Evander confessed quietly, his chest tight. “But I cannot stand back and let others fight my battles.” He met Fairbridge’s gaze, his face hot. “That’s not who I am.”
“I’m not asking you to stand back. I’m asking you to stop throwing yourself into harm’s way as if you have nothing to lose.
” Fairbridge’s expression shifted, something almost like pain flickering behind his eyes.
“I’ve seen what happens when we lose people who matter.
I won’t let it happen again. Not on my watch. ”
A heavy silence fell between them.
Evander recalled what Fairbridge had told them the day they left London. That he’d lost someone close to him to dark mages.
He focused on the question that had been eating at him ever since the spy revealed that he was aware of his royal status.
“Who else knows?”
“The Prime Minister, Hartwick, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and myself,” Fairbridge replied. “I believe Commander Winterbourne suspects you are related to the royal family, but he doesn’t have conclusive evidence.”
Evander’s shoulders sagged. For one horrid moment, he thought the entire government knew who he was.
A sharp knock came at the door before either man could say anything else.
Rufus’s voice filtered through. “Evander? There’s someone here to see you. He says it’s urgent.”
Evander exchanged a guarded glance with Fairbridge. Whatever had passed between them wasn’t resolved, but it would have to wait.
They returned to the main room to find a stranger standing near the entrance, flanked by a figure Viggo and Solomon were talking to in low voices.
“This is Franz,” the Brute said, turning to look at Evander. “Ginny’s contact from the coffee house.”
“Duke Ravenwood.” Franz stepped forward, tension straining his features.
“Forgive the intrusion at this hour. But I heard what happened at the opera from my underground sources. About Ginny and your colleague.” He gestured to the man beside him.
“This is Klemens Schmidt. He has information you need to hear.”
Schmidt was a solidly built man in his late fifties, with grey-streaked hair and the bearing of someone accustomed to authority. His eyes, however, were haunted.
“Duke Ravenwood.” Schmidt’s voice was thick with emotion as he stepped forward and grasped Evander’s hand. “I had to come. When Franz told me your name, I knew I had to thank you in person.”
Evander stared. “Thank me? For what?”
“My daughter.” Schmidt’s grip tightened.
“Margarethe. She’s a research mage at the University here.
She was taken months ago. Vanished without a trace.
I thought—” His voice cracked. “I thought she was dead. And then, two weeks ago, she came home. She told me she’d been rescued from a facility beneath London. By an English duke and his associates.”
Evander glanced at Viggo, understanding dawning. Viggo nodded.
Margarethe Schmidt was one of the mages they’d freed from Musgrave’s underground laboratory. And Klemens Schmidt was the man who’d given Franz the list of the missing mages and researchers.
“I’m glad your daughter is safe, Herr Schmidt,” Evander said in a strained voice. “Franz said you have some information for us.”
“I do.” Schmidt’s expression hardened. He reached into his coat and withdrew a folded document. “I received a fresh lead today. Rumours of dark mage activity in the Alps.”
Evander’s pulse quickened.
“Where?” Solomon said harshly.
“A monastery. St. Aegidius.”
The name hit Evander like a thunderbolt. He heard Viggo’s sharp intake of breath.
Solomon clenched his jaw so tight Evander heard his teeth grind.
“The monastery was purchased by a private buyer six months ago,” Schmidt said grimly. “A shell company with no traceable ownership. The monks were displaced, forced out of the only home they’d ever known.” His mouth twisted with distaste. “The few who resisted the takeover simply vanished.”
“Winchester,” Solomon growled.
Franz nodded, his face pale. “The timing fits.”
Schmidt unfolded the document. It was a map, marked with routes and annotations.
“I managed to obtain this from a surveyor who’d been hired to assess the property before the sale. It shows the location of St. Aegidius and the access routes.”
Rufus frowned. “I thought there was only one way to get to the monastery.”
“The new owners created a couple more. It seemed they had much to transport up the mountain.” Schmidt met Evander’s eyes. “If your friends have been taken, this is where you might find them.”
Evander took the map with hands that trembled slightly. He could hardly believe their stroke of luck. But then again, this whole endeavour had been touched by moments of uncanny providence from the very moment he began investigating Alastair Millbrook’s death, several months ago.
“Why are you helping us?” he asked Schmidt quietly. “If Winchester discovers what you’ve been investigating—”
“Then let him come for me.” Schmidt’s voice was steel. “He took my daughter. He’s taken others. And now he has your friends.” His jaw tightened. “Some things are more important than safety, your Grace. I suspect you understand that better than most.”
Evander did all too well.
He turned to the others, the map clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
“We should coordinate a rescue mission with Richter.”
Viggo’s eyes were hard with determination. “Then we’d better move. Quickly.”
“The journey to the monastery will take several hours,” Schmidt warned. “The roads through the mountains are treacherous, even more so at night. You’ll need adequate preparation.”