Page 65 of Autumn L.A.W

Professor Rahim arrived behind them like judgment in sensible shoes.

“If you attempt to remove this artifact,” she said pleasantly, “you will discover that my capacity for bureaucracy is dwarfed only by my enthusiasm for revenge. You will not enjoy either.”

They believed her and rolled the crate into the vault.

Wards, hidden beneath architecture, shimmered faintly around the perimeter.

No one opened the crate. No one touched the wood. The fox tested the perimeter, then sat squarely in front of the door like a guardian carved from desert wind.

The seal engaged with a heavy, irrevocable sound.

For a moment, Sahara let herself believe that might be enough. Then the imprint pulsed again, faint but insistent.

Damn. It was only paused. Not contained.

Professor Rahim saw Sahara’s face shift, just slightly. She led Sahara and Ezra into a small seminar room with tall windows and the ghost of chalk dust clinging to the air. The fox followed, tail whisking across the floor.

“Tell me,” the professor said.

Sahara started at the Central Park breach, the imprinting, the actual possession. The near-theft of her young witch colleague and her boyfriend. The way the obelisk felt less like an artifact and more like a patient predator. The way duty tugged at her. How she did not trust institutions not to use what they should fear.

“I thought this would be enough,” Sahara finished quietly. “But it doesn’t feel contained. It feels delayed.”

Ezra didn’t interrupt. He simply rested his hand lightly on the back of her chair, a welcome anchor again.

Professor Rahim steepled her fingers.

“There is another place,” she said at last. “A facility in the desert. Unremarkable facade. Secure in ways governments reluctantly admit are necessary. It is where dangerous things go to be forgotten. They do not study. They do not display. They lock. They leave things alone.”

Sahara went very still. “I dislike military oversight,” she said.

“As do I,” the professor replied. “But I dislike preventable catastrophe more.”

Ezra nodded. “It isolates risk. Creates distance. Controls access. Minimal visits by a vulnerable population.”

The fox bumped Sahara’s knee with his head.

She nodded. “Yes, I’m obliged to agree.”

“All right,” Ezra said. “Plan B.”

Professor Rahim covered Sahara’s hand briefly, firmly, in a gesture that had once meant comfort and now meant something far greater. “You are not alone in this,” she said.

“I’m beginning to believe that.”

Later, after initial arrangements were made and the vault was nearly bolted down with magical and mundane locks alike, Sahara stepped aside and called home.

Lioness answered on the second ring. “Okay,” she said without preamble. “On a scale of one to possessed by a flaming mummy, how bad is it?”

“Three,” Sahara said. “Possibly rising. How is your firefighter, Lioness?”

“Recovering like a human male. Restless and irritable, but adorably rumpled.”

Joell’s voice chimed in from farther away. “How is it rising?”

She must be on speakerphone. Just as well. She didn’t feel like repeating the whole story too many times.

“Rising is when Sahara uses her calm voice,” Lioness replied. “We hate the calm voice.”