"I'm afraid we have little time for pleasantries and none for sightseeing," I said as politely as possible as I bowed to the man sitting behind the desk before me. Although I knew he was the same age as Jonathan and Hollis, he looked older by more than a decade. His face was seamed and weathered, his hair snowy white and thinning. But he still showed the strength of his contemporaries. The events of his life must have been strange indeed. "We're scheduled to depart on the noon train back to London," I added.

"Well," Wizard MacMullan said, "That gives us little time indeed." He rose and came around the desk, extending his hand. "Wizard Patrick MacMullan."

I shook his hand firmly. "Mage Alys Kinnear," I said, giving the proper reply. "These are my familiars, Athena and Artemis."

Athena curtsied and Artemis settled to her haunches and looked up attentively.

"That'll do for pleasantries," he said with a warm smile. "Call me Patrick. Come, I have the dagger locked in a small chest and sealed in my vault. I'll give it to you, and you can take it to Hollis."

"I'm going to look a little odd carrying a small chest back to the train," I replied with some amusement as he led us out of the room and down a flight of stairs.

"In Edinburgh? Hardly. Many people use them for a lot of different purposes," Patrick shrugged. "Nobody will look twice, I assure you. Here we are."

The staircase ended in a very solid-looking iron door. He pulled a ring of keys from somewhere inside his dark blue and grey robes and began flipping through them quickly.

"That's a very impressive door," Athena said quietly.

Patrick flashed her a quick grin. "Hollis and I share a passion for finding, securing and destroying artifacts of dark magic. Sadly, there are a shockingly large number of them around. Many people get caught up in magic without realizing how dark what they're doing is and accidentally create something sinister without meaning to. Others create these things intentionally. But they require, in our opinion - the most cautious of handling."

"How do you destroy one?" I asked curiously as he began unlocking the five deadbolts I could see on the door.

"Well, that's not as simple a question as it sounds," he replied thoughtfully as he selected a different key to unlock the second deadbolt. "It depends on a great many factors. In the case of this dagger, I suspect magical fire would be sufficient."

"In some cases," He selected another key and opened another lock, "Very old or very powerful relics require extreme measures to eliminate them completely. Dragon's fire is a classic cleansing agent for dark magic, as is destruction in an active volcano. Needless to say, both are a bit on the dangerous side."

He flashed me a quick grin and continued to the next lock. "Sometimes it's as simple as destroying the physical vessel. Sometimes the energies within need to be scattered and diminished before the vessel can be safely destroyed. In the worst case scenarios, some artifacts are so powerful or are intentionally made so indestructible that all one can do is store them out of reach and hope they never see the light of day again. I have a few things down here like that."

"If you know so much about destroying them," I asked, "And think you know what will destroy this one, why risk sending it to Hollis?"

"Well, academically I know a lot about destroying such artifacts," he said absently. "But it's not my specialty. In practice, I've rarely had to destroy one, and I'm more often called on as an Exorcist."

That would explain the white hair and weathered features.

With a flourish, he unlocked the last deadbolt and murmured the words of a spell to remove the magical protections I could feel thrumming around and through the door. "My defenses are threefold," he said, "If you're curious."

"I am," I said. "I've always found wards interesting."

He smiled. "Good! Too many young Mages today think wards take too long to bother with. Anyway, each lock is magically attuned to the key associated with it. Even if someone managed to make a copy of the key, only I or someone I trained to do so could attune the copy to the lock. Without being attuned, the lock wouldn't open even for the right key."

"That's really cool," Athena whistled softly.

Patrick looked pleased. "It's a ward of my own devising. If we had more time," he addressed me this time, "I'd show it to you. But another time. The second layer of defenses are standard wards, but woven together to make a whole stronger than the sum of its parts. Mostly portal sealing, repulsion and the like, though two of them are potentially lethal. I won't say more about them. Don't take it personally."

I shook my head. "I don't. I know how important keeping the details of something like that quiet can be."

"Good," he said firmly and began to pull the door open. Its hinges squealed laboriously, but it opened. "The third layer is physical, something many Mages forget to protect against. There's a half-dozen crossbows in hidden niches around us. If the door was opened without the spell to disable them being cast, whoever opened the door would look like a pincushion - or worse, probably, after the spells hit." He considered the now-open door as the lights inside began to come on. "I should really replace them with firearms, but I can't quite bring myself to abandon the traditional style of crossbows."

"There's something to be said for tradition," I agreed. "Besides, if it's something non-human trying to get in, the cold iron of an arrowhead might be more effective than a lead bullet."

"That's true too," Patrick nodded. "You have a good head for this sort of thing. Come this way."

He led us into his vault, which appeared to take up a fair chunk of his basement space. There was a workbench in the center of the room, with bookcases and shelves lining the walls. The shelves were crammed full of every imaginable sort of dark magical talisman, focus and material component ranging from a jar of bluish eyeballs with hourglass-shaped pupils - really - to something that looked like a used Vodun doll from West Africa. At least, from the pins sticking out of it, I was pretty sure it had already been used.

My eyes were caught for a moment by a trident made of copper that seemed to sparkle with greenish light, and a book that...I took three steps to the side and peered more closely. Its cover appeared at a glance to be made of leather, but something about the texture reminded me of human skin. I swallowed hard. "Is that..."

"Best not to ask," Patrick said gently. "I try not to think about some of what's in here. I'd have nightmares if I did. Over here."

I went to stand beside him at the workbench, while Athena and Artemis crowded in close behind me. On the bench was a small wooden chest bound in iron and copper and held shut with a padlock engraved with runes.

"There it is," he said. "As secured for transport as I can make it without it becoming impossible to move. I won't ask you to sign for it or anything like that, but if you're not sure you'll be okay playing courier..."

I shook my head. "We'll be fine," I said with more confidence than I felt. "Hollis warned us that we needed to be extra cautious on this trip, especially on the way back, and we will be."

Athena nodded and Artemis mrowled her agreement.

Patrick smiled. "Then I give it into your care, and I wish you a safe journey home. Will you stay for an early lunch? I imagine you already ate on the train, but you won't want to go to the dining car with that in your possession."

"That would be very good," I said with a returning smile. "Thank you."

"If you don't mind my asking," I said slowly as we returned to the door, "Why keep all of this if it's so dangerous?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Well, for one thing it's safer here than lying around," he said lightly. "But really...as unpleasant as most of these things are, and as dangerous as they are, destruction of knowledge is often an irrevocable act. Many of the items in my vault have provided me with the insights or information necessary to deal with a greater darkness than themselves."

"I see," I replied thoughtfully. "You safeguard the knowledge against being used for evil, without destroying the potential to learn from it how to prevent or stop evil."

"Just so."

He locked up the vault, and we returned to the main floor.

"When you arrived," he said a little while later as we were finishing our light meal, "You said there wasn't enough time for sightseeing. I take it you're interested in Edinburgh."

"Very," I replied eagerly. "Is it true that parts of the castle are almost nine hundred years old?"

"Very true," he smiled. "And the castle rock has been inhabited as a seat of power since long before that. For over two thousand years, in fact."

"Because it's a nexus of ley lines?" I asked.

"Precisely," Patrick nodded. "One of the largest confluences of ley lines in the world, in fact. There's a system of tunnels and caverns under the rock that were the last great stronghold of the Sidhe before most of them finally retreated to the Spirit Realm." He gave me a penetrating look, his eyes flicking to the delicate point of one of my ears, poking through my pale golden hair. "You might find that particularly interesting."

I blushed and shifted my hair to cover my ear again. "Perhaps."

He smiled. "I didn't mean to pry."

"It's all right," I said sheepishly. "I don't know who my father was, but it's a fair bet he was of the Sidhe. I would like to see the castle and the tunnels when I have time."

"When you have time," he said with a smile, "Come back and see me, and I'll get you into both. I have access to areas that the tours can't get into, and I imagine those are the ones that would interest you the most."

"Thank you." I leaned forward a little. "Perhaps you'd be willing to teach me about your automatons at the same time?"

He grinned. "Ah, those are a specialty of mine, and I'm always glad to show them off. They take a great deal of time and effort to build, but I'd be more than willing to teach you the basics. Being an Exorcist may be my calling, but building those automatons is my passion. Perhaps if you came back in the spring. April and May are beautiful up here with everything blooming."

"I'll see if I can get away then," I said with a nod.

We took our leave of him not long after that, thanking him for his hospitality that day and his offer of hospitality during a future visit. He had one of his automatons, a different one, drive us back to the train station so that we arrived with a good forty-five minutes to spare before the train was scheduled to depart.

Being a train station, it took us most of that time to clear our tickets and get to the train itself, but at least we weren't racing to catch it this time. We settled into another first class compartment, and I put the small chest up on the luggage shelf.

The train pulled out of the station less than ten minutes later, mostly empty for a change according to the conductor that came by to check on us and verify our tickets one more time.

"I've rarely seen the Caledonian Sleeper with such a light compliment of passengers on its way back to London," the older man said as he tipped his cap back to scratch his head beneath. "It's never packed, mind you, since the train's main purpose is the nighttime run to Edinburgh. But the rearmost cars are all but empty." He shrugged and set his cap in place again. "If you need anything, miss, you ring for me. I doubt I'll be busy."

Once he was gone, the three of us exchanged a series of complex looks. I felt the tension in the air, something that raised my hackles a bit. "Do you girls feel that?"

Athena nodded. "I think we were followed through the train station too, Mistress. But I was never able to catch sight of anyone paying an unusual amount of attention to us."

<> Artemis agreed. <>

"The question is," I said, "How long they'll wait before making their move to claim the chest and its contents. Perhaps we should make a circuit of the train and see if we can spot a likely candidate."

"Getting past us to it won't be easy, Mistress," Athena replied. "I think we should hunker down and stay here."

We considered our options in silence for a few moments. Finally, I sighed. "You're right, pet. We have a strong defensive position here. Might as well make use of it."

So we settled in. Athena took a seat on the bench, turned a bit towards the door with her sheathed sword propped against one leg. Artemis stretched out on the bottom bunk, also facing the door, and appeared to doze off, but I knew better. I paced the small compartment for a little while before finally sitting down beside Athena.

It's not easy to maintain a state of high alert, especially when you're on a train. The rhythm of the rails and the swaying of the train is practically hypnotic and a natural soporific to many people, myself included. I honestly did not mean to doze off, and having only been awake for a few hours I should have been alert.

In other words, I have no excuse for being caught flat-footed.

But our surprise was complete when the door of our compartment suddenly and violently exploded inwards, smashing into the far wall and shattering the window there. I was on my feet before the pieces of the door had crossed the room, but one of them clipped the side of my head and sent me spinning into the little table.

Athena was on her feet an instant later, her sword flashing as it cleared its scabbard. Artemis remained where she was, but tensed and crouched to pounce.

"Mistress?" Athena asked as she set herself with a two-handed grip on her sword's hilt. "Are you all right?"

I shook my head and pushed myself upright with my staff. When I touched the side of my head, my fingers came away wet with blood, but not a lot of it. I was probably lucky I didn't have a concussion. "I'll be okay," I said clearly, not a hint of a slur to my voice, thank goodness. "It just clipped me."

She glanced over her shoulder at me, and the instant she turned her eyes from the door a black blur darted into the room and slammed into her. It took a split second for my eyes to resolve what I was seeing...a fast-moving catgirl, her skin and hair midnight black and dressed in leathers like Athena's that matched her skin tone almost perfectly. She had a pair of short curved swords crossed on her back and had firmly planted her shoulder into Athena's stomach, lifting her from her feet and knocking her backwards.

Athena slammed into the remains of the door with a grunt, but kept her feet and her grip on her sword, pressing forward instantly to be met by the other catgirl's crossed blades. A sword like Athena's shieldblade is best used in open spaces, but she'd spent days practicing close-quarters fighting with it, and knew how to use it in tight spaces.

I could see Artemis looking for an opening in the quickly darting and clashing blades, waiting for the right time to add herself to the melee. I moved to my right, trying to get a clear line of sight on the other catgirl, and was almost immediately glad that I had. If I'd stayed where I'd been, I would've been caught directly in the spray of splinters and shrapnel as a person-sized hole was blasted in the wall and bench to my left.

As it was, Athena, Artemis and I were all peppered by splinters, but none big enough to do serious damage and our clothes (and Artemis's fur) caught most of it.

I was distracted, trying to figure out how to help Athena, and wasn't expecting a magical attack. As such, I simply was not fast enough to defend myself against the wave of invisible force that caught me up and slammed me into the wall to my right, hard enough to make me drop my staff. As I slid to the floor, I saw a slim figure about my size in a black canvas coat and hooded cloak already exiting through the hole with the chest containing the dagger tucked under one arm.

"Bugger!" I pushed myself to my feet and grabbed my staff. "Artemis, with me!"

"Hecate," a female voice called from the hallway, "To me!"

Immediately, the black catgirl disengaged from Athena, leaping backwards into the hallway and darting away down it.

"Athena, go after her!" I called as I ducked through the hole in the wall with my left hand held out before me, the Anima for a shield held ready to release. But there was nobody in the room, so I went on through the open door and out into the hall as Athena ran past me.

I followed her, and Artemis followed me. We chased the two figures, the cloaked woman and the catgirl, towards the back of the train and through two more sleeper cars. The third car we entered was the first-class baggage car and was nearly empty. This was our chance.

I lunged to my left, giving myself a clear line of fire towards the cloaked woman and thrust my staff towards her, unleashing a burst of force similar to what had been used on me. It was even more effective because she was running where I had been nearly motionless. I caught her full in the back, lifting her off her feet and slamming her face-first into the wall beside the door.

She staggered back, dropping the chest and stumbling against the wall beside her. The catgirl - Hecate, I supposed - skidded to a halt and turned to face us, drawing her curved swords again and taking up a defensive position in front of her mistress.

"I should have expected that," the woman groaned as she regained her balance. She shook her head, causing the hood to fall back. When she turned, I took a step back in surprise.

For a moment, I thought I was looking in a mirror. Her features were so like my own that it shocked me into immobility: Pointed ears, bright golden eyes, delicate features and pale skin. We were even of a height and build, as far as I could tell.

Then the differences registered. We both had very fair skin, but where mine was a healthy - if pale - shade, hers was a pallid and sickly color. Her eyes were the same color as mine, but deeply sunken with dark shadows beneath them, and her hair was the same deep black as her familiar's. We were both slim, but she had an almost emaciated look about her even though her muscle tone was clearly good.

It was still like looking in a mirror, I thought, but a dark and twisted one.

She smiled slowly, the smile curving her lips unpleasantly and making her eyes glitter with something that looked more like madness than happiness. "Well met, Alys. I've wanted to meet you for some time, but daddy wouldn't let me. After his useless thugs failed to get the package from you down on the London docks last time, I decided I'd come myself this time." She bowed deeply, but stopped short of scooping up the chest as both Athena and Artemis hissed.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I said quietly, keeping my staff pointed straight at her.

She laughed delightedly and clapped her hands together. "Oh yes, I certainly do, and in so many ways. A lovely play on words." Her eyes met mine and her smile darkened somehow. "I approve. But you're right, I do. Call me Brenna...dear cousin."