Page 10 of Holiday Cheese and Capers
Everyone jumped. Fred, who’d been dozing contentedly in Bayard’s backpack, exploded into frantic quacking.
“What’s happening?” Anja cried out.
Exandra came rushing back from the direction of the entrance, her face flushed, her expression alarmed. “Someone’s broken into the facility! The control room’s been ransacked! I think it’s the work of the Culture Vulture!”
The group surged backtoward the entrance, following Exandra’s lead. Minerva gripped Zephyr’s hand as they hurried through the stone corridors. Something was not quite right. Her mouse-sharp senses tingled with wrongness.
Behind her, Bayard moved surprisingly fast, despite his limp.
“Something’s not right, Fred,” he mumbled. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The control room door hung open. Even from the corridor they could all see the damage. Drawers were pulled out from the desk and papers were scattered across the floor. One of the interactive charts flickered erratically.
“No, no, no,” Lukas was saying, pushing past into the room. “Who would do this? Why?”
Anja was already at the main console, her hands flying over the magical controls. “The Yule chamber is offline. The monitoring’s been disabled. I can’t see the temperature readings.”
“It’s the Culture Vulture,” Exandra said grimly. “This matches the pattern from the other incidents.”
But Minerva barely heard her. Something was wrong. She could sense it. Her nose twitched, and she caught a shift in temperature that didn’t bode well: warm air, too warm and too much of it, moving where it shouldn’t.
“Something’s wrong with the temperature in the Yule cheese room,” she said, her voice cutting through the panic.
Everyone turned to look at her. Bayard raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“I can sense it,” she explained. “And I can smell it. The air flow is wrong. There’s hot air…” She closed her eyes, sniffing the air and letting her mouse instincts guide her. “It’s flowing into the Yule cheese chamber. Something’s heating it up.”
“But the door to that chamber is sealed,” Anja protested. “It’s always?—”
Minerva was already moving, already shifting into her mouse form as she ran. Her clothes shrank with her as she became a small gray mouse, whiskers twitching, nose pulling her toward the danger. She sensed Zephyr behind her keeping pace and heard multiple footsteps pounding behind them as they raced down the stone corridor.
Sure enough, the door to the Yule chamber stood wide open.
Minerva’s mouse heart hammered as she scurried in, immediately feeling the heat blasting in from the tasting chamber next door. Someone had propped both doors open and turned the space heater to maximum. Hot, dry air was flooding into the carefully maintained cave. The thermostat was hanging by its wires, barely still attached to the wall. It had been deliberately disconnected.
She shifted back to human form just as the others arrived.
“The thermostat’s been tampered with,” Minerva said, pointing. “And the space heater’s been used to warm the air deliberately, I think. Look! The doors have been propped.”
“The cheese,” Anja gasped, moving toward the glowing wheels. “The cultures—if the temperature rose too high?—”
“How long has it been?” Zephyr asked sharply, already pulling out his wand.
“Minutes,” Lukas said, his voice breaking. “Maybe ten minutes of exposure? The wheels are still cool to the touch, but?—”
“We still have time.” Zephyr moved to the center of the chamber, his wand glowing. “Minerva, cast with me. Lukas, Anja, reconnect that thermostat. Everyone else, clear the doorway.”
Minerva took her position beside Zephyr, feeling their magic align as it always did. It was as natural as breathing, even after all their years apart. The last few precious months together had only strengthened the bond that was always there. She focused on the air itself, feeling its temperature, its movement, while Zephyr drew the excess heat away from the chamber, pulling it up and out through ventilation shafts that suddenly glowed with blue light.
“Frigus conservare,” they chanted together, their combined magic creating a cooling ward that settled over the precious wheels like a protective blanket.
Anja’s hands moved frantically over the reconnected thermostat, adjusting settings, restoring the careful balance. Lukas sealed the doors, shutting out the warm air from the cave.
For several long minutes, the only sounds were the hum of magic, the soft clicking of the restored equipment, and Fred’s worried quacking from Bayard’s backpack.
After some delay, Anja let out a shaky breath. “The temperature’s stabilized. We’re back to optimal range.”
“The wheels?” Zephyr asked.
