Sorrel paused as the waiter approached with our food, then eagerly continued the moment we were alone again. “What if you encounter something you haven’t studied? Say – well, for example, last year we were dealing with a dark soul, a species that essentially erased itself so no one would remember it or how to defeat it. It’s a thing made of dark magic. What would you have done if you encountered such?”
It was my turn to be intrigued. I hadn’t realized Avenglade would have more than boring city life and politics, but this actually sounded interesting.
Not that my face or voice revealed my curiosity, however. “For an unknown entity, cautious trial and error. If you have more than one individual present, attempt different kinds of magic, see what works, while keeping yourselves as safe as possible. If I was the only one person is present, the response may be strategic withdrawal if it appears impossible to defeat the opponent. Withdraw, plan, gather more intel, and return when you have a better grasp of how to deal with it. But there are also basic principles that apply. Dark magic usually is countered by lighter magic, and vice-versa. I would assume light magic would be more helpful, but a dark magic entity is a living thing, so the living aspect would need to be countered – my instinct would be to try fairy magic.”
His jaw dropped open. “How? – that – I mean, you’re right. We had to use sunlight on it, but we learned that from a – from someone who remembered, basically.”
That was not what he was originally going to say, but I didn’t call him out on it. Not all secrets are meant to be shared with new friends the first day.
“My dad lived back when dark souls were originally a threat,” Sorrel explained, “and once we got enough information on what the guy was, it triggered Dad’s memory and undid the erasing magic the dark soul had done, at last for him. He remembered how to defeat the dark soul and we used his knowledge to take care of it. But your assessment would have been extremely useful if we didn’t have someone that just told us to use sunlight on it.”
If I’d had the ability to, I probably would have blushed with pleasure at his praise. “It’s simply training, but if ever you do need help assessing something, I am happy to help.”
He looked thoughtful now, intent. “Actually,” he said slowly, “we might. For the past several months, we’ve been dealing with something hunting fairies. Not just here,” he added swiftly, “all over the region. Something comes up, destroys some fairies, and disappears without a trace. We were stumped for a long time, but we think we’ve finally figured out what it is. We think,” he gave me an almost nervous glance, “we think it’s a construct, something deliberately designed for the sole purpose of killing fairies, so our magic is essentially useless against it and we haven’t come up with anything that will work yet. We have a, uh, specialist who may be able to help but has to see it to do so, and he hasn’t been able to see it yet. To top it all off, the thing is invisible, we think with cursed invisibility, but since it’s not technically alive, the curse isn’t killing it.”
Okay, Avenglade definitely had more going on in the supernatural side of things than I expected.
“Constructs,” I repeated automatically, “one was to be created for each type of supernaturals centuries ago, imbued with magic from a series of powerful individuals, each one designed to be able to counter the specific magic of its assigned species if necessary. A means of ensuring that if any supernatural species became a serious threat to the world and was too powerful for others to stop, there would still be a means to stop them. But constructs were highly contended and many thought the safeguard was more of a threat than a safety measure, so they were never completed. Those that were completed were eventually locked away in several locations, intended never to be used, but some people argued they should have been destroyed instead of just hidden.”
Sorrel was impressed again with my knowledge. “Yeah, our historian friend was able to put the pieces together and figure it out. We suspect the naga one may also be on the loose, but we’re still trying to confirm that. We do at least know the fairy one is out. And murdering. It’s killed over two dozen fairies by now,” he frowned deeply, “and we’re fairly certain it’s close to Avenglade now. There’s an entire fairy community here, a lot of people at risk.”
I took a moment to chew my food before answering the question. “Constructs act on the will of whoever awakened them. When they were originally made, this was a specific individual assigned to be neutral, only executing the power if it was deemed absolutely necessary. But when the constructs were hidden and the Keeper was dismissed, in theory, anyone with the right magic and knowledge could activate one. Or more than one. Option one for dealing with it is to deal with the person who awakened it and is now controlling it. If the person is killed, the construct goes dormant again, or else it will not go dormant until it is physically stopped or achieves its goal – annihilation of all fairies.”
“Yeah, we kind of have a problem with that last option,” Sorrel muttered. “We don’t know who the awakener person is, but we think it’s a dark witch, possibly related to our killing that dark soul, actually. Revenge on fairies, who killed him, and on – someone else, who was involved. That person was also specifically targeted, but he’s not a fairy. It’s the running theory at the moment, but we also have no idea who she is or how to find her.” He ran a hand through his auburn hair, frustrated. “We have some people assigned to try to track her down, but we’re focusing more on option two – figuring out how to physically stop it.”
I considered for a moment. “A construct designed to kill fairies will be essentially immune to any light, nature, or similar magic. Fairies, angels, nymphs, dryads, light witches – anything on the lighter end of the spectrum would be useless. But it’s also not a living thing, so elements like poison from naga magic are unlikely to be beneficial. Physical attacks against magically-imbued metal, also unlikely to be helpful, so most shifters are out. Your highest chance of success comes from something with dark magic, but something strong, too – demons, perhaps. If you got your local pandemonium to help, they may be able to stop it. However,” I added in my neutral voice, “since it’s invisible…the chances of that working may be small, because you would need to find some way to track it so the pandemonium could approach it. It would have no reason to go anywhere near dark magic users otherwise and likely would avoid them, especially if the witch involved is keeping an eye on it. If you have witch allies, they may be able to see its shadow to track it, but this requires being physically close to it.”
Sorrel huffed out a long sigh. “Aka we’re back to square one. It won’t come anywhere close to anything that could potentially harm it, as a defense measure, but we have no way to force it to.”
“You could try a trap. Lure it in with a fairy.”
Sorrel’s brows furrowed. “Maybe, but…the chance of it killing the fairy seems high. We’d have to be extremely careful. This thing has destroyed groups of fairies with apparent ease, it’s – it’s troubling. If only R – if only our one resource could get a look at it, we might have a better chance, but he hasn’t seen it and we don’t entirely want him to see it since that would mean he’d have to be in its vicinity while it’s killing people.” He groaned.
Something clicked in my head. Something about someone who could see how to defeat a dark soul and who could help figure out how to defeat the construct if he could see it. “You know a unicorn?”
He looked up, startled and a bit concerned, his eyes searching my face for something he wouldn’t see.
“Your friend,” I explained, trying to calm his concerns, “the one you want to see the construct – he must be a unicorn in order for that to work.”
Unicorns, in theory, didn’t exist anymore, but I had seen impossible things happen in the past, so who was to say it couldn’t happen now? Who was to say some unicorns didn’t still exist? They could hide amongst humans easier than any other supernatural.
“Yeah, he’s – part unicorn,” Sorrel said after a long pause. “But he’s not – it’s not common knowledge.”
Aka keep my mouth shut.
If I’d been able to offer a comforting look, I would, but instead I had to make do with my usual empty one. “I know better than most people the value of keeping things secret. I have no plans to tell anyone. Or,” I added when he still looked at me with concern, “to use it against you or your friend. I’m not in the business anymore. I keep secrets now simply because there is no reason to tell them, particularly if someone might get hurt, and if your friend doesn’t wish to reveal what he is, that revelation will not come from me.”
Sorrel looked at my face for a long time, then sort of nodded slightly. “Thank you. He’s – he’s actually family, so we’re all protective of him. My younger brother’s husband,” he explained when I looked at him for an answer. “We all – my family and several of our friends involved in the dark soul thing and trying to figure out the construct, too – we care about him a lot. Actually we probably owe our entire city to him, figuring out what was going on with the dark soul – long story – and he saved my brother’s life twice, saved an entire naga nest, and basically…a lot of us would do anything to protect him. Not to mention he’s useful and if he could just see the construct, he might have ideas. But we don’t know how to get that to happen safely.”
“Couldn’t he just hang out in the fairy community for a while?” I pointed out. “If you think the construct might come there? He could potentially warn the community if it’s coming, too, if he can see it.”
Sorrel blinked in surprise. “Yeah, he can, he’s – he’s also Vist.”
Well, that was unexpected. A race that was even more extinct than unicorns – unicorns simply disappeared and could still exist in hiding, but Vist were virtually destroyed. A unicorn/Vist hybrid would be able to see a lot of useful things.
No wonder they all wanted to protect him.
“That might work,” Sorrel was musing to himself. “I mean, I don’t know how he or Ren would feel about him hanging out there indefinitely – he has work and school, but if other people’s lives are at stake he’d probably do it without question. He doesn’t even have any magic he can use himself, but he’s fearless about that, throwing himself in harm’s way if he needs to in order to protect someone else. He’d even do that before Ren protected him.”
Protected him? Oh. Oh. He was part unicorn. He probably read human, which meant…which meant bad things could have happened to him.
We had finished our food by now and I was pretty sure Sorrel probably needed to return to the vet clinic, but he made no move to leave his chair, so I stayed put as well. This had been a rather interesting conversation, although it didn’t reveal a lot about us personally – more talking shop, as it were – but at least the conversation flowed, he listened to my opinions, and didn’t seem bothered even when I was sounding so flat and uninterested – although in reality, I was actually deeply intrigued by the whole thing. A construct? An invisible one on top of that? Obviously there were concerns about protecting the fairies, because wiping them out would be seriously bad for everyone, but the challenge of dealing with something like that got my brain going in a way I enjoyed.
There was a reason I had liked espionage work. I liked solving puzzles.
“Are you warning the community?”
It took a moment for Sorrel to realize what I was asking about, and then he nodded grimly. “We’ve actually been attempting to alert fairies all over that something is out hunting us – something that seems invisible. We didn’t figure out the construct thing until more recently, but we’re trying to give people a chance. From what we can tell, it doesn’t attack them when dark magic users are nearby, which makes sense with what you were saying, but trying to get dark magic users to stay around fairies indefinitely is…difficult. Here in Avenglade, the naga are our allies and we were talking with their boss about possibly having them help patrol the fairy community for a while, but if you’re right, that their poison wouldn’t affect it,” he chewed on his bottom lip, troubled.
“It may still prevent it from attacking,” I pointed out calmly. “Simply because there would be others present who might cause issues.”
“Yeah, but if the witch has the naga construct active too, like we think, then she won’t care about destroying the naga as well. I imagine the fairy construct wouldn’t work as well against them, but it does seem to use blades that could still, in theory, kill naga, particularly if naga can’t use much magic against it. Although,” he added slowly, thinking deeply, “naga are really trained in combat, so maybe not using magic wouldn’t even be as big of a deal for them. Us fairies, we actually rely pretty heavily on magic in combat, we rarely are prepared for non-magic combat.”
I’d worked with naga before. Sometimes ruthless, but Sorrel was right about them being effective in combat.
“If we could just find a way to track it,” he mumbled. “So far the only way is by bodies it’s left behind – leading in a rough line to Avenglade. But we’d really like to find it before it kills some more.”
I considered that. “Constructs are large metal objects that can’t be easily transported or stowed. Invisible or not, you’re either looking at someone using a large vehicle to move it or it’s moving on foot.”
Sorrel’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowing. “That’s – a good point.”
“If it’s moving on foot,” I continued, “there are magics that could be laid out to see if something passes over them. Alarms, as it were. It’s not exactly the same thing as tracking, but they could be used to warn you if it is, in fact, coming closer, especially if you set out a series around the town to sort of track as it gets closer based on which alarms are going off.”
Sorrel’s face was a complicated mixture of hope, determination, and admiration. “Elizabeth,” he breathed, “you may have just given us an answer. Thank you – thank you!” He hopped up, grabbed the check, then ran back and, to my stunned surprise, kissed my cheek. “Thank you! I’ll text you later!”
And then he was gone, leaving me sitting alone at the table, absolutely shocked at that kiss. Okay, just a cheek kiss, and friends did do that to each other – in fact, in some places, strangers did that in greeting – but I hadn’t expected it and it threw me for a loop. Had anyone been paying attention to me, they couldn’t tell from my bland expression, but it still did.
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