Chapter 25
L isette clapped her hands together. “Places, everyone!”
Leaning into his side, Cassie muttered to her brother, “I feel like I’m doing some kind of theater production and I’m a chorus girl.”
“Same,” Cameron muttered back. In truth, though, he was more than a little nervous. None of them had a great deal of magic training under their belt, but for this, they all needed to pitch in.
Today was the day they sent a drone into enemy territory.
A magical drone, of course.
Every mage the clan had was present, all of them cooperating to do the working.
Spells over a long distance like this functioned in multiple parts: one part to control the ‘drone’—in this case a shadow cat—another to stream all of what the drone heard and saw back to the castle, and yet a third to display that information in a mirror so everyone could see it.
Lisette had tacked on a fourth spell to record everything into a memory crystal in case they wanted to review it again later. Odds were good they would.
Nine mages were arrayed around Lisette’s worktable. Dieter, Alric, Sasha, and Gunter were all nearby, trying to stay out of the way but close enough to watch the proceedings. Baldewin was holding up the door with Ravi, keeping people out, but both of them were watching with intent interest.
Cameron ran his eye over the table once more. Map with precise location to deploy shadow cat, check. Energy stream powered by will o’ the wisp, check. Connection between that and mirror ready, but not in place just yet. That was the last spell to do.
This was interesting for Cameron, in more ways than one, as he’d never worked a spell in conjunction with other mages before.
But it was also interesting to see how Dieter and Lisette orbited around each other.
She was clearly drawing on dragon magic to do some of her prep spells.
Dieter would sometimes come in close, breathe a kiss near her temple, or place a hand at the small of her back, like he was giving her a boost. Then he’d step back, propping himself up against the wall like furniture.
Cameron watched this play out from the corner of his eye with extreme interest. So that’s how a dragon-mage partnership performed during a major working, eh?
Dieter wasn’t the only dragon in the room, of course. The spouses of the other mages were present too, and they were also holding up the wall. Ready to lend a hand, but out of the way as their mages worked.
Melissande stood ready over the map. As the person who had driven through the town, she knew it better than anyone else at the table.
She was the one actually in charge of navigating the cat-drone.
At her side was Elissa, ready to act as support.
It would take a considerable amount of magic to do this, even with the spell elements of dragon’s fire, stillness of a moonless night, and black sand.
They couldn’t do a typical casting, after all.
No simple release here. They would have to cast and maintain then withdraw the spell.
It was why every mage’s spouse stood at the ready, nearby to help boost their power if so needed.
Frankly, it sounded like a headache. Cameron felt just as glad he wasn’t over that part.
No, he and Cassie were in charge of maintaining the recording from mirror to crystal.
Lisette had had them practice it multiple times, but it was an easy spell.
Like pushing record. They could manage this no problem.
Halmeoni stood at the crystal to make sure it recorded properly, and to pull in a second crystal if the first one became full.
Lisette herself wasn’t going to actively participate, instead reviewing all of the spells and monitoring them. She’d jump in as support where needed. And axe it all if something went wrong, before it could backlash. No one said that last part out loud, though.
Going from one end of the table to the other, Lisette reviewed it all one more time before giving a grunt of satisfaction. “Eure Majest?t, we’re ready.”
“Then begin, please.”
Cameron dared a glance at his lover. Alric looked beyond tense, his body nearly rigid as a plank.
He’d been angry with himself ever since the Jaeggi Clan had been discovered.
Angry and determined to keep them from re-enacting the same sort of disaster of five hundred years ago.
Cameron understood those emotions, he didn’t blame Alric for feeling that way, but he needed to relax at some point.
It had been three nights since he’d last slept over with Alric.
The sweet man was clearly torn between wanting to please Cameron and worrying about his people.
Cameron didn’t mind giving him the space he needed to concentrate on his duties…
for now. But that much tension held for too long led to bad decisions.
Cameron was afraid he’d snap under the strain at some point.
Lisette took in a breath and then gave Melissande a nod. “Begin.”
Melissande lifted her hands and spoke in tandem with Elissa beside her. “ Umba fela gev adi .”
Lisette gave a pat to both women’s shoulders. “Good. Gisa, Carla, go.”
“ Dene zold gev adi, ” they intoned in unison.
The cat’s ‘senses’ connected with the mirror in a sudden splash of sound and color. The cat had appeared in the alley between two businesses, standing perfectly still. Under Melissande’s direction, it turned its head and surveyed the street.
It looked like every other small German town Cameron had seen.
The buildings were built in snug together, the streets themselves of cobblestone.
A charming sort of tourist trap, all of it clean and well-tended.
Some of the stores were more modern, looking only thirty years old instead of a hundred, with glass fronts and brick structures.
Cameron’s nerves jittered as he read the signs, what he could of them.
He didn’t always know the words, but he could see the Jaeggi name crop up often in different store front windows—places that looked like pharmacies, dry cleaning, hardware stores.
Oh wow. Gunter was right to be freaked out. They really had survived and even thrived as a clan.
“Cameron, Cassie, start.”
“ Memen apud hic gev adi, ” he and Cassie managed more or less in unison.
He felt the crystal in their joined hands light up with faint heat, a sign the spell had taken hold and worked.
Good. All he had to do was maintain the energy flow and not drop the crystal and they were golden.
But it also meant they had to stand right next to the mirror, which semi-blocked the view for everyone else.
Alric came to stand right at his back, hand resting on Cameron’s hip. He didn’t say a word, just stood there silently and watched through narrowed eyes.
Melissande navigated the cat about, walking casually along the streets.
She’d added a cloaking spell onto the cat’s design, not wanting to catch the attention of any mage nearby.
The cat was the easiest form to use as a drone, as it was versatile enough to climb under and over things.
But no one wanted it to be seen or detected—not in that town.
The cat went up and down several streets before Melissande stopped it, right at the edge of a larger building with a security gate in front of it.
It was the only building without a sign in front of it.
Just the black, iron-wrought gates and two security guards standing on either side of it.
The building beyond it was a depressing, unrelieved grey.
Blocky, nearly windowless, it looked like a prison but didn’t have enough security around it for that.
“That looks suspicious,” Lisette murmured. “Hoheit?”
“Yes, investigate.”
Melissande turned the cat in, slipping through the gate, and took it around the outer grounds for a while.
Nothing from the outside looked unduly suspicious, but it was odd.
Aside from a parking lot, there was nothing out here.
Not even an outdoor space for people to eat lunch in. Just grass and walls.
“Go inside,” Alric directed. He sounded calm, on the surface. Cameron could clearly feel his tension, though, pressed up against his back.
That turned out easier said than done. Melissande took the cat around the building three times, looking for any opening—an open window, a door cracked open, something.
Anything. No luck. Cameron frowned at the building, not sure how to get past this.
Should they even exhaust their magic trying?
Or look through the rest of the town and come back here if they came up empty?
“We can’t see anything from here,” Ravi complained to them. “What’s happening?”
Alric turned his head slightly to answer. “The building is very secure, and we can’t find a ready opening. Lisette, how much time do we have left before we have to retreat?”
“An hour, two at most. Otherwise we exhaust ourselves.”
“An hour, then,” Alric directed her. “We can’t afford our mages to be magically depleted, nor do I want to abuse you so. Melissande, do one more circuit around the building. We’ll mark it as suspicious if we can’t get in, and look at the rest of the town.”
“Understood, Hoheit,” Melissande responded in her low contralto.
“Oh!” Elissa suddenly piped up, pointing. “Hurry, Melissande, there’s someone coming out a door.”
Melissande hurried the cat along and it sped through, slipping past someone’s ankles and through a side door at the last second. It shut with a hard clang and an electronic beep as the security system on the door reengaged.
Lisette leaned around Cassie to get a firmer look. “Melissande, turn the cat’s head to look at the door. Now that is odd. Why do they have electronic security up? Where are their wards?”
Cassie canted her head in question. “Sorry, why can’t they use both?”