Page 114 of Found in Obscurity

“Taking them down,” Kit said. His voice was shaking, but he had to believe that was what they were doing. He had to force himself to have faith in Lorin and the people he trusted.

“From over here?” the man asked with a sardonic tilt to his mouth. “Doesn’t seem very efficient if you ask me.”

Against everything he was, Kit actually snapped at the man, jaw clicking and muscles tensing as he lunged forward, needing to do something, finally.

“Kit!” Lorin’s arms held him back, wrapping themselves around him like vines, safe and familiar against the tide of the unknown. He felt a surge of power from Lorin feed into his shift, solidifying him as human before he could lose it to the tide of his own emotions.

The other man looked at them curiously for a moment before speaking again.

“Soulbonded,” he said. “Interesting.”

“How can you tell?” Kit asked, feeling like the sanctity of his bond with Lorin was somehow compromised by the fact that someone else could see it. Know about it.

“I can tell a lot of things, fox boy,” the man said. “I can tell you’re telling the truth. I can tell you’ve been here before. And I can also tell you’re feeling them now.”

Kit stiffened in Lorin’s arms. “Them?”

“The captive shifters. They’re here. Howling for help. Desperate.”

It was the call of his kind.

“Have you been following us? Back in the woods on the way here?” Lorin asked suddenly, and the man nodded without a word. “Why?”

“To make sure you weren’t one of them,” he said simply. “We’ve been trying to find the missing shifters for way too long. We couldn’t allow a bunch of strangers to fuck everything up now that we’re finally getting somewhere.”

“You are?” Kit asked, standing straight, his voice getting louder. “You know where they are?”

“We know where they aren’t.”

Kit frowned. “Excuse me?”

“We can feel them here, but we can’t find them anywhere. We’ve looked. Countless times. We’ve sent our best trackers. We know they’re here somewhere, but the magic hiding them is beyond what we can work against.”

Kit blinked as he took the information in, hope rising in his chest as he mulled it over. Magic too much for them to see. To find.

For them.

But not for…

“Can you do the spell again?” He turned to Lorin, looking up into his eyes, pleading, desperate for him to say yes.

“The…”

“The one from before,” Kit said. “To make me see…find things. Lorin, please.”

“I can’t…” Lorin shook his head with an overwhelmed expression, his dark hair bouncing around it like a halo. “I’m sorry but I can’t do it alone. You saw how much power it took for the elders. I have nowhere near that.”

“You do,” Kit said, pawing at his hands to touch over his markings. They weren’t the same as the elders by any stretch, but he was blinded by desperation. “You do, I know you do, Lorin. You don’t trust yourself but I know you’re capable of so much more than you realize. Please.”

Lorin stilled Kit’s fluttering, sharp nails pressing into his skin to bring some clarity. Kit could almost hear his heart shattering, could see it reflected back at him in Lorin’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Kit hated to hear the guilt. Hated that he’d put it there. He looked down at the ground, ashamed. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

Lorin rubbed a thumb over Kit’s cheek to raise his head. “We might be able to try something else.”

Kit grasped his wrist tightly. “Anything.”

Lorin pulled out a page ripped from a notebook and a bag filled with ingredients. He laid it all on the ground, drawing a crude pentagram around it all.