Page 43 of Secrets and Ruin

“Dirk is less likely to be mimicked. The fae knew the young man had no power here over the others and that he was educated by Nikolaus about the dangers of these places. He never fell for them, and they knew he couldn’t be used against us. While everyone here on staff loves the son of Nikolaus, we also trust he will follow the safety rules. We’re not to save him. We’re to contact Nikolaus and have him investigate.

“I wasn’t here, but I know of a story from when Dirk was young. One of the footmen saw Dirk outside the barriers. It was midday, a time that shouldn’t be dangerous, but he was a young child. The footman ran for Niko, hoping he wasn’t leaving the boy to die. Niko was reading to Dirk in his room. I spoke to that footman. He went to show Niko how Dirk was also outside the barrier. He Changed the moment he saw the imposter fae. He killed it while it was still wearing his son’s face.”

“Did… Dirk see that?” I asked in a small voice.

“I don’t know, but you are asking for the dangers of the woods around the estate. The fae are certainly one of them—”

“So is Niko,” Landon said, not letting Ansel finish his own thought. The words rang true to me. If Niko couldn’t verify that we were who we said we were, we were in just as much danger. Landon, Heath, and Fenris were werewolves who could overpower me, but they were some of the few I had met who could, and I wasn’t even twenty years into being a werecat. Niko was roughly eight hundred. If he wanted anyone dead, there was a small chance they would survive.

“Yes, Nikolaus is also dangerous if you don’t respect the dangers of this area. If you don’t respect what he asks of you to verify you aren’t a fae in disguise, he will attack first.”

“Can we see what sort of equipment or gear he might have for people needing to go into the woods?” Landon was jumping back into action, which I was grateful for.

I came here for Dirk and Niko, to hopefully stop Fenris, and there was a chance we were all wrong about this. What we were hearing now was pointing to more dangers than I knew how to deal with.

“I…” Ansel looked around, unsure of himself.

“Let me ask something that will make this easier.” It was clear Ansel hadn’t been given any sort of plan in case he had to get weapons to fight the fae himself, so I picked a new direction of questioning. “If Niko died, who would inherit this place?”

“Dirk, of course,” Ansel said, his puzzled expression telling me he had no idea what I was getting at.

“Dirk was human when that would have been decided. What would Niko have left him for his own safety? If that doesn’t help find anything that can help, then does Niko have some sort of emergency plan if his family needs to go out there?”

His eyes going wide, Ansel waved for us to follow him. He walked out of the library and across the hall to an unlocked door, an ancient office. He didn’t enter and put a hand in front of Landon.

“If there is anything like that, it would be in this room. Nikolaus told me to only let anyone in this space if he was dead. He specified it could only be his family, no one else. I’m not allowed to step inside.”

“He’s not dead, but thank you,” I said softly, approaching the desk. “Leave the door open while I do this.”

I was rummaging through another desk, but now I knew there was some connection between my Fenris and Niko. Remembering that, I pulled out the desk drawers, ignoring the more benign things to get to the bottoms. It was odd because the more I looked at it, the more I realized this had to be the original desk, and Fenris’s was a clone of it. Some of the styling was different, and the wood was treated differently, but the layout was the exact same. The height and its imposing nature. I could practically feel the years of the desk in front of me. It was an ancient piece of furniture, an immensely opulent piece of furniture for the time it came from.

It’s an heirloom. Must be.

I was right to consider it, finding another hidden section and opening it.

“They learned this trick together,” I murmured, tilting the drawer for Landon to see what I revealed. “Niko and Rainer.”

“It’s not a hard trick—”

“It was the same drawer,” I said softly, brushing my fingers across it. “The same layout and the same drawer had the hidden compartment.”

Inside the hidden compartment of Niko’s desk, I found a single folded letter and a key of sorts, from what I could guess. It didn’t look like any key I had ever seen, but I felt like my guess was right by the shape of it. I took both, then put everything back as it was. I didn’t want to leave this solemn place looking trashed. It felt disrespectful in a way I couldn’t put words to and luckily, no one made me try. Once I was done, I sat on the more modern leather chair and broke the wax seal of the letter.

“It’s addressed to Dirk,” I said softly. “This is Niko’s will.”

“He would have rewritten it if Dirk died at any point, but if he intended on Dirk inheriting as a son, it would make sense,” Landon said, clearly trying to keep himself outside the room. I could see him shaking with the need to spring into action and go find Dirk now, but we both knew there was preparation. If this could help, we had to spend time on it.

I skimmed the letter, not wanting to delve too deeply into the intimate words of a father to his son. They weren’t things my eyes were ever supposed to see. I was looking for other things, like the use of the key.

And I found that… sort of.

“Shit,” I hissed as I got to the end of the letter.

“What is it?”

“‘The key I’ve given you will open my personal armory, but the door is hidden. There’s only one person I’ve ever told the location to, my brother Davor. While he and I aren’t close anymore, we once were, and he’ll respect this. He’ll tell you what you need to know. It will have everything you need to survive living here as a human if you choose to continue doing so.’” I looked up from the letter, frustration now strong. “Davor.”

“Davor… Ansel, can you call him?” Landon asked for me. “Jacky needs to talk to her shittiest brother.”

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