Page 91 of Dragon’s Rebel

Chapter 40

Farnham & Peabody’s system was ludicrously easy to hack once you knew what to look for. “It’s like these people don’t have any firewalls at all,” Thorne muttered. “I could make a fortune hiring myself out as a security specialist.”

“You already have a fortune.”

“True.”

By dawn, they’d found their way to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. It ended at a set of tall wrought-iron gates, decorated with a large circle ringed all around with stylized waves—the official symbol of the coven. Above it was a leaping dolphin.

The two of them exchanged looks. Dolphins.

The gate was the only opening in a high stone wall that stretched as far as they could see in both directions. Through the gate they could see a long, cracked driveway leading to an enormous house with dozens of blank windows, a set of wide, shallow stone stairs leading up to the front door.

It was obvious it was abandoned. The cracks in the driveway were full of weeds, and the trees that lined it obviously hadn’t been trimmed in years.

“This looks like the place,” Thorne said. He got out of the SUV and walked up to the gate, Rebel keeping pace with him. He gingerly touched the gate, and electricity snapped painfully through his fingers.

“Warded,” he said. He wished like hell his immunity to magic and wards had stayed with him when his dragon went. “We may need the keys after all.”

Rebel shook her head. She was gazing at the house, and unreadable expression on her face. “We don’t need anything,” she said. “I’m the key.”

She reached out and put her hand right through the wards. “I can get us in.”

They pulled the SUV off the road and Thorne put a cloaking spell on it. Then Rebel walked up to the gate and put her hand on the lock. It snicked open. She opened the gate, took Thorne’s hand, and led him through.

He could feel the wards, like walking through a sheet of water, but they didn’t react to him now that she was touching him. She pushed the gate shut and it locked behind her.

They walked up the driveway. As they approached the house, they could see that on either side of the front staircase was a stone dolphin, leaping out of the waves. Great. If the whole place was going to be covered in dolphins, how would they know which one was the Seal?

Rebel’s face had gone soft with wonder. She walked up to one of the dolphins, running her hand over its back. She looked up at the house again. It was huge and had once been grand, but now the windows were boarded up and the paint was peeling, with gaps here and there in the siding where pieces had fallen off.

But Rebel was looking at it like it was the holy grail. “I’ve been here,” she breathed.

That stopped Thorne in his tracks. “You have? When?”

“When Tempest was born. So I had to have been six, I guess. Mom was sick just before the birth, and dad was worried about her, so Mom and I came here.” She paused. “I didn’t understand why Dad didn’t come, but I got the impression he wasn’t welcome. And that I wasn’t either, but I was allowed to stay.”

“Well, now we know why he wasn’t welcome. And they were probably taking a chance letting you stay here, too, the way people felt about your parents’ marriage.”

“I guess,” she said. “At the time, I just felt unwanted and out of place.” She caressed the dolphin. “It was so rich, so fancy, and when we walked up this staircase I felt really, really tiny. My mom brought the two of us inside and we were shown upstairs to see this old woman in a long dress the color of cranberry juice.”

“Your great-grandmother, probably,” Thorne said. “Silvanna Wilder.”

“I guess it must have been,” Rebel said. “Everyone called her the High Priestess or just Priestess, but I called her the Lady in my head. I thought she was beautiful but scary, because of the way she looked at me. Like she knew all the bad things I’d done and thought I should be punished.”

“You probably should have been,” said Thorne. That got a faint smile.

“Seriously, though, she terrified me. When I found out we had to stay I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to cry in front of her. So I held it in.”

Thorne put his arms around her waist, pulling her to him. He wanted to find that woman and terrify her, for frightening a little six-year-old girl and turning her into someone who could never show when she was scared.

“Do you sense the Seal anywhere?” he asked.

Rebel shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, and it could take forever to scan this whole place. I just keep feeling like we don’t have that kind of time.”

Thorne bit his lips, thinking.

“Is there any part of this place that draws you? The room where you stayed, maybe?”