Page 37 of Shield of Fire

The gavel banged, briefly cutting through the rising tension. “I assure you, Ms. Aodhán, the council has no need and no desire to interfere in your personal life. It was merely our intention to separate the two. Mathi Dhar-Val was a logical choice given he is well aware of your... shall we call them foibles?... and no longer involved on a personal level.”

In other words, Mathi was right. None of them had wanted to take Cynwrig’s place, despite the fact most of them didn’t know me and had never even interacted with me other than the one other time I’d appeared here.

My reputation—or perhaps that of my brother and maybe even Mom, given she’d worked for the council on numerous occasions—apparently did loom large. No matter the reason, though, I wasn’t about to gripe about it. Not if it kept them from keeping too close an eye on what I was doing.

Which reminded me...

“There is one thing I’ll need,” I said, my pulse rate stepping up several notches. This the tricky bit—the bit on which all my plans to find Mom’s killer basically hinged. “And that’s full access to the council’s records. I need to know what discussions might have been held on anything relating to the hoard or the items within it in order to understand what to look for and where.”

An uneasy sort of murmur went around the room. Cynwrig merely raised an eyebrow, amusement briefly glimmering in his eyes. But then, both he and Mathi were well aware I had access to a godly library that contained all the information I could ever want—presuming I asked the right questions, of course.

“It would be impossible to grant such access without allowing access to all our records,” the rat shifter said with a frown, “as it would take years to redact any non-relevant information and it is obvious we do not have that time.”

“You want me to find the hoard? Then you give me access to the information. Hamstringing me from the start is not going to help the process.”

The rat shifter glanced around the table, then returned his gaze to me. “We will discuss the matter privately and inform you of the decision. In the meantime, we can confirm that the ruby you and Mathi found in the murdered woman’s apartment remains in our possession.”

“It might be handy to know which one it is,” I said. “Is there any way we can do that?”

“That could only be achieved via the input of a mage or, indeed, with the shield itself, as each stone has a specific location on its surface,” the rat shifter said. “We haven’t the shield and we certainly will not be hiring the former. To reveal the ruby’s presence to anyone else in the current situation would be unwise. Even this council is not fully aware of its exact location.”

Which was probably a good thing given what had happened to Mathi. And while all councilors were now undergoing daily blood tests to ensure they weren’t similarly being drugged and then pumped for information, that didn’t mean there weren’t other means to use.

Like kidnapping and threats.

The latter were unlikely to work on light elves given how little they valued emotional ties and sometimes even family, but the rest of them were fair game, even the dark elves.

“Wherever you do have it, I’d be doubling the security measures,” Mathi said. “While to date there’s been no suggestion the elf mage is after the shield itself, we cannot take the risk.”

“That has already been done,” the woman who’d been adjudicator the last time I’d been here said. “Not even a ghost could approach its location without setting off multiple alarms and security measures.”

Shame they hadn’t employed said measures earlier; maybe we wouldn’t now be looking for the entire hoard. Then I frowned. “Just how big is the hoard? No one’s actually said.”

The elderly elf said, “If my memory serves me correctly, there were fifty-seven artifacts and a dozen scrolls.”

“Scrolls?” I said, surprised. “Are they not something the museum would be better suited to caretake?”

“The scrolls are said to be written by the hands of the gods themselves, and therefore dangerous to the mortal eye.”

And I wasn’t mortal. My heart began beating faster again. “Were the scrolls also taken?”

“No.” His gaze swept me almost contemptuously. “And before you ask, young pixie, you will never be allowed to enter that room to examine them. We have never been able to do so. What guards them is... well, not of this world.”

“How can you be sure they even exist if you can’t get in there to verify?”

“I never said we can’t see them. I just said we can’t touch them.”

Meaning I had to figure out a way of doing what they could not. No easy task when I had no idea where the scrolls were kept, and they were never likely to tell me. Presuming they knew, of course. Apparently, very few people had known the hoard’s location, and yet it had still been stolen.

Maybe the Codex had information on them. It was certainly worth asking the next time I went there.

I nodded, then pushed upright. “Is that all?”

The rat shifter frowned. “We would like a regular update on progress.”

“If there’s any progress, then I’m sure Mathi will inform you.” I hesitated. “Please let me know what your decision is regarding access to the records.”

“We will, but do not place all your bets on full access being granted.”

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