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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

H yax wrinkled his nose at the odour of the pervading dampness in the cellar. “Why are we down here?”

Ashley was reading from a book that must’ve been as old as the house. “The cellars are specifically warded for a high level of magical activity. There are dampening fields which are some of the strongest in the country, and given what we’re trying to achieve, we don’t want any rogue spells causing issues.”

“We could do this as safely outside, where there wasn’t a house that could fall on our head.”

“From a security stance, it’s far better to keep this inside,” Alex said. “The magic will transmit a unique signature and I don’t want to risk the work we’re doing being detected.”

This was going to be hard enough, but Hyax wasn’t used to being trapped underground without natural light. “While I agree for the initial work, we should move eventually to where the spells will be cast, as the environment can have an impact.”

“That’ll be in the brewing outhouses,” Ashley explained. “Partly because we will need to act quickly once the potion is ready, but also because they are heavily warded as well.”

“They’ll need tuning to Prince Hyax,” Alex said. “And Mr Webb.”

“I should probably explain that Jack is also a warlock, and we’ll need to adapt the spell to take his magic into account.”

Hyax was getting a headache, everything seemed to have an extra complication. “Is there anything simple about this?”

“No,” Ashley said with a grin. “To be honest, it’s partly why I agreed to help. I love a challenge.”

He handed Hyax the book he was holding. “We’ve not worked together before, so I don’t have a measure of your magic apart from when I shook your hand. The first step is for me, you and Alex to have a threesome, although not in the sexual sense,” he added quickly.

“A mapping of our energy cores is the most expeditious approach. Despite how we’d deny it, elf and fae magic aren’t so different.” He glanced at Alex to see if he’d argue but he was nodding. “It’d be your warlock elements that’ll stand out as different.”

The core mapping was also the least intimate of ways to get to know a fellow magic practitioner. Sex was an excellent shortcut as people tended to let their guard down, but that wasn’t an option.

Alex produced a glowing cube with a wave of his hand. “We elves have this device. It’s a projection unit, prevents unnecessary… touching.”

Hyax snorted. “From what I know of elves, you’re not averse to touching things, especially things that don’t belong to you.”

“But this is different. Knowing the essence of someone’s magic gives them the upper hand and no one needs to know everything, the cube will filter only the required information.”

Elves were secretive bastards, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. “I’m okay to use your toy if you wish. We are all working towards the same goal here.”

Alex placed a cube on the floor between them. “It’ll take a moment to warm up, but then the scan will take a few seconds.”

He’d never encountered this technology before, and he was wary of anything elvish. “I would want assurance that there is no recording of the data collected.”

“I swear on my holar that I will keep no record, we will all experience each other’s magic, nothing more.”

The holar was a sacred oath for elves and Hyax would need to decide whether he trusted Alex or not.

Ashley looked more curious than concerned. “Should we wait for Jack to do this? I was going to summon him once we were a bit further advanced with the plan.”

“He is being cast against, not the one doing the magic, I would suggest we get on with it and create what we need for Gwil and Robin first and then retune for Jack,” Alex said. “We don’t need him yet.”

Hyax didn’t like the elf taking the lead. He would put his own measures in place. “Let’s get on with it, I would prefer to set up a monitoring sequence to make sure nothing unexpected happens.”

“Agreed,” Ashley said. “We want you to be comfortable with helping, Hyax. Alex has my full trust, but you don’t know him, and so until you do, it is only fair to put in place mechanisms to make you confident you’ve made the right decision.”

Ashley would make a great politician, Hyax thought. There was no option to back out though, as he wouldn’t abandon Gwil to this lot. “Then all should be fine. But I will still put my own precautions in place.”

Alex’s smile was tight-lipped. “All we need to do is fire a basic spell at the cube. Doesn’t matter what, as it’s all about the underlying energy pattern.”

Hyax muttered a spell under his breath that would track ill-intent, and on Alex’s cue fired a charm designed to remove dirt and odour, which was relatively simple compared to what he was capable of. The other two did the same. The cube glowed green and levitated off the floor and three beams of yellow light shot out. Hyax flinched on impact, but more out of surprise as there was no associated pain. A wave of bubbles raced across his tongue. His brain felt as if it had lurched ten degrees to the right, and he had an absolute awareness of the flavour of Alex and Ashley’s magic, he knew how to work with them, how to adapt his own magic but not cause malice. The cube gave him the information he needed to work, and he could see from Alex’s expression he’d had the same experience. Ashley didn’t seem to be affected but Hyax wondered if he’d experienced this sort of thing before with the Warlock Ruling Committee.

The cube shut off.

“Well, I’d say that was successful.” Alex grinned, the tips of his pointy ears were red.

Hyax realised he too had a pooling warmth around his ears and neck and moved his hair in the hope of covering any spreading patches.

“Yes,” Ashley agreed. “I’m far more certain now that we can do this. I’d been worried about the fae magic being counterproductive, but now I see a way to use it as an amplifier. Gentlemen, it’s time for us to get to work.”

Some of the areas of magical theorems were new to him, and Hyax loved that he was learning new things. They tried combinations of spells, practising on watermelons, and a pile of split and mangled fruit began to amass. Once they had managed to develop a spell that worked without covering them with juice, they moved on to chickens. Thankfully the bantam hen morphed into a mallard without coming to any harm.

“We should probably try it on Gwil to confirm,” Ashley said as they took a break and reread his notes.

“No fucking way,” Hyax said, he was tired, and needed some downtime, but there was no way Gwil would be subjected to this until they were ready. “He’s not a guinea pig, I won’t have anything but the final spell near him.”

Alex wrinkled his nose. “I think Mr Hewel would be similarly minded about Mr Flint. But we should try it on a vampire.”

“Then we’ll go get one that no one cares about,” Ashley said. “There’ll be plenty in the clubs, hanging around hoping to work their way into the favour of a House.”

Hyax didn’t care who they used, as long as it wasn’t Gwil. “How do we get one?”

“I imagine if a beautiful blond fae walked up to one and offered a night they’d never forget, we’d have a willing helper,” Ashley said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, yes,” Alex agreed. He checked his watch. “It’s a bit early. But you could portal to a club closer to sunset and pick someone who’s not managed to get paired up and knock ’em out. I’ll have a car ready to bring them here. Once they wake up your magic will have worn off and I’ll explain they’ve been specially selected to help the House of Hewel.”

“No. Send someone else.” He yawned. “I’m going to get some rest, then shag my partner. You can kidnap your own vampire.”

He stalked out, the nerve of some people. Hyax was a prince, not some common oik who could be ordered about. Alex was an elf and Ashley was a warlock, and neither were known for being submissive creatures, so they should have known the fae were the kings of being uppity bastards and he was going to play stuck-up prince for as long as he could. For now, he would hope Gwil was still in bed or could at least be persuaded to return.