The Shadowseeker - Victor Kloss Page 0,49

suddenly felt sweaty. He glanced around and saw Charlie still busy dissecting the books on the table, and Natalie busy looking at some diagram on the wall. Ben turned back to the cabinet and eased open the glass door. He poked his head in, until his nose was almost touching the pouch. It looked really valuable, a far cry from the ones they had bought a few weeks ago. What sort of spells would be in there? Powerful ones, no doubt. Ben reached in and picked it up. It was soft, but sturdy, and heavier than he expected. Ben stared at the pouch until his eyes started to water. He started to put it back, but hesitated, and gave Charlie and Natalie another look. Both were still busy. With a sudden unexplainable impulse, Ben slipped the pouch into his pocket. Quickly he shut the cabinet and stepped away before either of them might notice.

Ben found he was breathing heavily, and knew without inspecting that his face was flushed. He took several deep breaths and with some effort put on an air of nonchalance, resuming his inspection of the room as if nothing had happened.

“Ben!”

Natalie's voice echoed around the room and made Ben jump. He turned, his face guilty, but to his relief saw Natalie still staring at the same diagram.

“Check this out!” she said, waving vigorously to him, her eyes never leaving the diagram.

Ben checked his pocket to make sure the pouch wasn't creating an obvious bulge before joining her.

The diagram Natalie was looking at turned out to be a family tree. Names were scrawled on the paper, with lines branching out to other names that had similar surnames. Beside each name was a date. Ben spotted the name at the top of the family tree and promptly forgot all about the pouch he'd taken.

Charlotte Rowe.

“It looks like your parents are looking for Charlotte Rowe's ancestor,” Natalie said. “Look how far they got.”

The family tree extended down to the 19th century before the names ran out, with the last name being “Craypole”, still two hundred years short of present time.

“Each original director got a piece of the Armour, right?” Natalie said. She sounded breathless and Ben was surprised to see how excited she looked, until he remembered her admiration for Charlotte Rowe. “I bet Charlotte Rowe was entrusted with the boots!”

It made sense, Ben admitted. If they were searching for the boots, which seemed likely, given their position on the table, then this family tree made it a good bet they were entrusted to Charlotte.

“Looks like they had a ways to go,” Ben said, inspecting the chart once more.

“I bet I could continue it,” Natalie said. She was already walking over to the table to grab a piece of paper and a pen. “Finding this person could be just as important as searching for the boots. They might know a way past the forreck – they might even still have the boots themselves!”

“Well, that sounds more promising than anything I've found since that initial blitz,” Charlie said. He jumped down from the table and sank into one of the squishy leather chairs, which nearly engulfed him. “I found a few more books by Lornor Taren, who seems to be the leading authority on forrecks, but I couldn't find anything to help us.”

Ben joined Charlie, taking a chair opposite him, and Natalie did the same.

“Why don't we start with what we know,” Ben said. “My parents are…” He trailed off because Charlie was shaking his head. “What?”

“We don't know for sure that it's your parents,” Charlie said.

“Who else would it be?”

“I don't know. But it's only an assumption until we have concrete evidence that it is your parents.”

“It seems quite likely, though, you have to admit, Charlie,” Natalie said. “After all, we know they are looking for Elizabeth's Armour and the passageway was linked directly to Ben's dad's locker.”

Charlie nodded. “I agree. It is extremely likely – I'm just saying we don't know for sure.”

“Fine,” Ben said, suppressing a slight irritation at Charlie's pedantic mind. “Someone, possibly my parents, is looking for a way to defeat this crazy powerful creature called a forreck, because we think it could be guarding a piece of Elizabeth's Armour, most likely to be her boots, which have probably been handed down to a descendant of Charlotte Rowe's. How does that sound?”

“You nailed it,” Charlie said.

“So where does that leave us?” Natalie asked, idly twiddling her hair.

“We need to track down this Lornor Taren bloke,” Ben