The Supreme Mage in a Loser's Body

Ch 12 - The Crest from the Nine Realms

Evelyn kept the barrier raised while she reported the rear exit through her earpiece. Kael tried to shift his weight off the pallet, but his ankle gave under him. He caught the wood before he fell, holding the account book against his chest.

“Stay there,” Evelyn said. “My people are coming.”

Marcus began edging toward the open loading door. Evelyn turned just enough to see him, without taking the device away from the aisle Silas had used.

“Sit down, Marcus,” she said.

“I need a doctor,” he replied.

“Then you'll wait for one here,” Evelyn said. “Keep your hands away from your pockets.”

Marcus stopped beside the wall. For a moment, Kael thought he might run anyway. Then a vehicle pulled into the yard, and Marcus lowered himself onto an overturned crate.

Two people entered wearing dark jackets, with identification clipped where it could be seen. One took charge of Marcus while the other checked the office. Evelyn lowered her device only after they had covered both ends of the warehouse.

Kael watched her thumb release the switch. The pale light vanished, leaving the warehouse floor looking darker than before.

“Three injured men in the office,” she said. “A gun under the filing cabinet. There are marked contracts on the desk. Photograph them before anyone handles them.”

The man beside Marcus took out restraints. Marcus stood halfway up again.

“You can't do this over a debt,” Marcus said. “Call the district office. They know me.”

Evelyn opened an identification wallet and held it where he could read it.

“This is an investigation into crimes involving magic,” she replied. “Your district contacts don't decide whether we take you in.”

Marcus looked from the identification to the man waiting beside him. His argument stopped there. The restraints closed around his wrists, and he sat down again with his jaw clenched.

Kael let himself settle onto the edge of the pallet. He had wanted the collectors out of his family's life. Now other people were taking control of the warehouse, and he did not yet know what they would ask in return.

Evelyn crouched far enough away that he would not have to lean back to see her.

“I need the book,” she said.

His grip tightened. “It proves the loan was paid,” he replied.

“That's why I need to record it as evidence,” Evelyn said. “You can keep copies. I'll have someone photograph it here, where you can watch.”

Kael looked toward Marcus before handing it over. Evelyn passed the book to her colleague with instructions to keep it at the office desk, then brought a chair from beside the loading door.

He accepted her arm for the few steps it took to reach it. His core held too little power to make standing easier, and using the last trace for pride would leave him with nothing.

“My family,” Kael said as he sat. “You sent people there.”

Evelyn checked through her earpiece, listened, then took out her phone.

“The team is outside the shop,” she replied. “They haven't gone in.”

Kael called Thomas immediately. His father answered before the second ring finished.

“There are two people outside asking us to call you,” Thomas said. “Are you all right?”

“I'm sitting down,” Kael replied. “Evelyn Shaw is here. They're with her.”

He heard Elena ask a question beside Thomas, then the phone changed hands.

“That wasn't what your father asked,” she said.

Kael looked at the torn sleeve hanging from his arm. “I'm hurt, but I'm awake and talking to you,” he replied. “They're arranging help.”

Evelyn's eyes stayed on him. He had not asked her to do that yet, but she turned and signaled to her colleague.

“Marcus is being taken in,” Kael continued. “Keep the copies I sent. Don't give them to anyone who comes asking.”

Elena was silent for a moment before answering. “Come home when they let you,” she said. “Don't decide there is one more thing you have to do first.”

“I'll call before I leave,” Kael replied.

He ended the call with the phone still warm in his hand. Evelyn drew another chair closer, placing it where she could watch the office and the rear aisle.

“Now tell me about the ring,” she said.

Kael took it from his pocket. He turned it once between his fingers before showing her the three-point crest inside.

“Rafe wore it when he came to our shop,” he said. “I took it during the fight.”

“And you recognized the mark,” Evelyn replied.

He could deny it, but Silas had seen his reaction. Evelyn had been standing beside him. Another empty answer would only make her press harder.

“It belongs to dangerous people,” Kael said.

“Silas named Lord Varyn,” Evelyn replied. “Who is he?”

The name brought back the summit, the poisoned blades, and the leaders waiting behind their soldiers. Kael kept his attention on the ring. He had first recognized the crest on a man allied with Varyn. Silas's claim now tied its presence on Earth directly to the enemy who had helped drive him into this body.

That did not mean every word Silas spoke was true. He could have been trying to force a reaction. But he had chosen a name Kael had never spoken here.

“Someone you should take seriously,” Kael replied.

Evelyn rested her forearms on her knees. “You keep answering half the question,” she said. “I stepped between you and a spell meant for your throat. I need to know whether the man who cast it came here to kill you or collect you.”

“I don't know which,” Kael replied.

That answer came easily because it was true.

She watched him for several seconds, then held out her phone. “May I photograph the crest?” she asked.

Kael set the ring on her open palm. She photographed the inside and outside without slipping it onto a finger, then returned it.

“What did Silas say before I got through the doors?” she asked.

“He wanted to know who I was,” Kael replied. “He wasn't satisfied with what he saw.”

Evelyn's gaze moved briefly toward his stomach. “Neither am I,” she said. “Yesterday, I couldn't find a core. Today, you have one.”

Kael put the ring away. “And today, you arrived with equipment made to stop him,” he replied. “You didn't learn how to use it outside the loading door.”

Evelyn leaned back. For the first time since sitting down, she looked tired.

“No,” she said. “I didn't.”

Her colleague called from the office to confirm that the gun had been secured. Evelyn acknowledged her before returning to Kael.

“Magical objects began turning up in Graybridge eighteen years ago,” she said. “That's when our records begin to show a pattern. Rings, stones, pieces of metal with marks nobody could explain.”

Kael kept his hands still on his knees.

“Eighteen years?” he asked.

“The earliest cases we can reliably connect,” Evelyn replied. “Some objects did nothing until a person who could use magic touched them. Others harmed people who never understood what they were holding.”

Kael thought of the stronger vessel he had prepared long before Black Sky Peak. Its preparation had required a path beyond his own world, established in advance so his soul would have somewhere to go if his body failed.

He had assumed the damaged crossing brought him into contact with Earth's hidden magic. Evelyn's dates suggested the connection might have existed much earlier. He could not compare the passing years between worlds with confidence yet, but the timing was too important to dismiss.

“Who collected them?” Kael asked.

“A group calling itself the Circle of Ash,” Evelyn replied. “It still does. It also recruits people who can use the objects, teaches them enough to be useful, then gives them work.”

Kael glanced toward the office. “Work like preparing contracts,” he said.

“Among other things,” Evelyn replied. “We believe Silas supplies people like Marcus. Today gives us evidence we can act on.”

One of the guards was led out of the office with his arm supported. Marcus watched him pass, then lowered his head. Kael noticed how carefully the investigators kept the men apart.

“There's power below the floor,” Kael said. “I couldn't reach it.”

Evelyn's expression changed. She passed the information to her team and told them not to open anything beneath the warehouse until it had been checked.

“That helps,” she said to him. “So would understanding how you recognized the marks.”

Kael rubbed his thumb along the edge of his torn sleeve. Cooperation might keep her people close enough to protect the shop. It could also give them a reason to question everyone inside it until his family supplied answers he would not.

“What happens to my parents and sister?” he asked.

“For now, the team stays nearby,” Evelyn replied. “Marcus is coming with us, but Silas is free. I can arrange temporary protection while you help us identify the crest and the marked contracts.”

Kael looked directly at her. “My family isn't part of that arrangement,” he said.

“They are the people I'm offering to protect,” Evelyn replied.

“Then protect them,” Kael said. “Don't question them about me. Don't frighten Maya with what happened here or use their safety to make me answer faster.”

Evelyn did not respond immediately. Outside, a vehicle door shut, followed by another. Marcus turned his head toward the sound as if hoping someone else had come for him.

“I can keep them out of my questioning,” Evelyn said at last. “My team will explain how to contact us and what to do if someone approaches. They won't search your home or demand private family history.”

“And if I can't give you the answer you want?” Kael asked.

“I won't pull protection away to punish you,” she replied. “But if you learn something that puts them or my people in danger, you tell me.”

Kael considered her words. She had protected Marcus from Silas's last attack even while preparing to detain him. It was more useful evidence of her intentions than the identification she had shown.

“I'll help with the objects,” he said. “Those conditions stay in place.”

Evelyn nodded, then gave the instructions to the team outside the shop while he listened. Only after she finished did Kael let his shoulders ease against the chair.

Her colleague appeared at the office doorway with the account book in a clear evidence sleeve.

“The photographs are finished,” she said. “There are older lists tucked behind the back cover. They don't look like loan records.”

Evelyn stood and offered Kael her arm again. He took it, carrying more of his weight himself this time, and followed her to the desk.

The altered contract lay beneath a clear sheet, its broken mark visible beside Ethan's copied signature. Beyond it, the blue book had been opened at the back. Several folded pages rested in a pocket attached to the cover.

“Do you recognize any of these entries?” Evelyn asked.

Kael leaned over the desk while her colleague turned a page for him. Most of the names meant nothing. There were dates beside them, short notes, and numbers that did not match the loan balances he had examined earlier.

Halfway down the next page, he found the Cole address.

He stopped the page with one finger against its edge. The address was written beneath a name, with a date in the same faded ink. Kael checked the heading, then the year again.

Evelyn moved closer. “What is it?” she asked.

“That's my name,” Kael replied.

Ethan Cole had been entered in the book eighteen years earlier.

He had been five years old, long before he borrowed a single dollar from the Iron Vipers.