Embers (Scales 'N' Spells 4)

“Perish the thought, bro,” Cassie chimed in while not looking up from her tablet. “Nikki, if you can tell me what you mean by raw ingredients?”

“Uh, um, like glass bottles, twine, metal wire, cloth, that sort of thing.”

She looked up briefly, pushing blue hair out of her eyes in an absent gesture. “Things they could use for portable spell crafting?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Okay, next question. You said you broke into a storeroom once. Was that in the place we found you, or…?”

Nikki was already shaking their head. “Different place. The one in Warsaw.”

“Ah. Okay, that’s good to know. Do you think they have any kind of permanent base? Or were they moving around a lot?”

“Completely nomadic,” Nikki confirmed with an adamant nod. “For all they boasted you had no idea they were alive, they were paranoid about you finding them. They move every three to six months.”

“Likely part of the reason why they don’t store a lot of elements or collect much,” Cameron opined. “Speaking as a former college student, where you shift dorm rooms or apartments regularly, that shit gets old quick. You get to the point where you’ve pared it down to essentials just because it’s not worth packing and moving it all the time. But that also means they have limited ingredients to work with on a daily basis.”

“It does give us an edge, if we can exploit it properly.” Alric looked to the kings. “Nikki’s already given us a list of every place they knew of where the Jaeggi have bases. Aside from this, what else can you think to ask them?”

Chalo gave a hum before saying, “I’m concerned about the trap you triggered. You were all clearly on the lookout for such things, and it still almost injured you. Nikki, how many places were rigged like that?”

That was a fair question. And one Gunter had meant to ask and kept forgetting to.

Nikki waffled a hand back and forth. “It’s not so much how many, as what types. If it was a garage, then it is probably rigged. Storage rooms or libraries, definitely. Most of the traps were meant for us, to keep us from running away or learning too much. Others were likely triggered as they were leaving, since they knew you’d be inspecting the place after they left.”

“Wasn’t that so kind of them?” Rodrigo drawled with a curl of his upper lip.

“It also isn’t consistent. Some of the Jaeggi were paranoid enough to always renew the traps if something went wrong with them. Others would just shrug and put it on their to-do list. The spells are mostly designed so anyone of Jaeggi blood can pass right by them without setting anything off.”

“I see,” Lisette murmured, sounding as if she was mostly talking to herself. “So, we have no way of really predicting where trouble might be. Any building might be a library or storeroom, and we’ll have no way of knowing until we explore it.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Nikki shrugged helplessly. “It’s why I was slow on warning people. I wasn’t sure if it was rigged or not, and from the angle I was at, I almost didn’t see it.”

“We’re not blaming you,” Gunter assured them.

“No, indeed not,” Rodrigo added firmly. The Ice Dragon King looked perturbed but still managed a smile for Nikki. “We’re just trying to get the lay of the land. It seems to me it will be difficult to go in. A quick in and out will definitely be difficult; this is something that requires taking our time and having experienced mages, otherwise people will be injured in the process.”

Roca gave him a nod. “Agreed. I’ve already called on our older, experienced mages to come and help with this. I have volunteers on the way here now. I want to explore more of these locations Nikki gave us, but I’m not losing people in the process. The Jaeggi have claimed enough lives. We won’t add to it through carelessness. That said, I really want to find the trail they left after our last run-in with them.”

“My tracker is on the way now,” Rodrigo said with a wolfish smile. He tented the tips of his fingers, giving a rather good impression of an evil genius plotting something wicked. “He doesn’t require magic or earth sense to track anyone. His skills are more old-school than that. I expect him to arrive tomorrow. Nikki, you’ll be available then?”

Nikki looked a little too excited as they answered firmly, “I will.”

Gunter didn’t want them thinking Nikki would go out without him. He leaned in closer to whisper against Nikki’s ear, “I’ll go with you.”

Nikki shot him a blinding smile.

“I can’t think of what else to ask.” Alric looked around the room. “Anyone else?”

Gunter briefly lifted a hand. “I do, as I haven’t properly followed up on this. The phone we retrieved—were you able to do anything with that?”