Chapter 17
“This is all happening so fast,” Noria said as she paced back and forth alongside her bed.
“One moment, I’m thinking I’m never going to be able to get out of here, and the next, I’m being told I need to leave now before the place explodes.
” Brown eyes, heavy with worry, lifted to Rylan’s face.
“Are you sure this place has to be destroyed? There is a lot of valuable scientific information here, even if so many of the experiments being done are horrible.”
“You know the Mages Guild doesn’t care about any of that,” Rylan said. “The safety of the Federation comes before scientific inquiry.”
“You mean the safety of the mages,” Noria said, a tinge of bitterness seeping into her tone. But she seemed more resigned than anything else.
“Can you get a summary from her about the project she’s working on?” I asked Rylan. “We need to know if there are any factors we’re not aware of.”
“Noria, what exactly have you been doing here?” Rylan asked. “When they sent you to this place, were you aware that this lab is developing a weapon to spread targeted diseases?”
Noria shook her head. “I’d heard vague rumors about secret weapons, but I thought it was just a lie spread by our enemies,” she explained.
“When I first arrived here, the director told me I was to invent a small flying mechanism that could spray sleeping gas on people, so they could be more easily captured while avoiding Resistance casualties. It sounded reasonable enough to me, and an interesting challenge, so I got to work.”
“I’m guessing you changed your mind at some point,” Rylan said, “judging by how unhappy you seem to be here.”
“Well, a couple of days after I arrived, I found out the truth.” Noria pressed her lips together as she momentarily came to a halt, her dark eyes growing bleak.
“A chemist was flirting with me in the cafeteria, trying to impress me with his scientific achievements.” She let out a humorless laugh.
“He was balding and fat, and a good fifteen years older, so I don’t know why he thought he stood a chance.
Anyway, he got so caught up in his bragging, he let slip that my invention was going to be used for spreading deadly poisons and viruses across the nation.
” Noria’s face twisted in disgust. “Mass murder, in other words, and not just of our enemies. Women, children, and even animals would be killed off too.”
“Shit,” Rylan hissed, echoing my sentiments exactly.
“I immediately went to the director’s office and demanded to know if what I had learned was true.
I made it clear I couldn’t keep working on this project if even half of what that chemist said to me was fact.
He told me to mind my own business, and continue to work on my assigned project, if I valued my life. ”
“Damn,” Rylan cursed. “So they threatened you. I’m guessing you did continue on the project, then?”
“I tried my damnedest not to,” Noria insisted.
She twisted the fabric of her nightgown nervously, and the guilt in her voice was clear.
“In addition to what the chemist told me, I also found out they’ve been keeping shifter children in the labs to use for experiments.
They used to have mage children too, but I think those were too difficult to kidnap. ”
“That explains why we haven’t seen any shifter guards around,” I said to Rylan.
“Either way, I decided that the lives of children and animals were worth more than my own, so I built a flaw into the prototype to try and sabotage the project.”
“Oh, so what they have doesn’t work?” Rylan asked, sounding relieved.
“Well, no.” Noria’s shoulders slumped. “They found me out pretty quick. The director came to inspect my work personally, and he’s got a sharp eye.
Not long after that, Annia was captured.
” Noria’s voice hitched. “When they first brought her in, I didn’t know it was her.
She was disguised as a Resistance soldier I’d seen around at the other camp, but when she was strip-searched, they removed some kind of bracelet, and the disguise failed.
Has she been following me the whole time, or did she just impersonate that soldier? ”
“She’s been following you the whole time,” Rylan said quietly. “Your sister loves you.”
“I know.” Tears filled Noria’s eyes, and she blinked them away rapidly.
“The director noticed the family resemblance between us right away, and is using her as leverage against me. If I don’t complete the prototype, they’ll torture and kill Annia.
” Noria’s lower lip trembled a little, and she braced herself against the bed.
“The one time I was allowed to see her, Annia told me not to listen to them, that her life wasn’t as important as keeping the Federation safe.
But I’m not willing to sacrifice my only sister. ”
“Well, it’s a good thing you won’t have to.
” Rylan came over to Noria and slid an arm around her shoulder.
“We’ll get your sister out, kid, safe and sound.
And we’ll get those shifter kids out too.
” He hugged her tight against him, and my chest ached.
I wanted to be there for Noria, to put my arms around her, hug her, and tell her everything was going to be okay.
But I couldn’t, and I was grateful that Rylan was doing it in my stead.
“I don’t see how,” Noria said, wiping her tears. “They’re all locked up in the lower level, and heavily guarded. The doors and elevators can only be accessed with a special key.”
“Yeah, but I’m the night watch captain, remember?” Rylan told her, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “If the keys aren’t on this fat ring I carry, I’m sure they’re in my office.”
“Sunaya,” Iannis said, breaking my focus, and then he spoke a Word.
My surroundings vanished, replaced by the campsite.
Darkness had settled over the woods, the only light source the moonbeams filtering through the canopy of trees.
Iannis sat next to me, his hand on my shoulder, while Fenris and Elnos sat on the two logs across from the fire pit, watching me intently.
“Why did you do that?” I cried, shrugging off Iannis’s hand. “I need to be there with them!”
“I need your full attention for a moment,” Iannis said simply. “I decided to eavesdrop directly on your conversation so that I wouldn’t have to interrupt you. I know that you and your friends want to rescue the shifter children. But if we are to rescue anyone, we must first disable the wards.”
“Right.” I let out a long sigh. “Any ideas on how to do that? You said something about an object being tied to the spell?”
“Yes, the achor,” Iannis said. “Though it won’t literally look like one. It can be any sort of object.”
“I wish I was in there,” I muttered, looking up at the hill that separated us from the compound. “I could use my nose to sniff it out.”
“You do have Rylan to do that for you,” Iannis said. “Can you ask him if he’s scented anything magical during his rounds?”
“Hey Rylan,” I called—thankfully, I could still communicate via mindspeak even if I couldn’t see what he was doing. “Did you smell any magic anywhere during your rounds?”
“Actually, I think I did,” Rylan said. “There’s a guest wing of sorts around here, and when I was passing one of the rooms, I thought I caught a whiff.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I had other things on my mind,” Rylan retorted. “But you’re right; I probably should have mentioned it. Aside from the wards, there shouldn’t be anything else magical in here.”
I relayed the information to Iannis, who nodded. “Tell Rylan to leave Noria and get to that guest room. It shouldn’t be hard for him to locate the anchor, using his shifter senses.”
“Leave Noria!” I exclaimed. “But what if something happens to her in the meantime? We just found her.”
“I understand your fears,” Iannis said gently, squeezing my hand. “But it will be much more difficult for Rylan to do this if he has Noria with him. I doubt that the director will take too kindly to Noria running around the compound late at night, when she is already under suspicion.”
“All right.” I let out a hefty sigh. “Can you get me back into the scry-eye now?”
“Very well,” Iannis said. “But I’m coming with you this time.”
“What?” I asked, momentarily nonplussed before I understood. “Oh. You want to do that weird thing where you put yourself inside me.”
“Is that some kind of sex joke?” Elnos asked, and I choked on a laugh.
“No,” Iannis said, unruffled even as color spread to my cheeks. He didn’t bother to explain himself further—apparently, the skill was something that came from his Tua heritage, which he kept a secret. “Are you ready, then?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
Iannis reactivated the spell, and I was back in Rylan’s head again, looking through his eyes and ears. He and Noria were still sitting on the bed, going through possible options on how to rescue Annia and the shifter children.
“Hey, pause for a sec,” I told Rylan. “I just finished talking with Iannis and the others. We’ve got to switch gears for a moment.”
“You’re talking about finding the anchor?”
“Yes.” I sucked in a breath as magic surged within me. Suddenly, Iannis’s consciousness was inside mine, a foreign presence that sent a pleasant, though completely inappropriate, thrill through me.
“Are you all right?” Rylan asked, sensing the change in my mood.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying not to sound flustered. “Iannis just cast a spell so that he could watch and listen too.”
“A bunch of voyeurs, the lot of you,” Rylan teased, before growing serious. “So what’s the plan?”
“Tell Noria you are going to have to leave her for a bit to disable the wards,” I said, ignoring the guilty feeling squirming in my stomach. “And that as soon as they’re down, I’m coming in for her.”
Rylan relayed the message, and Noria’s face tightened. “I’d rather have her come for Annia,” she said. “I went into this willingly, but Annia doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her.”
“We’re getting both of you out,” Rylan said firmly, standing. “Just sit tight here, okay? I’ll be back for you.”
Noria only nodded, her eyes filling with exhaustion. Rylan left her sitting on the bed, and my stomach sank as he quietly slipped back out into the hall. He nodded at the guard stationed at the corner, then made his way to the guest wing.
“She will be fine,” Iannis said, trying to reassure me. “Noria is a strong, capable young woman.”
“I know,” I said, but the knowledge didn’t make me feel better.
The guest wing was a little nicer than the staff quarters—the carpet runner was a soft, lush green, the walls papered in cream with gold designs, and the wall sconces were brass instead of cast iron.
The doors were all made of dark wood instead of thin metal, and I watched silently as Rylan tracked the scent to the proper door.
“This one,” he said, resting his hand on a doorknob. He tried turning it, but it was locked. “I can smell it strongest here.”
Rylan pulled the captain’s key ring from his pocket, then made an educated guess as to which key to use. Thankfully, he got it right on the second try, and the door swung open to reveal an elegantly furnished guest room.
“This must be where Thorgana or her emissaries stay when they come to visit,” I said, looking at the thick carpeting and hand-carved furnishings. The room was nicely appointed, but lacked any sort of personal effects, suggesting that no one was currently occupying it.
“The scent is strongest over there,” Rylan said, crossing to the opposite wall where a desk and chair sat. He picked up the writing implements and paper that sat atop the varnished surface, sniffing.
“It’s the clock,” Iannis told me. “I can see the magic surrounding it.”
“I think it’s this clock,” Rylan said before I could relay the message. He reached up to grab the round brass object, which hung over the desk.
“Wait!” Iannis cried, and my heart rate shot up at the alarm in his voice.
But it was too late. Rylan’s fingers curled around the clock, and he brought it down with a tug. As it separated from the wall, a strange red glow burst from the face, and bolts of energy struck Rylan in the chest.
“No!” I shrieked as Rylan let out a cry of pain. He toppled backward, and everything went black.