Page 41 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

Owein froze for two heartbeats before remembering what Blightree had given him. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out the slender stone of selenite, the communion rune on it glowing faintly.

“Owein? Are you well?” came the necromancer’s voice through the rune.

Pressing his thumb to the symbol, Owein replied, “I’m surprised this works at such a distance.”

“Distance? Where are you, precisely?”

Owein needed to be more careful with his words. Fallon bristled, puffing out her feathers. She agreed.

“I’m well, Blightree.” He took his thumb off the rune and turned to Fallon. “Is there a way to turn this off?” He couldn’t have the old man’s voice sounding off in his pocket when he was trying to be clandestine.

“I’ll be assured, then,” the stone replied. “Be careful. And good luck. With what you’re doing, I suppose, but mostly with Hulda. You’ve certainly riled her.” He chuckled softly, and the rune dimmed out, leaving the pale crystal quiet.

Owein let out a long breath. “We should hurry.” From another pocket he pulled a handkerchief and wrapped the stone in it, hoping to muffle any further communication. It seemed Blightree hadn’t shared their conversation with the others. Perhaps he’d kept silent out of loyalty to Oliver, but whatever his reasons, Owein silently thanked him for it.

He turned, facing northwest, wishing for a light but picking his way forward as twilight settled over the land. He dug into his bag, pulling free Fallon’s dress, but he walked about a mile before giving it to her.

When she was transformed and clothed, she said, “When Hulda went, she did so in a two-wheeled carriage. A covered one. It was just waiting for her outside the town.” She gestured to their right, where a few lights marking Waynesville glimmered. “There’s a partial dirt road that leads up to it. It’s not a very well-trodden path, but if we keep this way, we’ll connect to it, eventually. It’s pretty flat. Should be fine. No wolves. Only four guards.” She smiled.

Owein picked up his pace. “You didn’t mention guards.”

“Why would there not be guards?”

He nearly tripped on a snake hole. “You’ll have to carry me back if I break an ankle.”

So they walked. For a while. It was too dark for Owein to check his pocket watch, but the trek felt both quick and eternal, his pulse swift in his veins. Fallon transformed once more to scout ahead, then returned, forcing them to slow when her knees malformed from her magic.

“Stop here,” she said when the moon was high. They were on the other side of a hill, a million stars glimmering overhead. “There’s no cover after this. The guards will see us. Or they’ll see this.” She rubbed his white hair. “It’s like a candle out here.”

“How far?”

“Three-quarters of a mile. But if we go around this way”—she gestured westward—“we can get a little closer without being seen.”

“Or burrow underneath.”

She paused. “What?”

“I think I can dig into it.” He stretched his fingers, one by one. “Then we won’t have to worry about a door, or alerting the guards.”

“Oh. Okay.” She considered. “Let’s go around first.”

“Agreed.”

They walked slower, quieter, Owein always keeping his ear toward the facility he only spied once, when they crested a hill. It was a shadowed patch on shadowed land, inconsequential. Easily missed, if one wasn’t looking for it, which hopefully meant the guards didn’t see a lotof action, and wouldn’t be searching for it. Small, as Fallon had claimed. Owein had always pictured it being at least as large as the Bright Bay Hotel, where BIKER used to be, but from here, the facility appeared smaller than Whimbrel House.

They followed a natural ditch off the facility’s west side, which Owein made larger with a cocktail of resizing and discordant-movement spells. Fallon whispered to him while he worked, reminding him of what he was doing when he became confused, occasionally massaging a growth or malformation from the alteration spells. She asked if she should transform into her dog self to help dig, but it was faster his way, even with the breaks his body forced him to take, and her words helped him more than her paws would. It was easily past midnight by the time they’d dug upward and hit concrete. Owein melted it away, revealing only blackness on the other side.

Fallon climbed through first, then lent a hand to Owein, whose exhausted body felt like pie dough. He brushed off his clothes as best he could. Listened. They were in a cold room, the outlines of furniture around them. Two doors, one behind them, one on the far right wall. No men stationed in this room, but there were likely some stationed outside it. Maybe even the guards weren’t allowed to see the secretive work BIKER did, only protect it.

Fallon toed away on her bare feet, her movements silent as water. After a moment, she said, “I found a light.”

Owein didn’t respond. An enchanted lantern burst to life to his right; he’d been expecting a candle. Fallon cooled the spell down to a mild simmer and looked around. The room was a little larger than the living room at Whimbrel House, with cabinetry along almost every wall. A few freestanding shelves, a table, a granite-topped sideboard. A cylindrical tank on the nearest wall reached clear to the ceiling.

“Keep it away from the doors,” he murmured. “They might see it through the cracks.”

She shielded it with her body.

Owein stepped toward the large tank; it was hard to see without bringing the light over, but it was full of some sort of fluid and ... body parts.

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