Chương 147: Ch139- Noctis

"Apolline Delacour. Pleased to meet you. I was sent by Master Flamel." Bathsheda's brow creased, muttering.

"A Veela?" The woman nodded.

"Yes." Cassian scratched the side of his neck.

"By Master Flamel, you can't mean..." Apolline turned slightly and pointed to a cafe just across the street.

"Please come with me." Cassian looked between her, the alley, and the cafe.

"You'll understand if I'm slightly suspicious of being invited into mystery side streets by beautiful women without at least coffee first." Bathsheda elbowed his ribs. Apolline smiled.

"Master Flamel will explain everything. I am terribly sorry, as I am not aware of the subject of the discussion." Looking at each other, they decided to at least go and see. They climbed the stairs of the most forgettable cafe in London. At the top, the room was empty except for a small table tucked near the window. Two people sat at the only table. Cassian stopped, mostly because Bathsheda had grabbed his sleeve again and hissed, "They're real."

"Master Flamel," Apolline said, and gestured to the two chairs across from them.

"Ah," said the man, standing gracefully.

"Thank you, Apolline. You may go." She dipped her head again and vanished down the stairs. Nicolas gestured to the two empty chairs.

"Please. Sit. We don't have long." He held out a hand.

"Nicolas Flamel. This is my wife, Perenelle." Cassian shook it cautiously. Her handshake was lighter, but her eyes held him a second longer than was polite. Bathsheda sat beside him, scanning the room once before glancing back. Nicolas smiled at them like he already knew what they'd say.

"This might sound strange, but it's not our first meeting." Bathsheda's brow pulled in. Cassian gave her a look, then mirrored it, folding his arms. Perenelle sighed, fingers resting on the rim of her teacup.

"At some time in the past, we left behind certain triggers inscribed with your names, so that we might recall to trust you in certain endeavours. Don't get it wrong, but this is not something we do lightly. As you may well appreciate, our pursuits are fraught with danger, and trust is not given lightly." Bathsheda's brow tightened, glancing at Cassian, then back to the couple.

"You're probably confusing us with someone else." Cassian nodded, playing along.

"Right. Because I think we'd remember meeting the most famous alchemy couple of the last millennium." Nicolas chuckled.

"I'll take that compliment." He then added, "I knew your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Miserable bastard. Drank too much, argued with fireplaces." Perenelle gave Cassian a small smile.

"You've got his nose." Cassian stifled the wince forming.

"Cheers. I'll take that compliment." That drew a quiet laugh from both Flamels. Nicolas took a sip of something dark and probably immortal.

"We don't remember the actual meeting. That's the problem. The trigger only told us we had met. There's nothing left of the memory itself. Which means we removed it on purpose. And if we wiped something that clean... it wasn't trivial."

"Also means we stopped it," Perenelle said.

"Or someone did. But we have no idea what it was, who else was involved, or how close it came." Bathsheda glanced at Cassian.

"I don't have anything like that."

"You probably haven't left a reminder," Perenelle said simply.

"We wouldn't normally come to you," She added.

"No offence."

"None taken," Cassian said.

"I wouldn't come to me either."

"But," Nicolas went on, "there's something odd going on. Disappearances. Not the usual sort. It's... supernatural. Even by our standards." Cassian sat back, fingers drumming.

"Supernatural for you?" Nicolas gave a faint smile.

"We've seen our share of impossible things. This is beyond even that. People are vanishing. Whole sites going dark. Magical wards dying from the inside out. And not the messy sort." Bathsheda shifted in her seat, frowning.

"Where?"

"So far, it is isolated. But we are not sure for how long it would hold." Cassian looked up.

"No survivors?"

"None." Cassian rubbed the heel of his palm against his jaw.

"Right. So you've got a disappearing act, fried wards, ancient sites going up like Christmas crackers, and a sticky note in your brain saying, 'Find Cassian and Bathsheda.' I'm honoured."

"You should be," Perenelle said, brushing a speck from her skirt.

"We don't trust easily." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Nicolas nodded.

"We're hoping, if you helped once, you might help again." He watched them both.

"We're assembling a team. Small. People we trust."

"If we agree, what happens next?" Batsheda asked, checking their faces. Nicolas sighed.

"We move tomorrow. We'll need you to decide now." Cassian bit the inside of his cheek. For a second, he almost said it, that he remembered everything. Every mad bit of it. But that would mean explaining. And explaining meant unravelling everything they'd risked last year to bury it in the first place. One word and they'd be back at square one, memory-wiping themselves again like idiots with a grudge against continuity.

Also, part of him wanted to see if this mess had anything to do with what they'd buried in Greece. That bloody thing still gave him headaches when he walked past mirrors. He reached for Bathsheda's hand under the table and gave it a quick squeeze. Her fingers curled around his like they already knew the answer. He looked back at Flamel.

"We'll go." Perenelle leaned forward slightly.

"You're sure?"

"No," Cassian said.

"But that's never stopped us before." Nicolas cracked a small smile.

"Good. We leave at sunrise."

"Because nothing good ever starts after breakfast." Cassian muttered to himself. Bathsheda finally spoke.

"Where are we going?" Nicolas didn't answer. He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, sliding it across the table. Bathsheda opened it. Her eyes flicked over the runes once, twice, then narrowed.

"Australia?"

Cassian staggered sideways as the last Portkey kicked them out into a patch of wiry grass. He looked around, squinting against the sun, then muttered, "Brilliant. We've landed in the Devil's armpit." Bathsheda was already looking around, tapping her magical compass "Relax." Cassian didn't. He warily looked around "Anything can kill you on this continent."

"Bit dramatic," she muttered.

"Am I?" He waved vaguely at the brush.

"Spiders the size of soup bowls. Snakes that look like ropes until they bite. Birds that scream like murder victims. Even the grass is venomous. I heard Basilisk originate from this hellhole. I read it in 'The Lost Golem.'""Statistically, you're more likely to be hit by a coconut than bitten by a snake."

"I've a thick skull, so I'll freak out about snakes," Cassian huffed. A voice cut in smoothly from behind them.

"Actually, he's not wrong." They both turned. Apolline Delacour stood about ten feet off, smiling, probably had been waiting for them to stop faffing about since they landed. Cassian dusted his sleeve, then nodded.

"Mrs Delacour."

"No need for formality," Apolline said, gesturing for them to follow.

"The Flamels are waiting." They started walking. The heat was immediate. June in Australia was winter, technically, but no one had told the sun. Cassian peeled his scarf off halfway down the trail, stuffing it into his coat with a mutter. They crested a small ridge, and the landscape cracked wide open. Dusty plains stretched ahead, dotted with half-buried boulders and the skeletons of ancient trees. In the middle stood a low building, stone, slate, and magic holding the roof on. Apolline led them around the edge.

The air shimmered faintly where the wards began. Cassian gave them a look, then stepped through. The shift was immediate. Weather got much more bearable. Inside, the Flamels were already seated around a squat table piled with scrolls, a map half-unrolled across the top. Nicolas looked up, eyes crescented.

"Welcome." Perenelle gave a small nod.

"You made it in good time."

"Portkey chain nearly turned my kidneys inside out," Cassian said with a sigh, "But yes, delightful journey." Apolline murmured something to Perenelle, too low for Cassian to catch. Whatever it was, it earned a tight nod. Then she was gone. Nicolas gestured across the table.

"These are the others." Cassian's eyes landed on the veiled woman first. She was seated with the kind of stillness that suggested she could sit there all day and not twitch once. Her veil hiding her expression. Then the old man beside her, long grey coat, worn boots, half a dozen charm-beads braided into his beard.

"Madame Edevane and Master Ayda." Cassian and Bathsheda greeted the two across the table with polite nods. If they recognised him or Bathsheda, they didn't show it. But Cassian caught the flicker. The kind of look that said I know your name, I just don't know why. Nicolas didn't wait for a round of introductions. He tapped a finger on the map.

"The site's not far. You'll understand when you see it."

"Brace yourselves," Perenelle said.

"You won't see much, but the smell—" she wrinkled her nose slightly "—makes dragon dung seem like perfume." The map was already half-covered in notes, small inked symbols ringing the perimeter as boundary markers. Not all of them were familiar. Cassian frowned, leaning closer.

"What's this one?" He tapped a jagged glyph drawn in red. He felt it was familiar.

"Ward breaker," Nicolas said.

"It wasn't ours." Cassian's eyebrow rose.

"Old?"

"Very," Perenelle said, brushing a loose curl behind her ear.

"Older than most sigils we've seen. Whatever did this drew the life out of the wards, not shattering, just pulling the breath from the magic." Cassian's brow furrowed.

"It's more surgical than brute force," Nicolas said.

"The signature's faint. But when we arrived, every single ward on that site had folded inwards. Quietly. Like it'd stopped breathing." Bathsheda leaned in, eyes flicking across the glyph again.

"So it leaves the structure intact, but wipes the magic clean?"

"Not even residue for us to trace. Which makes us think it's not natural."

"It's not human magic." Madame Edevane said, looking at the board with a squint. Cassian glanced over.

"You're sure?" She didn't look up.

"Positive." Master Ayda grunted faintly.

"Whatever it is, it leaves the land wrong."

They left the outpost after drinking some potions. Nicolas led the way, sleeves rolled up, the map folded under one arm. Perenelle stayed at the rear, keeping pace with Madame Edevane. Cassian and Bathsheda were stuck in the middle, mostly because the others still hadn't decided if they were the bright young things or the liabilities to be babysat. Given the way Ayda kept glancing over like he was waiting for Cassian to trip over his own boots, the vote leaned toward the latter.

The walk wasn't long, but it was a slow one. Whatever path had once existed had mostly eroded into dust and stunted shrubs. But eventually, they reached the place. The ground dipped into a shallow basin, ringed by broken stone and scorched brush. The wind changed. Cassian stopped walking. No one said a word at first. The town, if it had ever been one, was a smear of ruin. Shattered stone, walls split clean down the middle, as if stamped through by a giant too lazy to care about architecture. Fangs.

Carved deep into the clay around the edge of one ruined wall. Claw marks. Real ones. Deep.

"Bloody hell," Cassian muttered. Blood was everywhere. The smell hit first, thick and metallic. Iron and rot and something older underneath that felt wrong. It clung to the ruins, soaked deep into the cracked earth, and the moment it reached him, the heat of the sun felt far too cold. Upon looking further, Cassian froze in place. Up ahead... Dead black. Like something had peeled the colour out of the air, drained the world, and left a pit of ink in the middle of it.

Darkness, real and solid and absolute, sat at the centre of the ruin as if a wound that never scabbed. Bathsheda swore softly beside him. He couldn't answer. His mouth had gone dry. The thing, if it was a thing, had swallowed the middle of the town. Absence. Light hit the edges of it and stopped. Like it couldn't get in. Like it didn't want to. Cassian's heart kicked hard in his chest. He backed up half a step without meaning to. Bathsheda raised her wand.

"Lumos." The tip flared. Bright, clean, white. And it did nothing. The light hit the edge of that pitch and died. Blinked out. She tried again.

"Lumos Maxima." Nothing. The beam vanished the moment it touched the void. This was... Cassian's breath caught. This was Lumos Noctis.