Excantation Read online

“Ah,” James muttered in understanding. “Liam, you’re right. It’s closed off. There’s a door.”

  Liam was at our side in the blink of an eye, leaning over James’ shoulder to see. “So there is. With a rather stout lock.”

  “No kidding,” I agreed, eyeing the lock in question. Ancient dungeons sported locks like that. Seriously, it looked the size of a giant’s hand, and stout enough it probably could lock an ogre in place.

  But the lock wasn’t actually what worried me. “Uh, guys? Is it just me, or does the door look warped to you?”

  Zoya leaned in closer, eyes narrowed. “It does. Jackson, can you get closer?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He got the drone within a foot of it, panning the camera to see the full length and breadth of the door.

  It definitely looked warped. Like something had hit it from the inside, trying to get out. I didn’t see an imprint in the metal of the door, but it cracked on all sides, the door hanging a little cockeyed in the frame. If not for the lock, I’m not sure if the door would still be on its hinges, to be frank.

  “So, what are the odds something destructive got loose in the Hub and is still locked inside?” Liam asked with morbid cheer.

  “I would think they would have hunted it, or poisoned it, if that was the case.” James added on doubtfully, “Probably. Depends on how dangerous this thing was. Still, to abandon their greatest creation and leave millions stranded because of one creature doesn’t seem realistic to me. It does look like something rammed into it, though.”

  “It’s either a ferocious beast, or we’re looking at a great deal of kinetic force that hit it,” Zoya theorized, nose almost at the screen as she tried to see every detail. “Like an explosion.”

  “Wow.” I stared at the image of the door and made a face. “I can’t decide which is better: having a wild beast loose in the Hub or possible explosions.”

  “Neither are appealing,” my master agreed dryly. “Especially when it’s our job to deal with it, either way. Jackson, can you get that camera up to one of the cracks?”

  “You want to see past the door?”

  “If we can.”

  He obliged by putting the drone’s eye right up to one of the cracks. Which took some mad skill. Maybe he was the better choice to operate the drone after all. Unfortunately, at this angle, we couldn’t see much. Just a sliver of what looked to be a waiting area, although it was hard to tell. We caught a glimpse of jumbled chairs and deep grooves in the floor but couldn’t see much beyond that.

  “The marks look like an explosion to me.” Zoya pulled back with a frown so the rest of us could properly see the screen. “I wonder, did something go wrong? Or did someone plant a bomb?”

  James protested, “Surely if a bomb was set off, someone would remember it. We’d have heard rumors about it before now, and the Imagineers would have just gone in and fixed the damage.”

  “So…” I drew the word out, looking from face to face. “Are you saying it’s more likely something went wrong with the Hub itself and we’re dealing with internal combustions? Or something?”

  “Or something,” Zoya agreed in a low tone. She adopted her thinking pose, hand on hip, eyes staring off into space. “If a structural fault with the Hub caused this damage, it would explain why they’d had to abandon it. It might have proven too difficult to fix at the time. This was just prior to the first world war, after all. They might not have had the ability to pull the specialists together in order to figure out the problem and deal with it.”

  I couldn’t help but ask, “But wouldn’t someone have remembered the Hub catastrophically failing?”

  “Da, you would think,” she agreed, frown deepening. “Unless they saw that the Hub was failing and shut it down first? Or at least emptied it?”

  “And never figured out how to fix it?” James asked doubtfully. “Or didn’t have the time to go in and figure it out later? And then of course those who knew of the problem died out before the next generation understood the problem.”

  I would think something this important would have been talked about. That the next generation of Imagineers would have heard something from their masters. But maybe they’d played it close to the chest, not wanting rumors to spread of how dangerous the Hub was? It would be bad for business. I certainly wouldn’t go through an area likely to explode at any second.

  Heh, funny thought, considering I’d be doing exactly that in order to fix the Hub. Somehow, I wasn’t laughing.

  “Jackson, pull back for now,” James requested. “We have all the information we can gather. I vote we spend tomorrow taking the platform apart, truly studying it, and then restore it. I want a stable platform here before we try to break through and into the Hub.”

  No one disagreed there, as it sounded like common sense. But it did beg the question of just how we’d approach going into the Hub. Bomb suits suddenly sounded like the perfect gear to wear inside. Kevlar. All the Kevlar.

  Ciarán shut off the camera and came back to me, handing it over. I took it, kind of an automatic thing, as I was arrested by the look on his face. He did not look at all happy, his expression mixed with worry and dreaded anticipation. Not a good look, not at all.

  I could more or less guess the reason. “You’re not real happy about the idea of me going in there.”

  “No,” he admitted with a shake of the head. “No, I’m not keen on that, a stór. I knew intellectually speaking that this could be dangerous, but I don’t think that realization fully kicked in until now, when I saw a glimpse of what that danger could be. And….”

  The ‘and’ was going to be worse, I could tell.

  “Klaus will not at all be alright with you going in there.”

  Oh yeah…Klaus. My overprotective kobold who had zero chill where I was concerned. Just picturing trying to explain this to him gave me an ulcer. “Yeah, can we tell him about this after the fact?”

  “No.”

  “That sounded very final. No? Just no?”

  “No, because I want to live.”

  The man made a fair point. If—when—Klaus learned that Ciarán had known about this later, even if I made it out fine, the kobold would kill him. I huffed out a breath, but for the life of me, I had no idea how to handle this.

  I’m currently open for suggestions, if any were on offer.

  Ciarán, the rat fink, told Klaus. I called him a rat fink because he ratted me out without even a head’s up.

  I found myself at the kitchen table with a very unhappy kobold at the other end of the laptop screen. Volumes could be written about the anger tracing its way through his face. Have you ever looked at someone’s face and known they were a ticking bomb of anger, ready to go off? That was Klaus.

  Very carefully, every word over-enunciated, he bit off, “You expect me to happily send you into an area that shows signs of an explosion you don’t know the source of?”

  Said like that, it did sound really stupid. “It’s not like we have much of a choice here. We need to get in there in order to figure it out.”

  His scowl somehow impossibly deepened. “What’s your safety measure? What do you plan to do if the situation is that volatile?”

  Umm, pray? “I can throw up a ward around myself and whoever’s close by to take the brunt of the explosion.”

  “And if the ceiling caves in, or the floor lets go from under you? If you’re trapped inside? What then?”

  I got nothing. To be fair, it’s not like I was trained for disaster situations like this, either. “I’m currently taking suggestions.”

  He stared at me another five seconds that felt like five years. Then he abruptly got up, calling to Nana as he went.

  Oh, now that was really playing dirty, bringing her into it.

  I could hear him tell her the situation, bringing her up to speed even as he walked her back into the kitchen, where his laptop sat. She did not sound happy, no surprise there.

  Nana sat abruptly on the kitchen barstool, and I blinked a little in surprise. She
looked even healthier compared to a couple days ago when I spoke with her. I didn’t expect that kind of difference in just a few days, but maybe Ivan’s treatments were really kicking in? Could also have been that her hair was done, something I’d not seen in ages, cut in a bob and straightened to where it curled gently toward her chin.

  “Wow, Nana, that haircut is great on you.” I meant it, and not just because it was a sign her energy levels were back up.

  Her frown briefly flipped upside down enough that she smiled, giving her hair a pat. “I had it done yesterday. I feel so much lighter with it like this. But don’t distract me, Rea. What’s this I hear about the Hub showing signs of a bomb and you going in?”

  “We don’t know there’s a bomb in there,” I hastily clarified. “We just know there’s signs of something that impacted the Hub at one point. The door leading into the terminal is off its hinges, and we saw damage in the waiting area on the other side. We have no idea what caused it. It’s why we want to go in.”

  Her frown matched Klaus’s now. I think they’d spent too much time in each other’s company. They were starting to look alike.

  “And what safety precautions can you take going in?”

  “Personal wards?” I really had nothing else to offer.

  Zoya, bless her, appeared and sat down next to me at the table. She took in the tableau and winced. “You’re worried, and rightly so. We’re not sure what’s going on over here. But we take precautions, da? Even now, the clan here is making personal shields for us. And we’ll take in walkie-talkies so we can still talk to each other because cellphones will likely not work.”

  Oooh, we got walkie-talkies to play with? Like we were some secret agents? I tried not to let that thought show on my face. I think I failed. Klaus abruptly looked exasperated with me.

  “Your precautions are all well and good, but again,” Klaus reiterated, “what if the Hub collapses in on you? What if you lose the floor, or the ceiling caves in? You’ve said the waiting room showed signs of an explosion of some sort. Wards can only protect you so much.”

  “Klaus, I respect that you’re worried about her safety.” Zoya didn’t roll her eyes or even look exasperated, which showed she was a little worried about it all too. “And especially this soon into her training, she might not be able to think quickly enough on her feet. But I don’t know what else to do. We’re shorthanded as it is, and she’s one of the few completely up-to-date on all the information. I do not want to leave her behind.”

  I seconded this with a fervent nod. Really wanted to go. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

  Klaus got that steely-eyed, stubborn look that heralded trouble. “Fine. I’ll go in with her.”

  Uh. Come again?

  Zoya almost instantly brightened, as if she understood what he really meant by that. “Horosho, that would be very helpful.”

  I didn’t get it. “How does that help?”

  “Kobold’s dimension,” Zoya reminded me. “With Klaus there, he can create pocket dimensions throughout the Hub. Not only so we can easily carry all the equipment with us, but so we’ll have a safe place to dive into if something goes wrong. And he can open it again here so we can travel back without a problem. Horosho. Why did I not think of this?”

  Oooh, yeah, that would be majorly spiffy. Super helpful, sure, and the added safety measure would ease a lot of concerns. I just had one objection. “Wait, what about Nana? Is it safe for you to be by yourself?”

  Nana waffled a hand back and forth. “I think so. My balance is much better these days. I think if Matteo checks in on me throughout the day, I should be fine. Klaus isn’t helping me as much when it comes to getting around.”

  Klaus nodded in support of this. “That’s true. She hasn’t needed my aid as much for several days now. If we request that Matteo stay here with her, will that ease your mind?”

  “It would make me feel a lot better about things,” I admitted, hands spread. “That okay with you, Nana?”

  “Have a handsome man around the house to wait on me hand and foot?” she drawled, eyebrows waggling in a ridiculous way. “I can suffer the hardship.”

  “I should have figured that would be your answer.” Well, if everyone was okay with this plan, and it kept Klaus from having ulcers, I didn’t see a reason to argue. And I kinda missed him. It’d be nice to have him with me again. “Well, then. I guess I’ll tell Agna to open another room for you.”

  “I’ll tell her myself. You’re not allowed into that Hub until I get there,” Klaus warned.

  “Can you hop on a plane soon? The platform here is a little damaged, so we’re actually going to take it apart and then put it back together again. Should take—” Here I turned and looked at Zoya for confirmation. The estimate of how long the job would take kept changing every time I asked. “Maybe a couple of days?”

  “Two days was the last number I heard,” she confirmed. “Can you fly here that quickly?”

  Klaus gave a determined nod. “I’ll be on a plane by tomorrow. Keep me updated.”

  “Sure thing. Go pack. Bye, love you.” I gave a wave as I cut the connection. “Phew. That went better than I’d anticipated, no thanks to Ciarán.” I looked around to give the pooka grief, but he was suspiciously absent. I’d have to catch him and do something mean to him later.

  Not a minute later, I heard Agna’s cell phone ring. She answered with a patient, “Hello, Klaus. What? You’re coming?”

  I shared a look with Zoya that spoke volumes. “He’s been dying to get over here, hasn’t he?”

  “Seems like it. Then again, no kobold is comfortable with his charges being out of sight for long. Especially if they’re in dangerous areas, which you have been.” Zoya shrugged, as if this was a given and there was nothing to be done about it. “Well, devushka. Why don’t we go into the living room and have a lesson about building materials and construction.”

  “All things considered…probably for the best.”

  Because no one wanted to screw this up, we were very careful dismantling the platform. We documented every stone’s removal, with Jackson actually charting it all so we could put it back together. As you can imagine, it was rather tedious. And frustrating because we kept waiting to hit some kind of mother lode. Elements of some sort that would tie in with the columns. Wires, pipelines, something.

  Nada. Zilch.

  Jackson had me recreate my spiffy glasses here, the ones that could see through anything. Just so we could see through the rocks to some degree and not accidentally break something while taking it apart. But all we saw was mortar and stone. We worked steadily all through the layers, one at a time, until we were basically down to the foundation with nothing else to remove. Still nothing.

  Come on, throw me a bone, here. We still had no idea where the Hub was, and nothing about any of the platforms gave a hint of its location. The design from platform to platform didn’t seem to change much, either. Basic structure was the same, at least. Some variations, sure, like how the sigils were put in. But all the platforms had four columns with control panels that housed the sigils; symbols on one column that acted like an address book not only to the other platforms but also to the Hub; glass vials in each column that gathered and harnessed aether to power the platforms. Same ol’, same ol’.

  One hint about where the Hub was. Just one. Was that too much to ask for?

  I scratched my head, then regretted it, as that left stone grit in my hair. Ugh, whatever. I’d need a shower after all this physical labor anyway. I’d sweated right through my shirt and jeans.

  With that last layer of stone mocking us, we all took a break and sat in my comfy chairs, swigging water and lying about like dead logs. I felt about as lively as one, too.

  Someone’s phone rang and I was glad it wasn’t mine. I had no energy to talk to someone. Fortunately, it seemed to be James’ and he answered with a tired grunt.

  “Yes, hello there, Richard.”

  Richard. Richard? Did I know a Richard? Oh, I wond
er if this was James’ friend he’d mentioned earlier to me, the wizard who was good at building things. I’d connected a bunch of people to our live feed earlier, could be him.

  “What’s that? Oh, you finally got it working on your end, then? About bloody time there, mate. Ah, that’s Reagan’s doing, the livestream. Handy, isn’t it? Oh? There’s sound with that too?” James lifted his head to give me a perplexed look.

  I stared back with equal confusion. “Uh, yeah, it’s got sound. I just hooked the camera feed to the computer. Of course it has sound.”

  “Oh. I guess I thought it was only the visual, for some reason.” James focused back on his phone call. “Sorry? Oh, yes, we have been saying that. For Pete’s sake, Richard, this is why I wanted you here in the first place! None of us are up on ancient building techniques, not like you are. Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.”

  This sounded semi-important. We all sat up, orienting ourselves toward the center, where James sat. He jacked the phone’s volume up and put it flat in his hand. “Alright, say that bit again.”

  “Right,” a deep, gravelly male voice intoned. “Like I said, I’m not surprised you’re not finding anything under the stones. Indoor plumbing, drains, and such are a very modern invention. You realize most places didn’t have any indoor plumbing until well into the 19th century? The ancient Imagineers, they wouldn’t have thought to put anything into the structure of the platform. It wouldn’t have been a concept they’d have entertained.”

  I stared at the dismantled platform with irritation. He really could have mentioned that before.

  Jackson leaned in and demanded, “Then how is it operating? The four blocks at all corners have to be connected somehow.”

  “I’m sure they are. But this is where magical theory comes in. What you’re looking at is the magical equivalent of a wireless signal. Think about it. Doors, for instance. They’re connected to a doorway, and yet not. How are they connected? How do they occupy two places at once? It’s because magic gives the address and connects the two areas. Simple and difficult as that. Those compartments at the base of every column house a combination of direction, power modulation, and connection to other spaces. With the symbols on the front column, and the sigils in the boxes themselves, the platform knows the size of the tunnel, the power it needs to draw to form it, and which direction to connect it to. That’s all it needs in order to function.”