Page 53 of Jay's Silence

He held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. Unlike further south, we’ve only got a few of the pods up here. We’re keeping an eye on them.”

I nodded, tucking away the fact that the pods were not evenly distributed across the Ley Lines for a later date.

“You would have done more than just take the information from my mind.” Superintendent Kelly rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Who are you without your magic?”

My stomach squeezed. “Really, that’s your question?”

The superintendent frowned. “Two years you worked with my force to clear out a ghoul infestation. You were good, really good, but in that time, your only focus was magic. Your day trips took you to Ley Lines and ancient sites of power. I don’t remember you making a single friend.”

Lux’s hand on my shoulder squeezed, and Ogden rested his palm on my thigh under the table.

I wrinkled my nose. “I mean, I talked to you.”

The superintendent shook his head. “Barely, and when I made a move, you introduced me to another woman.”

That sounded like me. “How did that work out?”

“We got married. We have three kids and our first grandbaby on the way.” The superintendent chuckled. “So, good. Really good.”

I smiled, honestly happy for my old acquaintance. The tension in the air eased, though the mention of kids brought back Tyson’s words during our walk to Scalehive. I shook my head, trying to physically free myself of the intense emotions these dragons brought out in me. I needed to focus.

“So, yeah, that’s my question.” he reiterated.

I very pointedly did not look at my dragons. “I’m a growing girl, still trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up.” Although my words sounded playful, my delivery was flat and bitter. I didn’t know who I was without my magic, and everyone in this room knew it.

I wrinkled my nose unhappily.

A uniformed officer entered and set a laptop on the table before exiting.

“I didn’t actually speak to you a year ago,” the superintendent said. “No one did. You were in and out fast.”

He opened the laptop. A video waited for someone to press play. With a click of a button, a portal opened in a dimly lit museum. Two figures stepped out of it. My favorite high ponytail swayed down to my hips, and the shield enchantments I used to keep on my back glowed with my powers.

The second figure was more challenging to make out. Though I willed him to turn and face the camera, he never did. Dressed in jeans and a grey long-sleeve shirt, he honestly just looked like a dude with a rolling gate. He stood at my height, but his build was bean-pole thin. A hat hid his features.

In the video, we wandered shelves for a few minutes before the man presumably called me over. We stared at a case before I waved my hand, and then we left through the same portal.

“You took this,” the superintendent handed me a picture.

What looked like the corner of a textured yellowy-white box, three sides of it covered in intricately carved pictures and runes, had been photographed from a few different angles. The measuring tape in one picture showed it to be precisely 12.3 centimeters long, 5 centimeters wide, and 18 centimeters tall.

“Is that bone?” Ogden asked.

“It is,” Superintendent Kelly answered. “Whalebone. It’s part of Gorm’s Casket, a prolific Viking believed to be a god. Vikings burn their dead at sea. After Gorm took his final sail to Valhalla,a mermaid collected his physical ashes in this casket and buried them deep on the ocean floor. Only, as we now know, God’s can’t die. Fast forward a few hundred years, and the casket was found here in Ireland on the altar to a neolithic sun god… broken.”

I chewed on my lower lip and drummed my fingers on the table, having a vague memory of that.

Rehan narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

“It was the power of a god, just sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I was only two hundred years old.” I batted my eyes innocently. “What do you think I did?”

Ogden giggled and nodded encouragingly while Rehan rubbed his hand down his face.

I leaned toward Superintendent Kelly. “More importantly. In the present, why did I take a piece of the casket out of your museum, and why don’t I remember doing it?”

“Who was the guy?” the superintendent leaned forward.

I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t know.

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