Ström pauses in shock as I feel a tirade of his memories flood back.
I don’t get them, and neither does Bjorn, since we’re not opened wideto our shared magic right now. Ström takes a sharp inhale, though, blinking as that storm of remembering passes.
He looks at me, then around the empty warehouse, in shock.
“This was where we stored things for her to look at,” he says as his eyebrows lift in surprise. He is scowling now as he walks to a spot near the far left of the space. Tracing a boot through the dust that covers the concrete, he taps a series of touches on the floor, like some kind of complex Riverdance.
All at once, there’s a flare of dark violet light and a grinding sound as the floor opens up. There’s some kind of basement below; Bjorn and I inhale as Ström nods. He kneels now to peer into it, keeping his hands ready in case something comes barreling out at him.
But after a moment, he nods that it’s safe.
Bjorn and I come over, amazed at what Ström just did.
“The thieves’ secret hiding spot?” I ask, as Bjorn and I both peer into the hole, like Ström. It’s dark, and a few steps go down, like a sub-cellar beneath the warehouse. A single, flickering magical lightbulb has flared to life halfway down the short hall beyond.
But there’s no signature of life down here, the basement empty.
“It was an old smuggler’s cache.” Ström’s voice is quiet now, as if in a trance, recalling lost things from his memories. “We used it because it was the easiest spot for that drakaina to reach us. When she flew over the Øresund…”
“From Sweden.” Bjorn’s eyebrows lift now, before he scowls. “So our enemy Bone Mage drakaina is Swedish.”
“It seems that way.” I nod, even as I rise and move forward, stepping down into the basement. Bjorn growls that I’ve gone first, when he always wants to protect me. He comes along behind me with Ström, as we all step down the steep stairs into the small basement proper.
The basement is a quarter the size of the warehouse above, if that. Lined with rickety wooden shelving a few centuries out of date, I see huge wine barrels and racks of whiskey and mead bottles, everything covered indust and cobwebs as if this place was forgotten by the drink smugglers who once used it.
Rarer drinks are here, too, likeLiftsugade, a Spring Fae cordial that glows bright green from its dusky bottles, so potent it could take down an elephant with one sip.
Something that looks likeHarpsbanestill bubbles in tiny black phials in a rack among all the Liftsugade. A specialized Harpy’s cordial, it tastes like rank feathers and is forbidden to use in the Twilight Realm or the human world, except among Harpies who drink it. Because anyone else will get poisoned the fuck up.
There is no known antidote—as whoever drinks it screams themselves to death like a harpy.
“Nothing but forgotten drinks in here,” Bjorn notes as he glances around all the dusty shelves. “We should probably notify the Intercessoria when we’re done, though, and have them come clear this place out, especially with that Harpsbane here.”
“We hid things here, among the drinks,” Ström says in his strange lilting voice as he wanders the aisles, his fingertips trailing along the dusty shelves. “Things we found, things we stole. Things we traced down from the instructions that drakaina gave, going through countless metaphysical and physical gauntlets to get them. Killing anyone who got in our way…”
Ström gives a shudder at that, as I feel him repress a memory that’s trying to surface. I’m tuned into him now, and feel what’s happening in there. It was a memory of someone he killed, perished by his Bone Magic.
Which he doesn’t want to see yet—even though he’ll have to retrieve it, eventually.
We don’t have to go there, though, not just yet. I’m content to let Ström wander and explore the calmer memories that are surfacing now, being here.
Because he’s finally able to do it without shuddering himself to death and nearly Wraithing up into his dragon. Though a maelstrom ofemotions pummels him now with the memories he’s receiving, he’s breathing through it, letting himself feel it now rather than going amok.
I reach out with my power, sending steadiness to him, as I feel Bjorn do the same. Ström smiles softly, as he feels our power reach him. He sighs, and there’s so much in it; loss, pain, woe, anger, frustration, sadness. But there’s also love and gratitude that Bjorn and I are here to help. And we’re not going anywhere, as Ström halts now at one aisle full of moldy wine barrels.
Hunkering and retrieving a little metal box.
He stands, brushing off the box. Little more than a small jewelry box, it has an ancient Blood Dragon design on it, though it’s battered and beat to shit. Ström closes his eyes, summoning his Bone Magic in a dark wind around him. He sends all that power cascading through his fingertips, as he taps out a pattern upon the box.
Hidden runes lighting up on it now like Christmas.
It’s stunning, as the silver box comes to life. I feel itchunkopen, as some mechanism inside it is unlocked—because a low power wave of Bone Magic goes sweeping through the underground, hitting Bjorn and me like a punch. It comes less to me because I have Bone Magic in my abilities. Bjorn gets the worst of it, hammered to his knees like someone actually punched him.
His power only Blood Magic—connected to Ström’s and my Bone Magic just through me.
“Fuck!” Bjorn cusses as he growls, gripping his solar plexus with one hand. “Whatever that was, it sure didn’t like my magic being here.”
“Bone Mage locking spell,” Ström says quietly, as he opens the silver box. I can see there’s nothing inside, as Ström calmly runs his fingers around the empty box, as if looking for something magically obscured inside it. It seems there’s nothing, however, as he grunts.
