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Fitz acts as if he didn’t hear her and carries on. “Well, let’s get you two equipped, yes? Follow me.”
He gets up and leads the way to the next building. This one is octagonally shaped, just one huge room with gleaming teak paneling and floor to ceiling windows dotted throughout. The place is absolutely filled with magical artifacts, tools, and weapons of every kind. Fitz leads us to a table in the center that’s covered in maps.
“So, you said the cove is located a bit south of Witch’s Rock, correct?” He pulls a monocle from his robe breast pocket and places it over his right eye as he bends over the huge pile of maps. “Quite a desolate area. And protected by a national park so no roads in the vicinity.” He shrugs. “Not a bad place to hide covert operations. I can’t believe it’s practically under my nose and I don’t know about it!”
He rifles through the maps and then holds one up triumphantly before rolling it out flat on the table. His finger stabs down on a spot along the coastline. “This is Naranjo Beach, and here’s Witch’s Rock. Meaning your cove is around here.” He circles his fingertip.
“The path cut straight in but then seemed to start curving slightly south, from what I could tell before the hell hounds chased us,” I say.
“Yes, that heads into a mountainous area rather quickly. Again, a great hiding spot.” Fitz strokes his chin.
“We can’t approach from the coast again, though.” I lean over the table, my fingers tracing over the map. “They’ll be watching for us there. We need to do something unexpected. Come at this from another direction.”
“But if you don’t know where the damnable place is,” Fitz says, “How exactly are you going to do that?”
“I can perform a location spell,” Ven says.
I shake my head in confusion. “I thought you already tried that. When Luciana first went missing.”
“I did,” she says. “A location spell on Luciana. Not knowing about the Night Guild. I think it’s possible whoever’s heading up their security put magical blockers on the people they’ve taken. But—” She raises a finger when she sees my impatient expression. “I can do a location spell on the hell hounds. They have to be heading back to their home base periodically. And I doubt anyone would have thought to block them.”
I lean back, impressed. “Clever. Let’s do it.”
“Splendid!” Fitz adds with a flourish of his hands.
“I need a couple very small items… something the size of pennies,” Ven says, looking up at Fitz.
He nods and walks over to another table, opens up a set of drawers, palms something, and returns. He places two small bullets down before Ven.
“That will do fine,” she says. “There are a few variations of locater spells, but this is my preferred method.”
She picks them up and I feel a flare as she calls on her magic. A sparkle of dusky lavender surrounds her, and her palm glows orange a moment, as if she’s holding a tiny sunset in her hand. Her lips move as she murmurs the words to a spell. Then she leans over and sets the enchanted bullets down on the map. As soon as she removes her hands, they begin to move. After several moments, they settle in a location not far from the hidden cove.
I frown as a thought occurs to me. “How long are we going to have to watch this map until we’re sure they’ve returned to their masters?”
“Shh,” Ven says, pressing a finger to her lips.
Fitz chuckles.
Ven raises both hands over the map and another glow of power moves over her. Then the map itself lights up with a shimmer of magic. While holding her left hand steady, she moves her right hand in a counterclockwise circular motion. The bullets begin to move again, this time quickly darting across the map.
“A time lapse spell,” Ven murmurs. Her forehead wrinkles as she concentrates. “Watch for patterns.”
I glue my eyes to the map. I watch as the two bullets, or rather, the two hell hounds, move back and forth around the cove. They must have been monitoring that area for us to return. Then the bullets move much further inland, into the mountainous area Fitz had pointed out. They return to the cove, then move along the path we had taken from the beach to the cove, then back to the same spot in the mountains again before the bullets fall still.
“Okay,” Ven says, taking in a big breath as if she’d been holding it. “That was the last twenty-four hours.”
Fitz and I point to the map at the same time. “This spot,” I say. “They went back here twice. It also lines up with where the path from the cove could lead, inland and slightly south.”
Fitz takes a fancy antique feather quill and scratches an X in ink to mark the spot. “You are absolutely marvelous, dear,” he says to Ven.
“What he said,” I add.
She blushes, a perfect shade of peach coloring her pale skin. I feel a strange sensation in my stomach that I shove aside.
“So, now for a strategy,” I say. “We’ll approach from the north.” I run my finger from the approximate location of Fitz’s compound in the valley down to the location of the drix production plant. “We’ll need to be prepared for their security system. I’m sure the lovely hexes we found along the path from the cove are just the beginning.”
“You have come to precisely the right place,” Fitz says, rubbing his hands together in glee. “I’ll be right back.”
