With the Sorcerers taken care of for the moment, Verdan made his way back into the stronghold, pausing at the entrance as he saw Val waiting just inside, where Selem and Lucil wouldn’t have been able to see her.

  Val was a slender woman with the bronzed skin of someone from the Reaches, an area far to the south. Her brown hair hung in a long ponytail, though a portion of it had been burnt during the fighting. Her pale eyes were usually hiding a mocking smile, though there was no trace of that at the moment. She was also a water and air Sorcerer, and the one who had originally introduced them to Selem. The irony that he then betrayed them wasn’t lost on Verdan, considering how he and Val had first met.

  Motioning the others to carry on without him, Verdan walked over to stand next to her. “Were you listening?”

  “Every word,” Val said, giving him a bitter smile. “I know we’ve already talked about it, but I still feel guilty that it was my contact who let us down like this.”

  “True, and that won’t change anytime soon,” Verdan said, not wanting to sugarcoat things. “But he did what we needed him to, and in the end, we got here. That’s what matters.”

  “If I keep telling myself that, maybe I’ll even believe it,” Val said, laughing softly. “The thing that’s eating at me, though, is that this is why we went our separate ways last time. He chose the Sect over me. Foolish of me to think that something might have changed.”

  Verdan reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t regret feeling hope. These days, hope is all that keeps us going.”

  Val sighed and nodded. “Thanks, Verdan. You should probably head downstairs, by the way. Hedda thinks she’s found something you’ll be interested in.”

  Nodding, Verdan left Hedda to her thoughts and did just that, Rocky stomping along behind him as he made his way down to the subterranean levels of the stronghold. The place was big enough that they all struggled to find their way at times, especially with how large portions of the below-ground structure looked essentially the same.

  Regardless, Verdan eventually managed to find his way to Hedda, who was waiting with Gwen at one of the tunnel junctions. Hedda spotted him and waved for him to join them. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

  “Val said you found something?” Verdan called out as he jogged over to them.

  “Potentially, you’ll be the one to know,” the Hex Witch said, shrugging slightly. Hedda was a Kranjir, like Barb and Magnus, and had the dark hair and Caelin to match. What had initially made Verdan uncomfortable around her, though, was that she was a Hex Witch. One with the same capability as Gloria, the Witch who had once been his friend before she cursed him.

  Thankfully, Hedda was a friend and ally who used her ability to curse and hobble their foes to great effect. As a Witch, she wielded Aether directly, albeit with help from her familiar, Sgian, and the favour of the goddess Ceravwen.

  “More Sigils?” Verdan asked, thinking of the range of Sigil-empowered equipment they’d already recovered from the stronghold. He and Magnus would be studying them on the way home to see what Sigils they could recreate and use for their own purposes.

  “Not how you’re thinking,” Gwen said, frowning slightly before continuing. “I’m not sure how to describe it, really. It’s not really my expertise, if I’m honest.”

  Gwen was a Storm Witch, and a powerful one at that, able to draw on the ambient Aether around them to cause incredible amounts of damage if she so chose. She’d been a captive of the Darjee and on the path to being corrupted into a Cyth Bayne when Verdan found her. Now, she’d helped him destroy countless Cyth and was one of his closest friends.

  “Well, now I’m interested,” Verdan said with a laugh, motioning for them to lead the way. “Let’s take a look.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I’ll leave you to show him,” Gwen said, patting Hedda on the back. “I don’t like being underground this long, I’m going to go look at the sky for a bit.”

  “Keep an eye on the Sorcerers as well, if you would,” Verdan said, realising as they both gave him a confused look that they’d missed the arrival. It only took a moment to explain it all, and once he was done, Gwen nodded thoughtfully.

  “Does this change how long we’ll be here?” The Storm Witch asked, looking up as though she could see them from where they were.

  “Honestly, yes, it does.” Verdan rubbed his jaw before shrugging. “Really, I want to leave as soon as we can, now. The Sects starting to arrive will only mean problems for us. Cullan is in a reasonable state now, but we’ll have to move slowly to start with. Still, he’s been recovering quickly, so I’m not as worried about moving out as I would have been a day or two ago.”

  “I’ll find Kai and let him know, then,” Gwen said, waving a hand at their surroundings. “The sooner we leave, the better, in my opinion. This whole place doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “I know what you mean.” Verdan considered it all for another moment before nodding slowly. “In fact, lets make it offical. We leave tomorrow. Spread the word, if you would.”

  “No problem, you’ll have to tell the Vespa, though.”

  “My next stop.” He assured her before turning his full attention to Hedda. “First, though, let’s see what you’ve found.”

  The Hex Witch nodded and led the way down one of the tunnels, heading near to where the Queens had been imprisoned when they first arrived.

  “Here we are,” Hedda said, stepping into a brightly lit chamber which was easily twice the size of the room he shared with Cullan. Benches lined the walls to the left and right with a row of built-in storage on the far side and some large tables in the centre. It was clearly a workshop of some kind, and seemed to follow the same split as the other one they’d found, with equipment for Sigils on the left and alchemy on the right. “We found this quite early in the search, but at first, nothing seemed particularly useful. At least, not in our search for more information.”

  “Understandable,” Verdan said, eyeing a cabinet filled with alchemy ingredients. As Hedda said, useful and a nice find, but not what they were looking for. “What changed your mind?”

  “This.” Hedda walked over to the alchemy side and stopped at a strange metal contraption. There was a wheel on the front that she spun, allowing her to swing the front of it open. “At first, we thought this was storage for something dangerous, so after checking the interior we left it alone. Something about it stuck with me, though.”

  “Oh?” Verdan leaned forwards to peer into it, frowning as he saw a dozen small spikes jutting out of the interior. They were placed so that they would cradle something shaped like a large jar. “Huh.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Hedda said, the corner of her mouth curling up into a small smile. Reaching off to the side, she pulled a metal container into view. “I came back earlier with Gwen and we found this.”

  Taking the container, Verdan turned it over in his hands. It seemed to just be a sealed container, but he could see Sigils carved all over it, and marks from regular contact with the metal contraption.

  Hedda held out a hand so Verdan passed it over and watched with interest as she placed it into the metal box and shut the lid before pulling a subtle switch that Verdan had missed. He went to ask a question, but the Witch just held up a hand and motioned for him to wait.

  A minute later, the switch flicked back upright, and Hedda removed the metal container. “Here, study the inside with your magic as you open it.”

  Arching a brow questioningly, Verdan did just that, his jaw dropping as he sensed the incredible concentration of Aether within. Looking back up, he realised that there were ingredients to the left of the machine, but only finished potions to the right.

  “Natalia said that the new Dryd potions were packed full of Aether,” Verdan said, grinning as he realised what he was holding. “This is how they were doing it.”

  “You know more than I do,” Hedda said with a shrug. “I just realised how this worked and knew it was likely important.”

  “Important, but terrifying.” Verdan studied the machine more closely, taking in the delicate work for the switch and what he now saw were tiny Sigils carved into the spikes on the interior. “This is so far beyond what I’m doing, it’s night and day. Clearly it was difficult to make, or they’d have more than one, but even so…”

  Hedda nodded grimly. “Now you see why I wanted you to look at it.”

  Verdan nodded, part of him wondering what other hidden wonders the Brotherhood had hidden up their side. “We have to take this with us, that’s for sure. Natalia would never forgive me if I didn’t, and I need to study this. I daren’t take it apart, but I’m sure we can figure things out, all the same.”

  “Are you sure about going tomorrow?” Hedda asked, shrugging at Verdan’s questioning look. “I’m sure there’s a lot more here that we haven’t found. There’s a lot of rooms and not that many of us.”

  “Sure?” Verdan chuckled. “No, not at all. We have to, though. The Sects can pick over what’s left.”