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My face drooped. “Money? That old trope?”
“The ingredients to make the sap are quite expensive,” Impara pointed out. “Even a small drop would cost twenty barons. Josiah would have had to sell the family estate for his petty revenge, but apparently he was unwilling to go that far.”
“It is more than that.”
The voice came from behind our group. We spun around and the sunspots were blown into our faces. Their brilliant light temporarily blinded us, and in that split second I felt a strange wind sweep around where we stood. The sounds of wood breaking accompanied the high winds, and something hard and splintered pushed me out of the treasure room. I regained some of my now-spotty vision and watched the broken bits of some of the largest boxes fly around us and craft themselves into a makeshift cell. The wood forced all of us into one spot in the middle of the larger room
A blurry figure stood on the other side of the bars. I squinted and a smiling face came into focus.
It was Brutus Segreti.
The shrunken older man had his hands clasped behind him and a wicked grin on his face. His dark sharp eyes studied us with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, with much of the ire aimed at Hearth.
Hearth for his part glared at him. “So it is you.”
Segreti chuckled. “Yes, my hapless young progeny. You walked right into my trap, as I knew you would.” His face darkened once more and he swept his eyes over us. “And you have brought more rats than I expected.” His gaze fell on Impara who stood to one side with a look of disgust on his face. “I never expected to trap you, Impara. Age must be impairing your senses.”
“I merely underestimated your insanity,” Impara shot back as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t fathom how one could be so insane as to risk the lives of everyone in the city merely to stop a concert.”
The elder hearth curled his lips back in a sneer. “It is not merely that, Impara. I would have back what is mine.”
Hearth wrapped his hand around his other fingers, one of which held the ring. “This is not yours.”
Josiah scoffed. “What would I need that for?” He removed the ring that circled one of his own fingers and revealed his true form.
The real Josiah Hearth stood nearly as tall as Ben and had broad shoulders. He sported a short graying beard and wore an elegant suit complete with black shoes caked in the muck of the catacombs. His bearing was confident, but there was a darkness in his eyes that made me shudder.
Elias lifted his hands and tried to draw sunspots to him, but the creatures remained hovering over his father. Josiah shook his head. “There’s no point, boy. My magic is far greater than yours, and the trap in which I’ve captured you suppresses all magical abilities.”
Elias grasped the ‘bars’ of our cage and scowled at his father. “Why are you doing this?”
Josiah tapped his temple. “I would have what I gave you. You’ve wasted enough of my knowledge, and now you sought to use it against me. I can’t have that.”
Hearth’s eyes widened. “You intend to take my mind?”
Impara rushed to the front of the cage with a look of fury on his face. “But that will kill him!”
“Then he had better enjoy what little time you have left,” his father suggested as he sauntered over to one of the boxes. He pulled out some of the vials we had earlier inspected. “In the meantime, I have a secret domain to discover, and that will take the help of quite a few of the dead to find it.”
“What do you mean?” Ben questioned him.
The elder Hearth rolled his eyes. “Really, I had thought you of all people would understand to what I refer. You have been there, after all. Your footprints in the catacombs are proof enough of that.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re going to infiltrate the court of the lord of the catacombs.”
Josiah smiled and inclined his head. “I have already started. My ‘men’ are working on the protection as we speak. Through them I will be ‘reintroduced’ to the lord. I made his acquaintance some time ago, and I’m eager to revive the affiliation once more.”
“What does he have that you want, Hearth?” Impara demanded.
Josiah lifted his chin slightly and frowned at him. “Merely a wealth of magical knowledge. Imagine what power lies behind someone who not only cheated death but crafted a small domain out of the ruins of it?”
“And how will you convince him to give you that power?” Ben questioned him.
Josiah chuckled. “By the same trick with which I intend to take Elias’ power. A simple incapacitation of magic and then a theft of the mind. Then I will have all the knowledge stored in that skull.” He pocketed a couple dozen of the vials before he turned to us. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a skeleton to rat out.” And with that, he hurried out of the room.
Elias slammed the bottom of his fist against the cage cells. “Damn it.”
“Move aside,” Ben ordered as he squished his way to the front.
