Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
“You didn’t say the Keep was Rapunzel’s tower,” I hissed. “How the fuck are we supposed to get up there?”
Moira grinned. “It’s an optical illusion. There are doors at the bottom. They’re just hard to see. The main window is a balcony of sorts. It’s where their sentries fly in and out. There’s another lower one on the other side for the regular swans.”
“That thing must be twenty stories tall. I wonder how many swans live inside.”
“Not many.” Moira dropped her binoculars. “There are two sentries tonight, but we can easily evade them if we time it right. They go to sleep by 10:30, and they’re a little militant about their bedtime. It’s 11:30 now, so everyone but the sentries should be asleep.”
“I’m going to send some magic out to check the land. Keep an eye out?”
“Always.”
I sank to the ground and pushed my fingers into the dirt, slowly inching my way forward until I crossed the land’s boundary.
Sadness and grief. So much sadness. I sucked in a breath and had to force myself not to withdraw.
The land didn’t speak to me the same way people did.
Not usually. I received images and feelings, and these were overpowering.
Underneath it, the land pulsed with health.
Whatever faults the swans had, they cared for their land and took care of the earth.
The soil was fertile, and in warmer weather, the Keep would be bursting with color.
Dahlia and anemone bulbs rested under the soil.
Seeds dropped from last year’s perennials slept, awaiting springtime once more.
There were no signs of children or innocence.
I loved reading land that hosted a lot of children.
Joy resonated through the soil. The earth loved kids, and kids loved the earth back.
They were still in awe of the land’s bounties, where adults might have taken such for granted.
But here, there was no such joy, only a deep longing.
I kept moving, closer and closer to the Keep and stopped, searching for any greenery inside.
There. Something in a hallway, I thought. I withdrew and touched the houseplant. A pothos. I grinned. The most common houseplant in the country always offered a way for me to spy.
Fat glossy leaves and moist soil filled with nutrition spoke to a healthy and mostly happy pothos.
There was less grief here as houseplants were usually planted with store-bought dirt and not dirt from the land.
This pothos hadn’t experienced the land’s grief.
I waited, my conscience linked with the plant, but there was nothing but silence.
I stayed for several minutes until I was sure there was no activity. Moira was right, the Keep was asleep.
I came to with Moira still crouched beside me.
“Good?” she asked.
“Everything’s quiet inside.”
Moira grinned. “Let’s go.”
I followed Moira’s cues, stopping when she said stop and moving when she said move, until we were at the door. Moira reached out and turned the handle.
It opened smoothly.
“No way,” I whispered.
Even Moira seemed surprised. “They have no natural enemies within the shifter communities.”
“Really? But they suck.”
Moira snorted softly. “They do, but they’ve never been a real threat to anyone before.”
“Where should we start?”
“We find either a library or an office and search through everything.”
Moira opened the door, and we both slipped inside.
Two hours later, we’d found absolutely nothing.
“This is useless,” I whispered. “How are we going to find anything in this mess?”
“Mess is right,” Moira said as she looked around at the piles of paper and scattered books. “I don’t even see a file cabinet.”
“I hate swans.”
Moira rose from the floor, wincing as straightened her back. “Maybe there’s a basement.”
“Why would Chimera info be in the basement?”
“Because every Keep usually has a mage. Chimeras are magical. We’ll check there and if we can’t find anything, we’ll get the hell out of here.”
We crept down the hallway, hand in hand. The inside was better than the austere gray of the outside, but the decorating was still sparse. Someone here had a green thumb, though. The plants they passed were well cared for and bright with color.
“Here,” Moira whispered. “There’s a staircase.”
She cracked open the door, wincing when it made a loud creaking noise. We froze and waited for the calvary, but no one stirred.
Moira held the door open and motioned me inside. When the door shut, we were plunged into absolute darkness.
I froze, fear skittering up my spine, but Moira took my hand. “Relax. I’ve got amazing night vision. I’ll lead you down.”
As we walked, my vision got better, finally adjusting to the darkness.
I’m not sure how long we walked, but the staircase was ridiculous, at least four stories down.
When we got close to the bottom, Moira made a shh motion with her finger and crept down the rest of the way, motioning me to follow when she thought it was clear.
My eyes widened when I saw the room we’d ended up in.
A laboratory. Beakers and glass jars full of things I couldn’t identify lay scattered all over scarred wooden tables. Books and papers were stacked on top of each other. Something bubbled in a large glass container without a heat source.
“Let’s hurry,” Moira whispered. “This place is used often, and we can’t risk getting caught.”
I nodded and went straight for the papers. Moira went to the other side of the lab.
My eyes skimmed over every piece of scrap paper I could find looking for anything that might identify how much information they had on me and how many people knew.
Logically, I knew it would never be that easy, but I hoped to find at least a scrap of information to help me figure this puzzle out.
The papers were mostly scribbled formula notes with measurements and ingredients, the books not much better. I shuffled through another pile on the other side of the table to no avail.
But Moira eventually walked around the corner holding a sheath of papers, her face paler than usual and her dark eyes wide with shock.
“What?” I whispered.
“We need to get the fuck out of here. Right now.”
“You found something?”
“I’ll tell you about it once we’re away from this horror show.”
She looked like someone had hit her over the head with a cast iron pan. I wanted to scream at her and rip those papers away, but Moira looked so shocked I couldn’t bear to rattle her further.
“Come on,” I whispered, taking her by the hand. “Let’s hurry.”
When we were by the front door, Moira had to monitor the sentries once more so we could sneak out without alerting them. We could never have done this in a normal Keep situation. Our scents would have given us away the moment we entered their land.
These damn swans didn’t even have wards up.
I almost felt bad for them in a twisted way.
Yes, they were trying to breed me for their own nefarious purposes, but after seeing how they lived and seeing firsthand the lack of any normal security practices, I wondered for an amusing moment if they were too dumb to actually do anything about it.
The way it was now, I could wipe them out with a bare thought.
And, trust me, I’d thought about it.
“Go. Now,” Moira hissed, yanking my hand to follow.
A few minutes later, we were off their land. Moira sank onto the ground and dragged in a shuddering breath. Without a word, she handed the sheaf of papers to me.
When I finally dragged my eyes up and met Moira’s eyes, both of us slowly shook our heads.
This was far worse than we expected.
They knew the names and location of every Chimera left on earth, and they had already taken one of the males only a few days ago.
I needed to talk to Barrett immediately because my name was next on the list.