Booth eyed the two double beds in their room. "I'm not sharing."

  Seth and Booth had been wandering the inn until the innkeeper's wife had ushered them to their room. It wasn't a bad room. It was clean, had the two beds, and a side table with a pitcher of water and a basin. There was a trunk at the foot of one bed, and a small table at the foot of the other.

  "I don't care," Owen said. He was already in the room when they'd arrived and was sprawled diagonally across one of the beds. "I'll share or not. I'll even sleep on the floor."

  "I thought you'd be used to sharing a bed," Seth said. He'd noticed there was only a single bed in the basement Booth shared with his siblings. That, and piles of blankets on the floor.

  "Just because I've done it plenty before doesn't mean I want to keep doing it. You two can share." Booth stepped past the beds and examined the floor by the wall, and then scanned the ceiling.

  "You don't get to decide that," Seth said. "We can flip for it if you want, but you don't get to decide who gets what." He opened the trunk and pulled out the blankets inside.

  Booth snorted. "And you do?"

  "Of course not. Like I said, we can flip for it or draw straws or whatever."

  "No sharing necessary! I'll take the floor," Owen said, raising his hand. "These beds are short anyway. I just need a blanket."

  "Is the girls' room bigger?" Booth asked.

  Seth lightly tapped the bottom of the trunk and felt along the edges at the bottom before replacing the blankets. "I stayed in their room the last time I was here. It has two skinny beds and the room is smaller. I'm just glad we don't have to share with a fourth." After closing the trunk he crouched down to look under the beds.

  It was common for inns and similar places to rent by bed space rather than room. This room had four bed spaces, so the innkeeper could rent out the fourth spot. When the inn was very crowded, they could rent three to a bed. For the boys to have a room to themselves was a small luxury.

  "Do we get one of Duvessa's babysitters?" Booth asked.

  "They have a room together," Owen said and sat up. "Are the girls back?"

  "Yeah, I heard them earlier," Seth said.

  "This room lines up with the kitchen," Booth said, turning away from the walls and facing the other boys. "If the girls are directly across the hall, their room lines up with the kitchen storage. We should head over there."

  Seth opened the door and glanced either way down the empty hall before crossing to the girls' room. Duvessa jerked the door open before he could raise his fist to knock.

  "Oh! Perfect, here you are," Duvessa said as she waved the boys in.

  Owen plopped down on the bed next to Blaise.

  "Of course. Make yourself at home," Blaise said sarcastically as she stood to make space for him.

  "Thanks, I appreciate that," Owen said and stretched out. "These beds are as short as the ones in our room."

  Duvessa closed her door behind them and locked it. "Is your room bigger? It's really crowded with everyone in here. I don't like it."

  Even with Owen sprawled on a bed there was hardly room for the other four to stand in the room. Two narrow beds and a table between them were the only furniture in the room and yet the room was painfully cramped.

  Duvessa put her hands on her hips as she looked around and dropped her voice. "I have looked everywhere. I can't find anything suspicious. Are you sure this is where your brother lost his power?"

  "This had better not be a wasted trip," Blaise said.

  "It isn't wasted, Blaise. I got most of what I needed already," Booth said. "This is the room you and your brother stayed in last time, Seth?"

  "It is, and yes I am sure," Seth said. He squatted to see under the beds. "And I was warned just a little bit ago not to be alone. Whatever they're doing, it's happening here."

  Booth started scanning the floor along the blank wall, then ran his hands over the paneling.

  "What are you two looking for?" Owen asked, and leaned up on one elbow.

  "I think it's here," Booth said, running his hand over a single panel on the wall. "I just can't figure out how to open it." He took a step back and scanned the ceiling. "Could you see if there's any illusions here?"

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Seth closed his eyes and listened to what the wind said about the shape of the room. The air was still and the wind didn't have much to say, so he cast Detect Mana instead. "I'm not picking up anything. As near as I can tell it's a normal room, and there's no magic nearby."

  "Magic? What are you looking for?" Duvessa asked.

  "You think there's a secret door," Blaise guessed.

  Booth nodded. "It makes sense. Seth and I mapped out the inn and the rooms don't line up quite right. It could be the next room over, but if you and your brother were staying in this room then I'd say it has to be here. I'm betting there are stairs down on the other side of this wall."

  "Secrets! How exciting. We just need a key!" Duvessa said, grasping her hands so she wouldn't clap them.

  Booth looked at Duvessa a moment. "Sometimes I can't figure out if you're brilliant or something else. I'll go get the innkeeper's key ring."

  "Of course I'm brilliant," Duvessa said as if surprised he could doubt it.

  Booth shook his head as he left the room. He was back just minutes later with a huge key ring that held a least fifty keys.

  "Booth, I don't think that's the right set," Owen said. "There aren't that many doors in this building. I dunno if there are that many in this whole town."

  Booth started flipping through the keys. The others stood watching him.

  "This is agonizing," Duvessa said. "I want to take that and look through them myself."

  "That'd be pointless. You'd have to go through the ones he's already checked," Blaise said.

  "I think it's one of these," Booth said a few minutes later, flipping through a small handful on the big ring. "These aren't regular keys. These work like the school sigils do for the Towers." One by one he touched them to the wall. On the fourth key, a narrow door pushed into the wall.

  "Why didn't your Detect Mana sense that?" Owen asked Seth.

  "Because I wasn't casting it directly at the lock. The wall isn't magic, and the lock isn't leaking strong mana. There wasn't enough to pick up." Seth said and shrugged. "It's only a cantrip. I'd need a stronger, more specific spell to detect stuff like that."

  "You might not even then," Booth said. "There are more than the lock sigils here. Though if they've got magical locks, I wonder why they didn't use dimension magic to hide the space."

  "Probably power," Seth said. "The towers are all expanded but they are getting fueled. This place doesn't have a strong mana source and the cost of stones to fuel a permanent dimensional space would be outrageous."

  Booth turned and held the key up so the others could see which one it was. "This key gets us in, so it'll probably get us out too. We need to be very quiet."

  "Can I look at those keys?" Seth asked.

  Booth handed the ring over and pulled a stone out of his pocket. After turning it into a lightstone he held it up and crept down a very steep and narrow spiral staircase. The girls were right after him, followed by Owen. Seth listened for a moment, and then felt for where Mau was. She was a little ways off, and feeling irritated and bored. She hadn't returned to the inn yet. Satisfied she was fine, Seth touched the key to the door and it closed behind him.

  Seth was too far away from Booth's light to see in the tight space, so he lit his amulet. He passed another hidden door on the first floor and kept going down until he reached a large basement chamber where the others were fanned out. Booth handed Blaise another lightstone.

  "This is further down than the regular basement," Booth said quietly and held his light aloft. "We're in a sub basement right now."

  The walls and floor were stone, and the room was more than twice the size of one of the bedrooms upstairs. Black cloth hung on all the walls, making the chamber darker and deadening sound in the room. Seth could see iron hooks embedded in the ceiling and more swaths of cloth draped overhead. There were patterns and discolorations on the floor. It smelled strongly of vinegar and salt.

  Seth tried to remember this room, but couldn't. But if he and Booth were right, this was where Saben's power was taken and given to Seth. He spotted a set of manacles hanging from one of the hooks and imagined Saben hanging there. Seth felt sick and angry at the thought.

  Stay focused, he told himself. He walked to the center and examined the floor more closely. He was relieved to find the discolorations didn't look like blood.

  "This is a ritual diagram," Seth whispered to the others. "They've cleaned up the materials, but you can see where it all was. Look there. It was linked to something too. This is shaped similar to the familiar ritual."

  "Yeah. I think I do remember something like that," Blaise said quietly. "I think they did do a ritual on me. I remember someone casting something."

  "Do you remember this room?" Duvessa asked glancing over at Blaise as she pulled paper and ink out of her bag.

  "I don't," Blaise said as she stared at the hooks in the ceiling.

  "They need to do a ritual to take powers," Seth said, still looking at the remnants of the ritual on the floor. "That's good news. That means they can't just touch an artifact to you and whoosh, power gone."

  "Do you think there is an artifact?" Owen asked. "Or do you think they figured out a ritual that can do it?"

  Everyone looked at each other.

  "Well that's horrifying," Blaise said. "If it's just a ritual, then anyone can do it to anyone else if they learn how."

  "I do think there is an artifact involved," Seth said. "A familiar ritual needs a soul orb. This ritual looks like it might be similar, and this here—" he pointed to what might have been a small star shape—"looks like where the orb would go in the familiar ritual. There is some type of artifact or something that they need to do this. It's more than just a spell."

  "Can you hold your light higher, please, Seth? I'd like to get a good copy of this," Duvessa said.

  Seth complied, and the copies Duvessa made didn't look anything like her typical artwork. She accurately and completely captured the detail on the floor, and what the chamber looked like.

  "There are no chests or storage here," Blaise said. "Where do you think the artifact is?"

  "They took it with them," Booth said. "Someone has it if it's not here."

  "Do you think they'd carry it through the inn?" Seth asked.

  "That would depend on how big it is," Booth said. "But I see your point. Someone looking for magic can usually find something as strong as an artifact pretty easy." He looked at the cloth covered walls. "I suppose they had one secret door, there might be more."

  Everyone spread out to look behind the black cloth. Blaise got irritated and yanked at one of the cloth panels.

  "Don't rip it down," Booth said. "They'll know someone was here."

  "So? We're not leaving this place like this," Blaise said.

  "Why wouldn't we?" Seth asked. "We haven't found the artifact yet. We know it happens here, but we don't have what they use to do it."

  "I don't care. We stop them here," Blaise said as she reached up to grab the hanging manacles. "See this? I'm not letting this stay. I'm gonna burn this place to the ground."