“This whole discussion is moot if we don’t know where they are hiding,” Alric complained. He shoved away from the desk and walked over to the chair he’d been sitting in, dropping into it with an irritated huff.
Baldewin crossed the room and sat on the sofa closest to him, stretching his legs out.
“The humans are doing what they can, but hitting red tape was inevitable,” Gunter said with a shrug.
“But all that work the humans are going to do, that’s on a computer, right?” Ravi asked as a new idea started to form in his mind.
“Largely,” Baldewin answered. “They’ve got access to security cameras and other databases, I’m sure. They’ll sort through the information to track the Jaeggi back to her starting location.”
Ravi stood next to Alric’s chair, his arm resting on the back of it. “Then, why don’t we use our computer genius and snarky hacker to search for the Jaeggi?”
“Cassie?” Alric said.
Ravi nodded. “She used her sneaky computer skills to track down Tori and the rest of his clan. She’s also researching all the new mages and wannabe mages. Why can’t she use her Google-fu, or whatever she calls it, to find the Jaeggi? The human police have already given us a starting point—Czechia.”
Baldewin laughed. “Permission to hack into all kinds of security cameras to find the Jaeggi? Yeah, I think Cassie would go for it.”
Alric groaned. “God help us.”
“Good luck reining her in again,” Dieter muttered.
Gunter shifted to sit on the edge of his sofa cushion. “That’s true, but it is for a good cause. And North has proven to be quite handy with computers, as well. They’re likely to find the information we need much faster than the humans.”
“Very well. I’ll speak to Cassie, try to set up some boundaries. We can’t have her getting caught or getting into mischief. But, if we can find the Jaeggi before they put more mages and dragons in danger, that’s all the better.”
Ravi might have let out a celebratory shout. They were finally going to get these bastards. It wasn’t so much that their last attack had hurt him personally, but rather it was as Alric had said. The Jaeggi had attacked their home, damaged their sense of safety and security. This needed to end now.
Sora sat comfortably in Gunter’s office (dungeon? lair?), hands folded on the tabletop. The suspiciously scarred tabletop. And really, it felt like a dungeon in here, as there wasn’t a window to be seen. There were quite a few preservation charms on the bookshelves to help keep the books there from fading with time.
Gunter himself was swathed in a dark blue sweater, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, a tie holding his shoulder-length blond hair away from his face. He had glasses perched on his nose (which made Sora twitch, because, really? Glasses? When there were so many optical spells to fix eyesight issues?). In front of him was a laptop, his fingers perched over the keys.
“Thank you for this, Sora. There’s too much about your clan that I don’t know.”
“It’s not a problem. Actually, it gives me a chance to apologize for my part in the little prank Ravi pulled on you. I am sorry. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
Gunter lifted his eyes to Sora and sort of blinked at him in confusion for a moment. “Prank?”
“The shrink-wrap and the bubble wrap,” Sora reminded him.
“Oh! Yes, that nonsense.” Gunter waved a hand at him and chuckled softly. “It was nothing. They like to think I’m not aware that Hoheit has Ravi on a regular schedule of dragging me out of my library, but I’m no fool.”
He paused and gave a little shrug, sighing softly as if to himself.
“The truth is that my dragon enjoys the hunt and excitement.” Gunter suddenly narrowed his eyes at Sora. “But if you tell Ravi that, I swear I will deny it until my dying breath.”
Sora laughed, tossing his head back. “Never. I’d never ruin your fun or his.”
“But let’s get back to why you’ve been pulled into my lair. Can you tell me more about your clan as well as the make-up of the Sodalicium? How many magical families compose the Sodalicium? What are they?”
Sora expelled a slow breath and sank back in his chair, trying to organize his thoughts. He hadn’t attempted to list all the mage clans in a long time.
“Quite a few,” he murmured, trying to buy himself a few seconds. “We have the Kedar from India, the Feroz from Persia, the Korstiaan from the Netherlands, the Zeleny, of course, the Panapoulos from Greece, the Manalo from the Philippines, the MacDougall from Scotland, the Aznar from Spain, and a few Xhosa family members from South Africa joined us during the migration. There aren’t many of them left; they don’t tend to marry, for some reason. But I want to say there’s about two dozen of them.”
Gunter looked wistful. “So many. We feared most mage clans had been lost.”
“We have stragglers from other mage clans who have joined us, but those are the major ones.” Sora didn’t like the idea that the clans hadn’t survived out in the real world. He asked hopefully, “But you’ve seen magic from other families born in this generation, correct? That’s where your new mages have come from.”
“Yes and no. It’s sort of a mixed result.” Gunter stopped typing to tick them off on a finger. “The Noh family has the most so far—that’s Cameron and Cassie’s family line. We have three from them at the moment, and we’re investigating their cousins in Korea. North comes from the Aldridges, who were originally in England but are now found in the southern United States. It’s the same clan Lisette comes from. Tori comes from the Taavi, formerly Taavetti, and they are in the northernmost part of Finland. We don’t really deal with them for the most part. They’re a sizeable enough clan at two hundred members but very toxic in culture.”
Gunter looked uncomfortable, his gaze straying down to his keyboard.
“We’ve been able to draw only about five mages out of that clan, including Tori. Most have gone to the Valerii Dragon Clan in Brazil. While we’re desperate for mages…”
“There’s no reason to drag a potentially toxic element into your clan when you’re also dealing with the Jaeggi,” Sora finished gently.
He was empathetic to their plight. He was looking at a dragon who’d lived more than five centuries with little hope of finding his mate, and now an entire clan of mages was just a short distance away. But no one wanted to deal with that kind of hatred and mistrust from someone who was supposed to love you.
The entire situation dismayed Sora. So few mages? In the entire world? “Even the Valerii haven’t found any mages?”
“Their seeking spells were very short-ranged. The Noh family has managed to give us back that lost information, so our seeking spells have improved drastically. But for the most part, we’ve been researching family trees and finding mages by blind luck.” Gunter pointed to a binder sitting nearby. “That’s the Aldridge line, right there, after they left England. North’s grandfather gave it to me to help with the research. But you can see why having mages pounding on our front door is so exciting for us.”
“Yes, I can.” And it was heartbreaking that this situation was an improvement. Sora was ever so glad he’d won the argument with his mother and his clan was coming here.