Chương 272: Ch262- Same Old Dread

Cassian and Bathsheda stood in front of the Concorde, watching the last of the luggage being shuttled in by a porter in a Heathrow uniform who absolutely wasn't being paid enough for this.

"You know," he said, "this thing used to beat time zones. You could leave Paris and get to New York before your croissant finished digesting." Bathsheda tightened her grip on his arm.

"I don't like this," she muttered.

"Things shouldn't go this fast."

"They should go faster. We've been stuck with brooms for centuries. It's embarrassing."

"We have Portkeys. It's safer." He tilted his head.

"And what, miss this? The roaring beast of British engineering? The sense of impending doom when you realise you're sitting inside a supersonic tube?" She glared at him. He'd been teasing her all night about how fast it was. How she'd feel her insides were dancing.

"You are enjoying this too much."

"That's because your face when I explained Mach 2 was priceless. You looked like I offered to stick you in a cannon."

"It's not natural," she hissed.

"Magic has rules. This thing breaks logic."

"It's 1996. Logic needs a kick." He'd half-dragged her out here with promises of a 'historical experience.' Cassian grinned.

"If it helps," he said, "you can always pretend it's a flying broom with a seating chart." She gave him a look.

"Right," he said.

"Not helping." Their boarding group was called. Cassian slung his bag over one shoulder and stepped forward. Bathsheda didn't move. He glanced back, reaching for her hand.

"Come on. It'll be over in a flash. Literally. That's the point." She took a few long breaths.

"It's not scary. It's technology. I'm flying in a needle-nosed tin thing. Definitely won't turn me into a mincemeat." Cassian pulled her gently forward.

"You faced down nightmares with a wand and a torch. You can survive rich people's aviation." That shut her up, but she didn't look happy about it. Still, she followed him inside. They settled into their seats. Cassian leaned back as the flight attendant offered champagne. He took it. If they're flying into a probable Crawler nest, they're bloody well going in style. Bathsheda didn't.

"Not until we land," she said.

"Suit yourself," he murmured, sipping.

"To archaeology and mortal peril." She huffed. The reason for this whole mess was Bathilda Bagshot's reports. She'd visited the Mesoamerican region last year, sniffing out something old and twitchy, and sent word to Nicolas before she disappeared into the jungle again.

"Looks like a variant," he'd written back to Cassian.

"Nothing I've seen before. Local wards bend around it. Moves like a Crawler, but stranger." Cassian had read that letter with one eyebrow up and both hands already reaching for his coat. So far, he'd seen two kinds. Night Crawlers. They'd been sealed in Australia. And Blood Crawlers, only ever in vision. Druid one. Life sucking leeches. He'd never seen a Blood Crawler with his own eyes though. Now he might. The plane rumbled to life beneath them. She grabbed his hand without looking. Cassian smiled.

When they landed in Dulles in just under four hours, Bathsheda still hadn't let go of him. Cassian laughed all the way through baggage claim.

"This is gold," he muttered, dodging a harried-looking customs officer.

"Absolute gold. If I'd known all it took to make you affectionate was Mach two, I'd have booked this years ago." She glared. He laughed anyway. Her grip tightened near the arrivals lounge. In his old life, Concordes had already been banned. Too loud, too expensive, and too obsessed with speed to survive politics. He'd wanted to get on one since he was ten. Tick that off the bucket list. Next: space. Real rocket. Orbit. Maybe Venus, he thought, then glanced at Bathsheda, sighed, and muttered, "Scratch that.

Already found mine." A guide from Ilvermorny was already waiting for them, expression somewhere between polite and bored.

"You're Rosier and Babbling?" Cassian gave a half-salute.

"Depends who's asking. If it's the IRS, I'm dead." The man tilted his head.

"Welcome to the States. I'll get you through Wand Registration, customs clearance, and your Portkey to Yucatán."

"Efficient," Cassian said.

"I like it." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The guide tapped the clipboard, then led them through a door that absolutely wasn't there five seconds ago. Bathsheda tilted her head, watching the corridor shift behind them, seamless stone giving way to dense charm-etched wood without so much as a shimmer.

"They don't use Floo here," she said, pointing at the door they passed through.

"Whole system's built different." Cassian raised an eyebrow.

"So I gathered. Bit short on fireplaces." She stepped past the threshold, hand brushing the carved frame.

"They use doors and keys. Literal ones. You carry the key, it brings you to the place, but only if the door agrees to open." He frowned.

"You're telling me the architecture has opinions?"

"Everything here's anchored," she said.

"A key can store coordinates, like a Portkey, but the door has to accept the match. If the door's warded, or the owner hasn't bound it to your key, you're stuck. It won't open. You can't brute force it.

"And every key's hand-tuned. Personal. You lose it, someone finds it, they still can't use it unless the door says yes."

"Charming." She gave a small smile.

"Cleaner than Floo. Less noisy than Apparition. And much harder to track." Cassian arched a brow.

"You sound almost impressed."

"I am. It's elegant." The customs office was quiet, cleaner than anything back home, and twice as fast. Cassian handed over his wand and watched the woman behind the desk scan it.

"British," she said, eyes flicking up.

"Good wand."

"Bit snappish. You'd get along." She gave him a look that said she'd rather not. Bathsheda's turn took longer. They asked more questions. She didn't answer most of them. The woman finally sighed and waved them on. The guide didn't slow down.

"Portkey's already set. We're on a fifteen-minute window."

"Ah, America," Cassian said, "where even magical travel has corporate time slots." The man stopped in front of a painted circle on the floor, runes nested like a city grid. A small golden fork sat in the centre, humming faintly.

"Destination's secured," he said.

"Yucatán. Southern ridge, near Master Bagshot's last marker."

"You'll want to brace," the man added.

"She's a fast one." Cassian raised a brow.

"She?" But the world had already gone sideways. Stone. Wind. One blink, and everything twisted. The jungle slammed into view with the grace of a brick to the teeth. Moisture slapped. Trees taller than most buildings rose in every direction, their trunks slick with moss and half-eaten sunlight. Cassian didn't stumble. Much. He coughed and looked around.

"Well," he said.

"At least it's not raining." It started raining. Immediately. Bathsheda didn't say a word. Just turned, slapped his shoulder, and walked off into the trees. He followed. By the time the trees broke and Chichén Itzá came into view, he was sure he'd sweated through at least three layers of warded fabric. Bathsheda looked much better of course. Four people stood at the base of the steps. They were in the middle of something, and the way they were talking didn't invite interruption.

Bagshot stood nearest the stone, robes rolled up at the sleeves. Her hands were dusty. Whatever she'd been doing, it involved contact. Goshawk stood beside her, arms crossed, wand tucked under one elbow like she'd threatened to hex the temple if it didn't start answering questions. Selena stood between the two women, flicking through a notepad that was doing the writing for her. Fleur was perched on a boulder nearby, wand in hand, half-listening, half-watching the sky.

Cassian and Bathsheda stepped up, stopped a few feet off, and waited. Goshawk glanced over first.

"Took you long enough."

"Sorry," Cassian said.

"They decided to inspect our wands carefully." Bathsheda nodded toward the step behind Bagshot that was actually humming.

"What's it doing?" Fleur spoke up without looking at them.

"Breathing." Cassian squinted.

"That's... reassuring."

"Not literally," Selena said, flipping a page.

"But the magic's moving like it's exhaling. Rhythmic. Pulls and releases every four minutes."

"It wasn't doing that last week," Bagshot said, brushing grit off her fingers.

"Or ever, actually."

"Something's waking it," Goshawk added.

"Question is whether we're early or late." Cassian stepped closer to the stone. He felt it now, like a heartbeat in the rock. Old enchantments curled through the carvings. Runes he recognised, others he didn't. Fleur shifted on the rock.

"It started two nights ago. That's when it began humming."

"And no one touched it?" Cassian asked.

"No," Bagshot said. He looked at the edge of the step again. There were marks on the outer rim, subtle. Not clawed. Too even for weathering. He had a bad feeling about it, proper, stomach-turning dread.

"Is anyone actually working here?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. Goshawk nodded.

"Mexico and the States have teams on-site. They think they've found an entrance. Planning to crack it open and study whatever's inside. Long-lost history, apparently." Cassian looked at the stone again.

"Stop them," he said.

"Immediately." Bagshot frowned. Goshawk didn't answer.

"This feels far too close to what happened in Greece," he said. That made both women still. Bagshot's eyes narrowed.

"What happened in Greece?" He shook his head, jaw clenching.

"I can't say," he said.

"We all wiped our memories of that day. Every single one of us." Miranda straightened with a frown.

"Then how do you know?"

"Because my memory doesn't work like everyone else's." His lips pressed thin.

"My memories are... insulated. You can't break them, you can't rewrite them, and you definitely can't remove them. I remember what the rest of them chose to forget. That should tell you enough. But similarly me knowing doesn't give the thing power." Goshawk's arms dropped from her chest. Cassian's mouth thinned.

"I don't care what academic glory they think they're chasing. Shut this down. Before someone rips the wrong layer off this thing and we're all dead." Then he turned, already pulling his wand.

"I'll call the Flamels."

Luckily, two of them still had enough weight here to stop the excavation crew from splitting open whatever ancient headache had been humming under the steps. Bagshot muttered something and the site foreman turned purple around the ears. Not that the locals were thrilled. They made a point of stomping about with their clipboards and muttering curses. Something about academic sabotage and arrogant Brits. Didn't matter. A bigger crowd had started to gather anyway.

Flamels already mid-argument over something to do with translation theory. Ayda strolled in behind them. Edevane moved as usual, drifting with the wind, veil still on her face. Then Coriolanus stepped through, arms spread, looking like he'd just wandered out of a fresco. Sabine walked two steps behind him, examining the perimeter with a face that shouted danger. She had the ability to sense it. Her eyes flicked toward Cassian, warming up. Master Ji wasn't there. Cassian clocked it the second he scanned the crowd.

Not a hard thing to notice, he usually made an entrance like sunlight in silk robes. China was too far. Marauder was still loose. If Ji thought the walls might crack while he was gone, he'd stay put. No one blamed him for it. Headmasters weren't meant to play global fireman every time a curse rolled off its pedestal. As the old masters assembled, the clearing split itself neatly. Two groups. No signage, but you could tell. One was mostly Europe, Flamels, Edevane, Bagshot, a couple others who didn't need nameplates.

The ones who didn't talk unless the weather threatened extinction. Across the circle, another line formed. Coriolanus made a slow arc around the base of the temple before finally sliding in beside Cassian.

"Keepers of the American Continent." There wasn't outright hostility, but tension was clear. Nothing overt, just a quiet rivalry that made the air tighter than it should've been. Cassian kept his hands in his coat pockets. Coriolanus leaned slightly.

"They don't share their work. Not even with each other. That one with the rings?" He nodded discreetly toward a woman near the centre.

"Blew open a sinkhole in Rio last year. Claimed it was a defence experiment." Cassian scratched his chin.

"Against what? Gravity?" Sabine spoke without turning.

"They see themselves as custodians. But their version of 'keep' runs close to 'contain.' The kind of people who'd rather seal history away than share it." Cassian hummed.

"So the perfect hosts, then."

"They'll want control," Coriolanus said.

"They always do." Cassian tilted his head, watching as one of the local Keepers bent near the pyramid base, fingers tracing a line of faded carvings. One of them wore no shoes. Another had a jaguar spirit circling just behind his shadow. Cassian nodded.

"A pissing match."

"Hasn't been anything else since 1625." Bathsheda stepped in close enough to whisper.

"Do they even know what's in there?"

"No," Coriolanus said.

"That's why they're pretending it's nothing." Bathsheda leaned close again.

"Should we start the introductions?"

"Gods, no," Cassian muttered.

"Let the old masters bicker first. It's their mess until something explodes."