“I’ll take that as good news,” Aleksander responded. “As long as we still have Elf, then I’m sure we can deal with his changes when the time comes.”
“It’s a relief that we’ve stopped the cell conversion, but it doesn’t feel like a victory when we can’t force him into elven form yet,” Vadimas stated.
“I know,” Renny replied. “I almost clapped, but I thought it wasn’t appropriate.”
“You guys have worked your asses off to get to this point. It might not be a full victory, but it’ll mean a great deal to Chrys and Elf. It’s going to be very reassuring for them to know they don’t have to worry about his elven side being destroyed any longer. You guys definitely deserve a great deal of credit.”
“That’s why he’s president,” Brogan said.
“You might be fired too,” Aleksander told his best friend.
“Again, you can’t kick me out. My mate lives here and your sanctuary bears his name.”
“It’s not my sanctuary, it belongs to Squirt. That’s why it’s called Dra’Kaedan’s Coven. But let’s stay on topic. Our focus shifts now to the second half of this project. Has anyone started working on anything to unlock the dragon cage Elf is stuck in?”
“I haven’t even thought about it since we realized we had to pull back and take this step-by-step,” Scheredin stated. The other tired sorcerers in the room nodded at his statement.
“Chand, I know you’ve contacted the potion’s creator, Oklin, a few times. Is he willing to help?” Aleksander asked.
The Arch Lich shook his head. “He insists that based on his simulations, it’s simply not possible. Oklin feels it would be a complete waste of time to spend energy trying. In his last letter, he told me I needed to move past my denial and work on accepting the situation for what it was. I didn’t bother answering him.”
“You set that letter on fire as I recall,” Alaric said to his other half.
“I think you may be spending too much time with Dra’Kaedan,” Brogan remarked.
Chander grinned. “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t try to setAlaricon fire. I just burned a letter from an asshole who thinks I have mental problems.”
Aleksander chuckled at the look of chagrin on Brogan’s face. Dra’Kaedan’s moment of anger which resulted in the torching of Brogan’s jeans was notorious throughout their extended family, and despite it being years since the incident, no one ever let him forget it.
“I appreciate your restraint,” Alaric drawled out. “I’m just fortunate you didn’t have another craving to torch our condo.” Like Dra’Kaedan, Chander had once lost his temper—only in his case, it wound up unlocking the demon inside of him he hadn’t even known existed. It not only made him realize he was a hybrid, but it cured his health problems. For that reason, no one saw any reason to turn it into a running joke as they’d done with Brogan’s unfortunate run-in with flames.
“Perhaps you and Dra’Kaedan need to work on your arson tendencies,” Vadimas stated primly.
Dra’Kaedan shrugged. “I happen to like fire. And cake.”
“Oh, here we go with the cake thing again. Mister President, tell him to shut up,” Renny demanded.
“I do think we can save the delight of confectionary treats for another time. So, do you guys want to highlight avenues you believe would be a good way to start to force Elf to shift out of dragon form?”
“It took a potion to reverse the one Elf drank. I think we’re going to find it will be the same kind of deal for this part as well,” Chander predicted.
“I believe Chrys’s blood may be a good foundation for this. We already know what a calming effect his beast has on Elf’s. We may find on a cellular level that we can potentially distract Elf’s dragon with Chrys’s,” Vadimas suggested.
“We’ve been able to determine that Oklin is an orange wizard, so he’s intermediate like me,” Idris said. “It might help to use my magic as a basis for constructing this.”
“That’s a good point. We can also try something new and mix light with dark to get an intermediate magic source. We have powerful sorcerers on both sides,” Dre’Kariston remarked.
“Great idea, we can use Idris’s magic as a foundation we can build upon so we can get the proportion correct,” T’Eirick told his son.
“If we can keep the balance with the two opposing magical factions, it would be infinitely stronger than mine alone,” Idris commented. “We already know it’s going to require something powerful to counteract this.”
“I still can’t believe that Oklin wasn’t intelligent enough to know he needed to close his spell, so it couldn’t be abused this way. How can an experienced sorcerer not realize that?” Vadimas wondered crossly.
“Obviously, he didn’t go to a Spectra Wizardry school,” Delaney responded.
“I don’t know exactly what that new Arch Wizard is doing over there, but he has a great deal of work to do to get those Consilium wizards up to par with ours in the Council,” Vadimas retorted.
“Agreed, is there anything else any of you wish to discuss before we adjourn this meeting? Has someone been selected to speak with Chrys and Elf about the results of the tests? Grigori, would you like to give them the good news?”
