Chapter 18
Gunter tapped a couple of notes into his tablet as he walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, where Cassie had created what she called her great hacking hub.
A gentle hand squeezed Gunter’s elbow and pushed him slightly to the left.
He blinked, his head snapping up to see Nikki had shifted him just far enough over to keep from running into one of Rodrigo’s ice dragons.
Igor? Ivan? Vanya? Whatever. There were too many new dragons running around the castle; he couldn’t possibly be expected to keep all the names straight.
The ice dragon smiled and winked at Nikki, giving Gunter the impression that maybe this was a common occurrence. Did Nikki regularly make sure he didn’t walk into other people and walls? He had plenty of memories of Nikki taking his arm, but he’d thought they just wanted to be close to him.
“Do you think they’ve actually managed to pull something off that broken phone?” Nikki asked, which effectively redirected Gunter’s attention from Nikki’s management of him to more important thoughts.
“I do. I think the larger problem we are likely to face is making sense out of what they’ve been able to recover.”
At the top of the stairs, they made a left and walked a few feet down the long hallway before stopping in front of a door.
Gunter knocked and grabbed the handle when Cassie shouted for him to enter, but he immediately jerked his hand back when his skin met ice-cold metal.
He stared at it for a second, half expecting it to be covered with ice. How odd.
Without further hesitation, he pulled open the door and breathed a happy sigh of relief when a wall of frozen air passed over him. The large, dimly lit room was like stepping into a meat locker.
Dark curtains blocked the windows, and one wall was completely covered with monitors while the desk under it was littered with keyboards, coffee mugs, snacks, and random scraps of wadded up paper.
Cassie sat curled up in one chair, her fingers a blur across the keys.
She was bundled up in sweatpants, a bulky sweater, and a knit hat pulled down over her ears.
Cameron stood behind her, bundled in a winter coat and still looking cold.
“Oh my, this is nice,” Gunter murmured as he stepped inside. “I’ve tried to get my rooms this temperature, but Duncan claims the air conditioning spell over the castle won’t adjust to this low.”
“Are you insane?” Nikki gasped beside him.
“This is freezing.” The little mage snuggled close, slipping their arms inside Gunter’s blazer while pressing their face into his chest. It may be cold in the room, but there were definite benefits.
Not only did the cold feel comfortable, but it gave his mate an excuse to cuddle into his arms.
“Here, Nikki, try this,” Cameron grumbled. They both looked up as he grabbed a large sweater draped over the back of a chair and tossed it at Nikki. It was fuzzy and pink and more than dwarfed Nikki when they pulled it over their head.
“Whose sweater is this?” Nikki asked.
“Sasha’s. She won’t mind,” Cassie replied without looking up.
Gunter tried not to grouse. He apparently should have brought his sweater from the library. He didn’t like Nikki wearing another dragon’s clothes, even if Sasha was mated to Cassie. But he couldn’t complain. Nikki was warmer and smiling.
“And no, we weren’t trying to get it this cold in here, but we do need it colder than the ambient temp of the castle,” Cameron tossed out.
Cassie finally spun around and tucked her fingers under her arms. “We set up a server operating system, but it was getting way too hot in here. We thought we could layer a second cold spell on the room to battle the heat.”
“It still needs some tweaking.”
“You need to talk to Evora. She’s spectacular with cold spells,” Dimitri offered, nearly making Gunter jump. He hadn’t even noticed the ice dragon relaxing on a sofa on the opposite side of the room.
Cameron threw Dimitri a look that should have pulverized stone, but the ice dragon just grinned at him. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of her. It just so happens it’s four in the morning in Brazil right now.”
“Yeah,” Dimitri grinned, drawing out the word. “She’s not going to be awake for at least another five hours. She’s not one of those early risers.”
While Cameron and Cassie looked less than amused with Dimitri, Gunter could feel Nikki’s shoulders shaking with laughter as they pressed close to him again.
“Maybe we should talk about what was discovered on the phone before the mages freeze,” Gunter suggested.
Cameron dropped into one of the office chairs on wheels and spun out to the center of the room with a tablet in his hands.
Gunter and Nikki settled on the sofa after Dimitri slid down to the far end.
While doubtful it was due to any look Gunter directed in his direction, Dimitri was kind enough to straighten and pull his arms back to his sides so there was ample space between him and Nikki.
The beautiful mage might claim to be interested in only him and want to explore this thing between them, but Gunter was taking no chances with unknown and unattached dragons.
Was it uncivilized, uncouth, and barbaric?
Maybe. But when it came to Nikki, Gunter was willing to allow his fire and claws to do the talking.
Yes, Gunter was aware it was his fears talking. Was there a more mature way to handle it? Absolutely. He also did not, in this moment, give a shit.
In his chest, his dragon grumbled and huffed, throwing the evil eye in Dimitri’s direction. The old lizard had definitely claimed Nikki as their own and was not above giving Gunter some less-than-subtle nudges in that direction.
Cameron tapped on the screen, pulling up a map of Europe with hundreds of yellow pinpoints. The information was daunting.
“So, as we said in our message, we got into the phone and started pulling some really good data off it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get browser history, text messages, or phone numbers,” Cameron stated.
“Which really sucked. I would have so loved to prank all those Jaeggi,” Cassie muttered.
“We’re still tinkering with some of the apps on the phone to see what we might be able to pull out, but the main thing is we were able to access the GPS chip and all its data.”
“How much data?” Gunter asked.
“A lot.”
“A shit ton,” Cassie said over her brother.
Cameron rolled his eyes. “We actually got access two days ago, but it has taken us until now to write the proper data analysis algorithms to make sense of it all.”
Dimitri leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What are we looking at here?”
“This is just the highlights from his GPS—places the owner of the phone traveled more than five times.” Cameron tapped something on the tablet, and the screen changed so that a blizzard of white dots layered over the yellow. “This is all the data.”
“Whoa,” Nikki breathed.
“Obviously, not all these places are Jaeggi strongholds,” Cameron explained. “Based on the locations this person traveled, we are assuming they are likely someone who is trusted to run errands. Most of the locations are cities, so this person was likely bringing in supplies.”
“And maybe also gathering some elements for spells based on some of the less frequent locations,” Cassie added.
“The other option is this person was tasked with hunting down and capturing mages, and simply looking everywhere.”
Nikki shivered and inched closer to Gunter.
He wrapped his arm around Nikki’s slender shoulders and pulled them in tighter, barely resisting the urge to resettle them in his lap.
This had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with watching fellow mages being drained of their magic and, eventually, their lives.
Cassie sighed. “It was easier for them to find the mages. They’ve been finding them for far longer. Just seemed to know where to look, or maybe they had far more people looking than the dragons could ever manage.”
“Have you been able to find something of value in all of this?” Gunter asked, waving his free hand at the screen. He didn’t want to linger on the idea of the Jaeggi hunting mages. They needed to move forward with finding them.
“We think so, but we need some help from Nikki,” Cameron began.
Nikki immediately perked up. “Anything. What can I do?”
This time, Cassie turned back to the keyboard and made a rapid-fire clatter of keys.
“We analyzed the data and came up with clusters—areas where this Jaeggi either returned to or lingered around more than any other places. We tossed out any place they went to only a few times, as maybe they were just passing through.”
The screen changed again, both the yellow and white dots disappearing, to be replaced with twenty bright red dots spread across Europe.
“We came up with twenty possible locations,” Cassie announced.
“Twenty isn’t bad,” Dimitri hedged. He lifted one hand in a gesture and then dropped it again. “It will take some time to check them all, even if we just send dragons for a quick fly-by, but it’s manageable.”
“A lot more than that other mess,” Gunter murmured.
“True.” Cameron spun back and smiled in a hopeful manner at Nikki. “But we’re hoping that maybe Nikki can cull the list a little. Or help us prioritize. Even if you can only tell us what might be a good starting point, that would be helpful.”
Nikki chewed on their bottom lip for a moment as they stared at the screen.
Gunter squeezed their shoulder in encouragement before Nikki rose to their feet and walked up to the screen.
Gunter could barely make out the lines furrowing across their brow, but one by one Nikki steadily marked off ten locations.
“Why not those?” Gunter asked when Nikki paused.
“I remember living in all of them,” they replied softly.
Nikki turned back, their face a little pale.
“This was a while ago, several years back. I didn’t really think of them.
The Jaeggi never return to a place they’ve stayed in the past. It’s too dangerous.
Even if it’s not been discovered by dragons, they won’t go back. ”
An ugly, horrible thought flashed across Gunter’s brain.
He prayed it wasn’t right, that the connection he saw in the timeline wasn’t correct.
Curiosity and the need to know burned in his mind, and he couldn’t stop his tongue from voicing it.
“Were you with the part of the clan staying in Germany a year ago? Just outside of Sonthofen.”
Someone in the room gasped, but Gunter wasn’t sure if it was Cameron or Cassie. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Nikki’s worried expression.
“I was,” Nikki whispered.
Gunter’s dragon roared in pain. Gunter couldn’t tell if he uttered a noise or not.
Now possessing the knowledge, he almost wished he hadn’t asked.
It tore his heart apart to know Nikki had been so close, and yet, with his ignorance, it might as well have been an ocean between them.
He couldn’t hear anything over the cries of outrage and frustration.
Nikki had been just minutes away from him, and he’d never known it. At his fingertips. If only—
Nikki was suddenly in front of him, stepping between his legs and wrapping their arms around his neck. “I’m right here now. It’s okay. I’m safe,” they murmured.
Gunter pressed his face into Nikki’s chest, but all he smelled was Sasha in the sweater.
Gathering Nikki up, Gunter pulled Nikki onto his lap so he could press his nose into their neck.
He breathed deep. Lightning, spun sugar, and maybe even the tiniest hint of his own scent.
Yes, Nikki was theirs. Nikki was safe at Burkhard.
Nikki would never be touched by the Jaeggi again.
“Well, ten is a much better starting place than twenty,” Cassie said with a relieved sigh.
“Nikki, can you give any more advice on the remaining ten?” Cameron asked.
Gunter felt a little calmer and could turn his attention back to the screen with Nikki, though he wasn’t ready for the mage to move from his lap. Not yet, at least.
Mentally, he memorized the locations remaining:
Valencia, Spain
Varde, Denmark
Boga, Romania
Samobor, Croatia
Bormio, Italy
Sazos, France
Senec, Slovakia
Minsk, Belarus
Varna, Bulgaria
Nikki sighed heavily and shook their head. “They all seem like viable choices to me. Normally, when there’s a major setback or problem, they will put some distance between the clan and the dragons as extra protection.
“So, we’re looking at Bulgaria, Belarus, and Romania as really good options,” Dimitri guessed.
Nikki was already shaking their head. “Normally yeah, but there’s nothing normal about Thomas and the other hotshots in the clan right now. They’ve been all edgy and twitchy for a year. Particularly since Sonthofen,” they finished, meeting Gunter’s gaze.
“Because of their defeat there?”
“Yes. And with Ravi, things got really amped up. Thomas and the others are desperate to get their hands on a dragon. Draining mages will tide them over, but they’re convinced if they can drain the magic from a dragon, they can destroy everyone.”
“Which means they’ll want to stay sort of close to Burkhard,” Cameron finished.
“Fantastic,” Cassie grumbled.
“They also like the heavily mountainous and wooded areas for longer-term meeting places,” Nikki added.
“That gives us Bormio, Italy with the Alps and Sazos, France with the Pyrenees,” Gunter said.
Dimitri stood and approached the screen, rubbing one hair through his hair. “I think that puts Boga, Romania, back on the list. That looks like a heavily wooded area to me.”
“What about Varde, Denmark? That’s kind of close to us,” Cassie suggested.
“Samobor, Croatia, doesn’t look bad either,” Cameron said. The mage made some notes on his tablet before turning back to look at them. “I think this is a good starting point for us. We’ll continue to run through this data and anything else we can find on the phone.”
“Are you taking this to the kings?” Dimitri asked as he looked down at the king’s consort.
“I am. From there, they can devise a plan for checking out the areas and seeing if we can locate the Jaeggi Clan.”
“If they’re going to plan a raid, I want in,” Dimitri declared.
Part of Gunter wanted to make the same declaration, but not now. All he wanted at this moment was to return to the library with Nikki and just enjoy the quiet and their presence. This…this was all too much for him.
Nikki leaned close, bumping their nose against his. “Gunter, can we go back to the library now?”
Gunter smiled, his heart melting a little bit as he stared into those wide, midnight purple eyes. They understood him so very well. “Yes, let’s go back to our library.”