Page 35 of Roaring Spell

“You didn’t report it?”

“Report what? ‘Hi, I’m the new witch, and I accidentally destroyed your historic district because I can’t control my emotions’?” I shake my head. “I repaired the damage and hoped no one noticed.”

“I noticed.” His voice is quiet. “The repair work. Very subtle. But I know every cobblestone in this town.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t sure what I’d noticed. Not until now.”

He moves toward the door, testing the handle. It creaks open without resistance.

“Ready?”

No. Absolutely not.

“Yes.”

The interior is exactly what you’d expect from decades of abandonment. Dust coats every surface. Debris litters the floor—broken crates, rotted fabric, the remains of a shipping operation long defunct. Weak light filters through gaps in the boarded windows.

But underneath the decay, there’s wrongness.

I feel it immediately—a pressure against my senses, a twist in the ambient magic that makes my stomach clench. My power stirs in response, reaching toward the distortion like a compass needle seeking north.

“You feel that?” Torin’s voice is low. Alert.

“Yes.” I press a hand to my chest, where my magic is coiling tighter with each step. “It’s stronger than before. When I was here last time, I thought it was me—my own instability. But this is...”

“External.”

“Definitely external.”

We move deeper, following the wrongness like a scent trail. Torin stays half a step ahead—not blocking my path, but positioned to intercept any threat. Protective. Automatic. Like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

The pressure intensifies near the back of the building. A door here—heavy, reinforced, newer than anything else in the structure. Someone has been maintaining this place.

“Cellar access.” Torin examines the hinges, the lock. “Recently oiled. The dust patterns suggest regular use.”

“Regular use of an abandoned warehouse?”

“Regular use of the cellar.” He produces lockpicks—apparently standard equipment for Protection Network members—and goes to work. “Someone’s been coming here. Frequently.”

The lock clicks. The door swings inward, revealing stairs descending into darkness.

My magic screams.

The sensation is overwhelming—like standing at the edge of a waterfall, feeling the pull of the current. Every instinct says run.

Instead, I take a step forward.

“Wait.” Torin’s hand catches my arm. Warm. Grounding. “Tell me what you’re sensing.”

I close my eyes. Focus on parsing the wrongness into comprehensible information.

“It’s a drain.” The realization crystallizes. “Pulling power from the area, funneling it somewhere else. That’s why my episodes cluster here—the drain creates a vacuum, and my magic rushes to fill it.”

“A siphon.”

“A siphon.”