Page 57 of Transfiguration
“Not helping, Harding,” Con griped.
“You’re using one of your tracers for Bella, right? I’d want you to do it if it were Link. The sooner the better. Who knows what they are doing to her? The kid has crazy power for being so young, and I’ve seen far too many kids with magic abused.” Kelly made his way to the counter, taking the whisk from Seiran. “Go.”
“You knew he had trackers on our kids?”
“On us too,” Kelly agreed. “Not a better tracker out there.”
Con headed for the door to the garage, Seiran hot on his heels. “Is any of your land clear of wards?”
“No,” Seiran said as he picked a key from the rack beside the door and headed toward the nearest car. Not the minivan, but a nondescript sedan with tinted windows. “There’s a slight break in the trees about a half mile away that I use sometimes for bigger spells.”
Con examined him for a minute before getting into the passenger seat of the car. Seiran got in the driver’s seat, opened the garage, and backed them out. “What sort of bigger spells?”
“Practice mostly. Controlling Gaea, facing the fae, creating wards. It creates less of a ripple if I keep away from the ley lines.”
“Ley lines run through your property.” Con could sense they were there.
“Yes. There are millions of ley lines all over the world.”
“But they don’t converge like the one we saw at the killing field earlier.”
“Very few do, and those were manipulated to cross. I know all the lines in Minnesota, and none of them converge. Gaea and I work to monitor the few that do on this continent.” He steered them out of the long drive and down the road lined with endless trees and pulled off onto a dirt road.
“You didn’t feel the change in the lines they forced to cross? It has to take a lot of power to move ley lines,” Con said as he watched the tree line swallow up the road behind them. Very few would have seen the small turnoff, and even fewer would dare venture this deep on a narrow, dirty road.
“No, and that’s interesting. I have a catalog of runes found around the cabin. Some are only partial as they hid what they did, but maybe you’d better understand them? Could a rune, or many runes, suppress an energy surge like that?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Con said. “Runes are focused magic. Like a bullet in a gun. Ley lines are wild magic. It’s like forcing a fae to do something. Could a rune do that?”
Seiran guided the car to a stop, though it didn’t look like they were anywhere in particular, but the road ended in a giant tree, easily six feet around at the base and forty feet high. Con got out as Seiran did, the scent of pine filling his senses. If this was a practice area for magic, it wasn’t as unsettled as the ring of magic at the body site had been. Birds sang, bugs hummed, and the wind ruffled through a mix of oak and maple, sliding a singing chant through the giant pines. Con sucked in a deep breath, feeling the wind ease the lingering edge of anxiety that had forced his brain to struggle to focus.
“A blood bond can control fae, not all that different from vampires, or their true name, which none will tell you,” Seiran said as he led Con around the giant tree and a dozen yards into the woods. A circle of mushrooms bloomed, glowing with magic and swirling with energy that made Con’s power sing.
“Holy fuck, Rou,” Con muttered, observing the size of it. “You’ve been playing with fae magic.”
“Learning about it. Trying to help Kaine,” Seiran admitted. “Bryar is not a great teacher, though he tries. He’s more than a little impatient with teaching things he does as easily as breathing. I summon some of the other fae from time to time. Requests, not demands.”
“Offering favors to the fae? Is that smart?” Con knew how it worked, which was why he spent little time learning fae magic, only how to avoid them.
“Small things. A seed, or a place in my garden. I’m very careful.” Seiran stepped up to the side of the ring. “Will this work for your tracking thing? It should amplify a spell without blowback.”
Should. Con called the wind to focus his gaze on the magic blazing from the ring. He expected it to be blinding, rather than smooth and subtle, the lines of magic more waves and wiggles than anything defined. “When this is all over, and everyone is safe, we trade info,” Con demanded. “I need to know this stuff.”
“And I need to learn more about runes,” Seiran agreed.
Con swung the bag off his back, took a hesitant step into the ring, and felt the magic slide over him. Welcoming, and soft, like a cool evening breeze, it tickled through his senses, searching his power, seeming to find it acceptable and letting him enter the ring. He found the center and took out the chalk to draw, not with firm lines but with the powder, like crafting a football field. He used the wind to clarify and force the chalk dust to fall in a perfect circle, adding the lines for his tracking spell with kinetic force.
“How close can I be to watch?” Seiran asked.
“Just stay outside my circle.”
“Okay,” Seiran agreed. He wandered around the edge, examining the markings. “Does all tracking start this way?”
“Yes, if there is a specific rune tied to me, to track.”
“I can track their magic signatures in the waves of wild magic, but I have to borrow vision from a bird or something to do it. It’s pretty visual. Does this work the same?”
“More like a beacon in my head,” Con corrected. “It gives me a sense of direction, and the strength of the pull tells me how close or how far it is.”