Icaught her scent the moment we left the safety of our vehicle—honey, toast, and old books, now mingled with the lingering traces of Milo's necromantic energy. The knowledge of what they'd done burned in my gut, but I forced it down, focusing instead on the mission.
"This place feels wrong," I growled, scanning the abandoned area ahead of us. Dead trees twisted like skeletal hands around crumbling concrete, and the air itself seemed to waver, thin spots in reality visible as faint, glimmering tears. "My contact better not be wasting our time."
"Your contact is a drunken leprechaun who once sold you counterfeit werewolf steroids," Zane reminded me, checking his weapons one last time before we headed in. His mismatched eyes constantly darted to Winter, watching her with the same protective intensity that clawed at my insides.
"They were performance enhancers, not steroids," I corrected automatically. "And Finnegan may be a con artist, but his information is solid."
Winter adjusted her jacket, wincing slightly as she stretched her bad knee. "As long as we find something to help us understand what the Harbingers are planning with these relics, I don't care if your contact is the Easter Bunny."
The dead zone stretched before us, a half-mile radius of warped reality where the Veil had been damaged beyond repair years ago. Official reports blamed a magical experiment gone wrong, but rumors in the shifter community suggested something more deliberate, a test run for what the Veiled Order was attempting now on a larger scale.
"Remember," I kept my voice low as we approached the warning markers, "magic is unpredictable in there. Winter, stay between us and try not to use your powers unless absolutely necessary."
She nodded, her gray eyes serious. The blue markings on her arms pulsed gently beneath her sleeve, responding to the proximity of the Veil scars.
"Nervous, Shortstack?" Zane's casual endearment set my teeth on edge.
"Terrified," she was honest. "But let's do this anyway."
My respect for her courage deepened. Winter had never asked for any of this, the prophecy, the markings, the responsibility, yet she faced each new challenge with a stubborn resilience that made my wolf want to howl in approval.
We crossed the barrier into the dead zone, and immediately the air changed. Each breath tasted metallic, like licking a battery. Colors seemed slightly off, too sharp in some places, washed out in others. Our phones died instantly, screens going black. Even the enchanted compass Fenric had given us, before he took Milo and Horrace to the Bureau for training, spun wildly, unable to find true north in this distorted pocket of reality.
"Lovely," Zane murmured, pocketing the useless device. "Nothing like a stroll through magical Chernobyl."
"The warehouse should be a quarter mile east," I pointed in what I hoped was the right direction. My inner wolf, usually a reliable guide, felt disoriented here, whining in the back of my mind.
We moved cautiously through the complex, past rusted machinery and collapsed buildings. The earth itself seemed sickly, nothing growing except occasional patches of fungus that glowed with an unnatural blue light. Above us, the Veil scars were more visible—jagged tears in the fabric of reality that pulsed and whispered in languages never meant for human ears.
"Look," Winter stopped suddenly, pointing to our left.
Floating in the air, about ten feet off the ground, was what looked like a window into another place. Within the shimmering frame, a scene played out, children in old-fashioned clothes running through a playground that hadn't existed for at least fifty years.
"A memory fragment," Zane kept his distance. "The dead zone traps them sometimes. Echoes of what happened here before."
"It's so real," Winter watched, fascinated, as the children played in their endless loop.
"Don't touch it," I warned, pulling her gently away. "Memory fragments can be dangerous. People have been known to get lost in them."
We continued on, encountering more fragments as we went deeper into the zone. Most showed mundane moments like workers at the factory, trucks being loaded, ordinary lives frozen in time. But one stopped us all in our tracks.
It hung directly in our path, impossible to avoid. Within its frame, three figures stood in what looked like a ritual chamber. As we watched, frozen in shock, one of them, a woman withfamiliar gray eyes, plunged a knife into her own chest. Blue energy exploded outward, and the scene repeated.
"Is that me?" Winter whispered, her face pale.
"No," I put myself between her and the disturbing image. "It's not you. It's not real. This zone messes with your head."
But I couldn't shake the unease that gripped me. The woman in the fragment had Winter's eyes, her defiant tilt of the chin. The blue energy that erupted from her looked too much like Winter's prophetic power.
"We should keep moving," Zane's usual casual demeanor was replaced with taut concern. "The warehouse isn't far now."
The warehouse, when we finally reached it, was surprisingly intact compared to the surrounding buildings. Two stories of weathered brick with a rusted sign that read "Farse Storage & Transit." All the windows were broken, but the structure seemed solid enough.
"Finnegan said the relics would be in a hidden vault beneath the loading dock," My nostrils flared as I tried to pick up any scents beyond the metallic tang of the dead zone. "He said the Veiled Order uses this place because the zone's instability masks magical signatures."
"Smart," Zane admitted grudgingly. "Bureau sensors would never pick up unusual objects here. The background magic radiation would hide everything."
We approached cautiously, checking for guards or surveillance. Finding none, we slipped in through a side door, our footsteps echoing in the empty space. Inside, the warehouse was a cavernous shell, dusty concrete floors stretching to shadows where the roof had partially collapsed, allowing wan sunlight to slant through in broken beams.
