Before Quinn could say anything, Hal spoke up, pinching the bridge of his nose in a way that Quinn thought he’d break it.

  “Wait. So you’re telling me the Library gave you the book to look out for, and it wasn’t your brother?”

  “Of course not. You remember the tirade he went on about the Library after the fact,” Drukala scoffed. “In fact, part of the reason I came out to this hibernation spot was because he doesn’t know where this one is.”

  She sounded smug and Quinn’s alarm bells went off like they were ringing through her gut and trying to make her pay attention. And oh, how she was. She just didn’t know what it was she should be looking out for. Glancing around, she sought out Drukala’s shadows, partially relieved to see them moving around the edges, still obviously a sort of patrol for her.

  Hal frowned. “So you knew you needed to keep it safe?”

  Dru shrugged. “Sure. They were just both so insistent. Separately even. The Library and Lynx. So sure that it was necessary for me to take this book in specific and keep it safe. You know I have a soft spot for Drev. I’d do almost anything for that damned book hoarding dragon. So... I figured looking after this one piece of the hoard wasn’t bad. Plus, I got to check out a heap of others to help me get settled in time for my hibernation.”

  Quinn’s stomach roiled so much she thought it was going to explode.

  Something stirred in the tent behind her, and she did a double take as Eric hovered into view. He was sleep mussed and his eyes were bleary until he realized they were actually in a cavern and not at the base of the mountain like they’d been when he went to sleep. He blinked, noticed that Hal was there, and the tension leaked out of his shoulders as his gaze drifted over to both Quinn and Drukala.

  He raised an eyebrow and sighed. “It’s way too early for this shit. I’m going back to sleep.” And he went back into the tent mumbling about too much noise and raised voices as he went.

  Quinn couldn’t help the smile. And then she realized that Drukala had freaking teleported the entire encampment of theirs up to this cavern, and Quinn had no clue how. Were dragons just that magical? “How did you do that? Like move all of them, all of our things, and not even wake them?”

  Drukala examined her for a second before a sincere smile crossed her face. “You have them all too! Wow... you must tell me how they managed to create you. I can’t believe they did...”

  “Focus Dru.” Hal said, but there was a fondness in his eyes that Quinn rarely saw on the old satyr.

  “Oh yes. How? Well, you just have to combine the different affinities. You need air, of course, and then there’s the directional force and pull of the poles - you know, magneticism. Those two can be finicky if you don’t actually understand them. Although, if you were just going to teleport the tent and its belongings, it’d be a simple matter of transferring things and not living, breathing, organic beings. That’s always a little trickier, you know?”

  Quinn nodded, trying to keep up, even as she extended her senses, trying to reach whatever lurked on the edges of them, pulling at her sensitivities.

  It was like Drukala took that as an okay to keep going. And to be fair. It sort of was.

  “Well - transporting means that you need control over speed, as well as momentum generation, and then you’re going to want to utilize gravity stability and generation as well as maintenance. All in all, I probably accessed about thirty-eight odd affinities to move the tent and us all to where I wanted us. That and its imperative that your concentration and meditative abilities allow you to multitask on a high level. It’s a good thing I’ve been asleep a while replenishing myself and my focus.” She leans in somewhat conspiratorially. “I’m not usually so good with the concentration part, you know. But I was trying to show off a bit.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure if she liked that admission. After all - if she was usually bad at concentration, did that mean they could have all been spliced or something? Still though, combining that many affinities at once to be able to levitate and displace and safely land a camping set up as big as theirs. Quinn thought that was pretty damn impressive. “I really hope I get to your level of control one day.”

  Drukala laughed delightedly. “You’re a flatterer.”

  “No. Seriously. I haven’t been doing this long and I always feel like I’m doing something wrong. It’s nice to see that there are levels I can reach with my affinities.” Quinn couldn’t keep the earnestness out of her voice. Just when she’d accepted that she was becoming pretty damn powerful, someone always showed her, without fail, that she still had so far to go, even though she’d already come so far to begin with.

  Drukala smiled. This was genuine, something that leant a softness to her angular features. She stepped toward Quinn and brushed an errant curl back up into her pony tail. “You remind me of Drev, you know. All earnest and eager, all willing to go that extra bit. Thank you.”

  Quinn wasn’t entirely sure how she should react to that. But it felt close, not just in proximity but in a sort of emotional connection, blood wise. “Yeah. Well. I’ve still got a heap to learn.”

  “That’s not half obvious,” Drukala grinned at her.

  Hal was about to speak when Quinn’s stomach felt like it fell out of her body. She gasped and dropped to one knee, trying vainly to focus in on where the alarm stemmed from. There was panic flowing through her veins. Complete and utter warnings tingling in her brain.

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  “Something...” but then it was gone, and she gasped in the air, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Drukala didn’t seem to understand. “Are you okay? What happened just then?”

  “Wards.” Hal said, his eyes like two pools of glowing blood. “She’s attuned to the wards around here, sent out her senses. Something crossed. Didn’t you feel it?”

  The dragon frowned as she closed her eyes ever so briefly. Shadows spread across her face as the frown deepened. “That’s not quite...”

  Quinn pulled herself back up, her senses returned to her. The uneasiness had compounded and yet, there wasn’t any complete answer to the questions she had. It was as if the information she wanted was just out of reach. Just unable to be reached... no matter how hard she tried.

  Hal cleared his throat. “Even I’m not getting the best information from these surrounding areas. How many wards did you put up?”

  Drukala shrugged. “Enough. Just my usual over the world. More around this cavern, though. It seemed important to Drev and so I didn’t want to screw it up.” The tone of her voice told Quinn she’d perhaps often let her sibling down... even if inadvertently.

  He clapped his hands together, drawing their attention. “Time to get everyone else up and ready then, because there are vibrations reaching me that I don’t like the feeling of. Better to be safe than sorry, eh?”

  Hal entered the tent to wake up Geneva, Eric, Malakai, and Jasper. Quinn turned slowly around, trying to get herself oriented with the directions.

  “That shouldn’t be...” she heard her aunt mutter. It also felt super surreal to call someone her aunt.

  “What’s wrong?” Quinn asked, only half paying attention to what was being said, considering she had to continue to comb her sensory nets. The thing was, it was something she could mostly push to the back of her mind while she did it. Quite easy to multitask.

  Usually anyway. This time, however, it really seemed as if there was something she’d missed. Or perhaps that someone knew how to get around her defenses now. Which was worrying in its own right.

  “There...” Dru frowned, her eyes lighting up like suns more than moons this time. Just a brief flash of power rolling through her. It made Quinn shiver. “There are gaps in my protections where there shouldn’t be gaps. Ones that I’d be very aware of had they always been there.”

  Quinn nodded. It was about what she expected. All things considered, she was surprised it was taking them so long. Maybe they were scanning them as well, taking into account just what Quinn and her group were doing. It was another theory. Plausible enough in itself. “Do you use more than protection shielding to set out your sensory nets?” Quinn asked, trying to get Dru to stop the focused attention she was giving the warning system.

  Something about it made Quinn positive that their incoming visitors weren’t worried about triggering traps, especially when there would be victims were so focused on them. Lulling them into a false sense of security by exploiting loopholes.

  There.

  She felt it, even as she tried to focus on the answer Dru spoke. Quinn separated her mind, just like the books taught her, and followed that one track - that one glimpse, knowing that she’d found the real one and not the decoy. An odd sense of accomplishment rose in her as she listened to Dru’s answer.

  “Yep. You need elemental weavings in them, just a fraction of elemental creation, to make sure that the net not only goes after organic material but also levels of sentience, sapience, and raw elements. There are so many compositions of magic that a security grid should be able to take all of them into consideration, but that’s not always the case.” She sounded like she also wasn’t completely focused on her task, or the talking.

  Geneva fluttered out, hovering right next to Quinn’s shoulder. She practically vibrated with anticipation. “Plan?”

  “Still waiting to see just what we’re facing.”

  “It’s going to be him again.” Malakai said, his mood obviously sour.

  Quinn had noticed he wasn’t the best when his sleep was broken up. No sleep? He seemed absolutely fine, but broken sleep? And Malakai was indeed not your friend.

  “Might not be him.” Eric grumbled. “I’m going to melt his ass to the damn rock.”

  Quinn suppressed a laugh. Eric was always in a fine mood when he didn’t sleep enough. “That’d make a pretty neat sculpture.” She said, pretending she didn’t see Eric’s mouth quirk up at the corners.

  Jasper moved closer to Quinn, her nervousness radiating from her pale skin. She didn’t say anything, only nodded in acknowledgement. Meanwhile, Drukala’s eyes were practically sun-like orbs. It was as if she could see everything and anything all at once. Her hair streamed out behind her, her streaks on fire too. Nothing burned, but the whole area around them teemed with life. In Quinn’s eyes, it was breathtaking.

  Another pull on her wards. Subtle, just passing through, almost trying to fool Quinn’s magic into thinking it belonged there. But the sense of wrong wouldn’t abate.

  “They’re coming...” Dru whispered, but the sound penetrated through all of them, bringing them to attention, making sure they were aware.

  “Can they even get up here? In here?” Hal asked, frowning.

  Drukala cocked her head to one side, her fiery eyes suddenly coming back to themselves to leave the pale moon pearlescent ones in its place. “Yes. Yes, they can. But it’s not Drav coming...” She seemed conflicted and confused.

  But on closer inspection, Quinn thought she might actually be truly scared, and that frightened her more than she’d like to admit.

  Drukala gasped, and if possible, paled even more than she already was. As if all the color had escaped her. “Oh... This is worse than I thought...”

  Quinn glanced over at Hal, raising an eyebrow in question.

  But even Hal was pale now, a recognition Quinn couldn’t follow dawning in his eyes. She bit down on the need to tell them all to bloody well tell her who it was they were about to encounter. At least she knew Kajaro was locked away, unable to get out.

  Suddenly, Drukala pivoted. She began casting protections traps, vanishing and recreating all sorts of aspects of the cavern. “Help me. We have about five minutes before she gets here to make this terrain work.”

  Quinn could feel the panic her aunt was barely holding at bay and felt a strange surge of pride for her. Still, though, she had to ask. “Who?”

  The look Dru shot her was filled with so much heartache, it made Quinn take a step back. “You feel so much like Drev that I keep forgetting you’re not.” She sighed, and for a split second, the fight drained away before it was replaced with renewed determination. “My oldest sister...”

  The way Hal shuddered made it clear just how bad that might be.

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