Chapter 11
As Alric requested, they went to his office after lunch for the meeting.
Gunter walked at Nikki’s side, trying to gauge their mood.
Ever since this morning, Nikki had seemed a little…
put out with him? It wasn’t anything Nikki had said or done to give him the impression, just this vibe in the air.
And Nikki was normally more present with him.
More vivacious in getting Gunter’s attention.
This morning, they hadn’t even tried to get his attention.
It was puzzling.
Mostly because Gunter could think of several things he had done to earn Nikki’s ire.
For instance, it was quite possible he snored. And with Nikki sneaking in nightly, there was no way the mage was getting enough sleep. And Gunter wasn’t always good company while awake, for that matter.
Really, Gunter didn’t know what to do with Nikki. He’d read a book on psychology and trauma to see if it’d help any, and it sort of had? But Nikki flatly did not talk about their experience with the Jaeggi unless asked direct questions. It didn’t give Gunter a good insight of how to help.
He didn’t think it was trauma-related, though, Nikki’s mood this morning. Rather, it seemed to be caused by something Gunter had done. Or failed to do?
It couldn’t possibly be the kiss after the shoe-rescue thing, could it? Gunter hadn’t known how to respond, as Nikki had been half-teasing. And half-something. It was the something Gunter wasn’t sure how to read.
Why were people so difficult to understand?
With Alric’s door right there, he was out of time to figure this out. Gunter would have to think about it more later. The door stood open, clearly an invitation while everyone inside waited for the last arrivals. Gunter stepped confidently through, Nikki perfectly in step with him.
Thankfully, Alric had chosen to eschew the usual long meeting table.
Everyone was gathered in a variety of comfortable chairs and sofas, giving the meeting a more informal and inviting feel.
Alric was, of course, already there, seated in his favorite spot on a well-worn leather love seat with Cameron tucked in against his side.
Cassie also sat nearby in a wingback chair, although she was focused intently on her phone, oblivious to the rest of the room.
The kings were present—Rodrigo, white-blond hair swept back from his tanned face, looking the part of a charming gentleman.
Chalo, big as life with his bodybuilder frame, his nose a touch too large for his narrow face, and the lungpower to go with his large size.
And finally, tall and wiry Roca, with his blunt features and too-perceptive eyes.
Lisette also sat nearby with Dieter, both of them ensconced in the low chairs near the table, their preferred place to be in this room.
It seemed he and Nikki were the last to arrive.
“Ah, excellent.” Alric waved them closer. “Nikki, I promise, just a few more questions. Please, sit with us for a moment.”
Nikki did, choosing one of the open spots on the love seat opposite Alric and Cameron. It was likely left open on purpose so they could sit together.
Lisette cleared her throat to draw Nikki’s attention to her.
“Nikki, I’m having a hard time deciphering the protection spells and wards the Jaeggi use.
They’re different from what we normally use, and the Jaeggi magic looks…
odd. Warped, I guess you can say. Their spell work looks strange as a result.
It only gets worse when they’re in place for a while.
They have layered spells, making things even more distorted.
I wonder if you know what they use? Anything you can tell me will be helpful. ”
Nikki still seemed a little wary around Lisette for some reason but respectfully answered, “I don’t know the names of the spells. I’m not sure if the names would even be something you would recognize.”
“I doubt it.”
Wetting their lips, Nikki’s light blond brows furrowed in deep thought. “I know they used a lot of reflected sunlight. They were constantly putting up mirrored glass around doors to power the spells.”
Every mage in the room immediately took pen to paper and wrote a note. Well, Cassie used a tablet, but same effect.
“I know, too, they had trouble keeping wards up. They were constantly undoing and redoing the perimeter wards. We had to stay locked in our rooms or dorms while they did repairs. I think they were afraid we’d slip out and run for it.”
Lisette murmured encouragement. “Wards are a very personal thing, something tied in with a mage’s core. If their cores are so damaged, then it would make sense wards would be hard for them to maintain. What else? You’re doing splendid. You’ve already answered two questions for me.”
Nikki’s head canted in question. “This is helpful? Are there really that many questions about how the Jaeggi use magic?”
“Extremely so. We could only guess about the reflected sunlight.”
“Oh. Um…” Nikki stared hard at the carpet, lost in thought.
“The few times they let us out, we harvested things for them. Basically the ingredients no one likes harvesting.” Their nose wrinkled adorably, and Gunter had to suppress the urge to run his finger down it to ease away the tension.
“I gathered black sand from a wasteland, rushing wind from a hollow cave, and song of a nightingale for them several times.” Nikki’s head popped up, irritation digging furrows in their brow.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to chase down a nightingale when it doesn’t want to sing for you? ”
Lisette’s lips twitched like she was fighting back a smile. She swallowed once and nodded. “I do in fact know how hard it is. Definitely not one of my favorite tasks.”
Nikki relaxed and actually grinned at Lisette for a second at this tiny bit of common ground.
“Moonlit water, too. They don’t keep a lot of spell ingredients that I’ve seen.
I broke into their storeroom once, and it had only about three shelves of bottled ingredients and one storage locker of raw ingredients. ”
Lisette leaned forward. “At any time, did you see them use any kind of tool? A gathering wand or anything like that?”
Nikki shook their head immediately. “No. I read in a book how to craft those. I wanted to try it, but there was no growing wood to be found. They use things like mirrors, but it’s always store-bought stuff. It’s not something they’ve made.”
“This makes a great deal of sense from what I’m seeing.
” Lisette sat back, blowing out a low breath.
“For the rest of you, I’ll explain. It seems to me that while the Burkhard mages lost a great deal of magical information and training, the Jaeggi lost more.
I would say that because of the backlash, the generation who knew magic was lost all in one shot, leaving the half-trained students, the young children, and the non-magical members of the clan.
All they had were what people remembered and scattered records, which had to be taken and moved in a hurry.
They had no idea we thought them decimated—that we weren’t looking for them then. ”
Nikki nodded. “That’s true. They didn’t. They boast about that, how the Jaeggi dropped you to your knees so badly that you didn’t even realize they were still alive.”
Gunter’s lip curled in a snarl. Oh, they’d regret being so boastful. He’d make damn sure of it. And he wasn’t alone—every dragon in the room made a low, guttural sound of anger.
Lisette looked ready to shoot lasers out of her eyes.
But it was Cameron who spoke, his tone thoughtful.
“So, they’re rather like my family, then.
Where a lot of information was just lost, and we’re having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
No wonder we can’t recognize half of what they’re doing.
It’s not a spell we know—it’s something they’ve cobbled together.
And likely with spell elements we would never think to use because they’re limited to what they can gather without risking someone discovering them.
” Cameron rubbed his forehead and flashed Nikki a brilliant smile.
“Thank you, Nikki, that’s tremendously helpful.
I thought maybe my analytical skills were failing me. ”
“Perish the thought, bro,” Cassie chimed in while not looking up from her tablet. “Nikki, if you can tell me what you mean by raw ingredients?”
“Uh, um, like glass bottles, twine, metal wire, cloth, that sort of thing.”
She looked up briefly, pushing blue hair out of her eyes in an absent gesture. “Things they could use for portable spell crafting?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Okay, next question. You said you broke into a storeroom once. Was that in the place we found you, or…?”
Nikki was already shaking their head. “Different place. The one in Warsaw.”
“Ah. Okay, that’s good to know. Do you think they have any kind of permanent base? Or were they moving around a lot?”
“Completely nomadic,” Nikki confirmed with an adamant nod. “For all they boasted you had no idea they were alive, they were paranoid about you finding them. They move every three to six months.”
“Likely part of the reason why they don’t store a lot of elements or collect much,” Cameron opined.
“Speaking as a former college student, where you shift dorm rooms or apartments regularly, that shit gets old quick. You get to the point where you’ve pared it down to essentials just because it’s not worth packing and moving it all the time.
But that also means they have limited ingredients to work with on a daily basis. ”
“It does give us an edge, if we can exploit it properly.” Alric looked to the kings. “Nikki’s already given us a list of every place they knew of where the Jaeggi have bases. Aside from this, what else can you think to ask them?”
Chalo gave a hum before saying, “I’m concerned about the trap you triggered. You were all clearly on the lookout for such things, and it still almost injured you. Nikki, how many places were rigged like that?”
That was a fair question. And one Gunter had meant to ask and kept forgetting to.
Nikki waffled a hand back and forth. “It’s not so much how many, as what types.
If it was a garage, then it is probably rigged.
Storage rooms or libraries, definitely. Most of the traps were meant for us, to keep us from running away or learning too much.
Others were likely triggered as they were leaving, since they knew you’d be inspecting the place after they left. ”
“Wasn’t that so kind of them?” Rodrigo drawled with a curl of his upper lip.
“It also isn’t consistent. Some of the Jaeggi were paranoid enough to always renew the traps if something went wrong with them. Others would just shrug and put it on their to-do list. The spells are mostly designed so anyone of Jaeggi blood can pass right by them without setting anything off.”
“I see,” Lisette murmured, sounding as if she was mostly talking to herself. “So, we have no way of really predicting where trouble might be. Any building might be a library or storeroom, and we’ll have no way of knowing until we explore it.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Nikki shrugged helplessly. “It’s why I was slow on warning people. I wasn’t sure if it was rigged or not, and from the angle I was at, I almost didn’t see it.”
“We’re not blaming you,” Gunter assured them.
“No, indeed not,” Rodrigo added firmly. The Ice Dragon King looked perturbed but still managed a smile for Nikki.
“We’re just trying to get the lay of the land.
It seems to me it will be difficult to go in.
A quick in and out will definitely be difficult; this is something that requires taking our time and having experienced mages, otherwise people will be injured in the process. ”
Roca gave him a nod. “Agreed. I’ve already called on our older, experienced mages to come and help with this.
I have volunteers on the way here now. I want to explore more of these locations Nikki gave us, but I’m not losing people in the process.
The Jaeggi have claimed enough lives. We won’t add to it through carelessness.
That said, I really want to find the trail they left after our last run-in with them. ”
“My tracker is on the way now,” Rodrigo said with a wolfish smile.
He tented the tips of his fingers, giving a rather good impression of an evil genius plotting something wicked.
“He doesn’t require magic or earth sense to track anyone.
His skills are more old-school than that.
I expect him to arrive tomorrow. Nikki, you’ll be available then? ”
Nikki looked a little too excited as they answered firmly, “I will.”
Gunter didn’t want them thinking Nikki would go out without him. He leaned in closer to whisper against Nikki’s ear, “I’ll go with you.”
Nikki shot him a blinding smile.
“I can’t think of what else to ask.” Alric looked around the room. “Anyone else?”
Gunter briefly lifted a hand. “I do, as I haven’t properly followed up on this. The phone we retrieved—were you able to do anything with that?”
“Oh, yes!” Cameron gave them a thumb’s up.
“That was a great find. Cassie and I are about midway into restoring it enough to function. I had to order some parts, but they’ll be here tomorrow.
I think we can restore the history of the GPS function, which will tell us all sorts of interesting things. That and the call history.”
“Excellent!” Gunter sighed, relaxing a bit next to Nikki while his brain was already making lists of ways to analyze what data they pulled. He’d just known those two could do something with it. They were trained in this sort of thing, after all. And damn near geniuses, to boot.
“Bring back more tech if you find anything,” Cassie encouraged them. “We love tech. People do all sorts of stupid things with tech. Like believe that if it’s in the trash can, it’s permanently deleted.”
Gunter blinked at her, expression blank. “It isn’t?”
“Oh, Gunter, honey,” she said with sympathy. “I’m terrified to ask what state your laptop is in. I’ll look at it later, okay? But yes to more tech to play with, and we’ll keep you posted when we get that phone back up and running.”
“Thank you.”
Alric addressed the room generally, “If there’s nothing else, meeting adjourned. Gunter, stay for a moment.”
“Oh, certainly.”
Nikki whispered, “I’ll meet you in the library.”
“Alright.” Gunter didn’t think Nikki would stay in a room full of mages any longer than they could help it.
And this might take a while. Alric likely had a lot of business to catch up with him since Gunter had been holed up in the library with Nikki the past two and a half weeks. He let Nikki go without any argument.
Although it would be nice if, one day, Nikki was comfortable enough to linger.