Page 47 of Anchor

Would he use a disguise like he did in the Iris Roe? Because those would be useless in the IDD Headquarters. The wards here were meant to strip anybody of any standard concealing magics, so he wouldn’t be able to even get through the gates while wearing someone else’s face. The Iris Roe had been different—Billy Dayne had said it himself. Theywantedthe players to cheat so the wards were weak.

Curiosity got the best of me when I found myself in front of the red line on the marble floor that separated level one from two. I shouldn’t have wanted to go in there—I really shouldn’t have, but then I looked back at Cassie and she was still going over the files in her folder, searching the smaller drawers somewhere to the other side of the room, and I just wanted to see the veler. That’s all—I just wanted toseeit, nothing more. Just see it through the glass.

So, I stepped over the red line and to the other side.

I expected sirens to go off somewhere. I expected guards to come in running, telling me tostop right there, put your hands above your head!

The fear was crippling, and it took me a second to realize that nobody could actually see inside my head. They didn’t know what I was thinking, and even if they did, I wasn’t going tostealanything, for fuck’s sake.

Get a grip, Rora,I shouted at myself in my head. I was being silly, that’s all. I was only being silly, and the proof was in the fact that nobody came running with their wands and guns aimed at me, and no alarms went on anywhere. Cassie hadn’t even looked up from her folder, and other than the air getting much heavier on this side of the red line, nothing else had changed.

So much magic.

I breathed in and the air was so thick it felt like my lungs were contaminated. These artifacts that were under the second level of protection were more dangerous, and that’s why they locked them in so tightly. Not because someone might break in and steal them, no—the entire room was equally protected from outsiders. It was the magic that these artifacts leaked into the atmosphere that made us extra cautious. That’s why the IDD ensured that their energy, whatever they leaked, remained inside the box with them.

Not as many things in these boxes as in the first part of the room, but there were still plenty. Not as usual as books and pens and ashtrays and sunglasses, but here the artifacts looked more like actual artifacts. That’s because they were made for bigger magics, and they were much harder to create. You couldn’t justcursethese things into existence. Their creation required a great deal of thought, and their creators had picked a variety of different materials. Wood and glass and metal shaped mostly in circles, but also in triangles and squares. Each artifact had theirfile underneath in their glass box, and if I wanted to open one of the boxes on the walls, I’d need the unlocking spell just to glance at the files. Only the ones in the drawers in the stand-cabinets were accessible without that spell, hence why Cassie was here alone without one of the guards to help her get something out.

I went in deeper and deeper, searching the boxes, even though there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t even see the veler. So many things, and what if its box was somewhere on the other side of the room?

But then I saw it.

My heart stopped beating for a good moment, and I felt suspended on air. The veler was inside a glass box about three heads higher than me, on the very last row. I had to move farther back just to make sure that it was it. I recognized it because I’d seen it in class—a circle just bigger than both my fists together, and it was made of pure black obsidian that somehow didn’t even reflect light as it should, as my father’s ring did.It looks like it can absorb your soul and imprison it forever,my friend Kayla had said then.

That thing wasit.The very reason why Taland was now a wanted criminal. The reason why he’d tried to sneak into the Strongroom, why he’d spent almost two whole years in prison.

Goddess, now I wanted to destroy it. I wanted to climb up there with my bare hands, grab that thing and destroy it, break it to pieces—which I knewcouldn’tbe done, but still. I wanted it gone because the urge to blameitfor everything was so strong just now. The urge to blame anyone but myself.

But maybe David Hill was responsible for this whole thing instead.

What was it that Radock Tivoux told me when he had me chained to a chair in his basement?The mission didn’t exist on paper. You were never hired by the IDD, and Taland wasnever a suspect before his capture.Yes, those had been his exact words.

Was he telling the truth?

Now I was itching to go back to my cubicle and start searching the archives. I’d search every single day until I found Taland’s file, until I found the mission that Hill sent me on, just to prove to myself that they were liars. The Tivoux brothers—they were liars. Of course, the mission existed, and I was going to find proof of it.

But before I did, I wanted to see the veler better one more time, so I moved further back on my tiptoes, fully focused on that black orb.

That’s why I didn’t see the cabinet full of drawers until I basically slammed onto it with my hip and almost knocked it to the floor.

My heart almost beat out of my chest. Instinct took over and I moved before I’d even realized it. I just found myself with my hands on three of the glass drawers that had been in the process of opening and falling onto the marble floor, but the last one still slipped out of its place. Just the last one, and it was close enough to the floor, so it didn’t break and it barely even made a sound.

Meanwhile, I was breathing like I’d been running for days, and the whole Headquarters could hear my heartbeat.Fuck, fuck, fuck!Sweat beads lined my forehead. My hands shook when I slowly pushed the drawers back in place, as the magic, so heavy and thick, coated my throat with every breath.

A dozen purple marbles were in the third drawer from the top, the fourth empty. Some feathers carved out of wood in the fifth drawer, and on the last was this strange-looking, dark brown circle made out of what could have beenmud.Dry, hard mud. The drawer was still half open and I couldn’t help but touch that thing with the tip of my finger just to make sure that it wasn’t soft—it wasn’t. In fact, it was cold to the touch and feltlike metal against my skin. No magic came off of it that I could tell—it felt like nothing in particular, and that’s why I took it out and brought it closer to inspect it.

A bracelet.

The band was maybe three inches wide. It looked like one of those bracelets that didn’t come together full circle around the wrist but had an inch between the edges so you could adjust the size however you wanted. This one didn’t move when I tried to squeeze it—whatever it was made of, mud or metal or something else, was thick and sturdy, and heavy, too. No engravings and no other shape on it, and I almost put it around my wrist just to try it. Thank goddess Cassie called me from the front of the room.

“Hey, Mud—I mean, Redfire. Still alive?”

I put the bracelet back in its drawer to find that it didn’t have a folder at the bottom like all the other objects above it.

“Coming!” I called because there was no time to inspect if the folder had fallen somewhere—it wasn’t on the floor, and that was good enough for now. If somebody needed it, they’d look for it. It had probably slipped in the back of the cabinet anyway.

I went back to Cassie, and by the time she saw me, my face was perfectly expressionless.

However, nothing could be done about my cheeks.

---