of the bars. Rough, cold steel greeted me. At least there wasn’t magic on my somewhat rickety cage. That was something.
A rectangular block of steel interrupted the vertical bars, and I threaded my hand through the bars so I could feel it out. There was a keyhole in the other side. I shoved at the door and then wiggled it. Not much give, made of strong stuff, and there was no way my muscles were up to the task. Ivy House had made me stronger, but there were limits.
This was definitely a limit.
I’d likely found the prison that one kidnapper was talking about. The holding cell. Or to use a different name, the rendezvous point for the mysterious contract holder to come and collect me from whomever had managed to grab me.
“So okay,” I murmured, sticking my finger into the keyhole and wishing the door open. Nothing happened. I’d half hoped my subconscious would take care of that. “I just need to learn how to magically pick a lock, tear down some sort of shimmery magical wall, and then finally learn how to fly and get out of here. Nothing to it.”
“What?”
I froze as the voice floated through the air before waning.
“What?” I asked back.
A shuffling sound preceded a sort of large hominid character hobbling into my line of sight, long strands of matted hair hanging off its head and down its body, like an upright shaggy dog.
A few feet from its starting location, it stopped and turned, hair and shadow draping its face, and a great mustache and even more impressive beard reaching down to its chest. Only the nose was visible, a large spectacle that hopefully meant a keen sense of smell or it was just overkill.
“What?” it—he?—asked again, that single word somehow managing to sound slow and deep and ancient.
“Oh. I didn’t know you were there,” I said, pulling my finger out of the lock.
“What did you say?”
Slower, I repeated, “I…didn’t…know—”
“Yes, yes, I heard all of that. What did you say before? I missed it.”
It clearly meant when I was talking to myself.
“Nothing. I was just…taking stock of my situation.” I wrapped my fingers around the bars. “Why are you holding me?”
“I am not. I am guarding you.”
I wiggled the bars. “From whom?”
He paused, staring up at me. “They didn’t say.”
“Right, fine. For whom, then.”
“Your captors.”
I rattled the door, ripping off the connection to my team so I could get their locations. To my horror, nothing registered. I couldn’t feel any of them.
I used my magical Morse code.
“Ivy House?”
“Who are my captors?” I said through clenched teeth, waiting for a response.
“The people who put you in there.”
Silence greeted me, not even a wash of feelings from home base.
Panic slithered across my mind.
“Are you trying to be difficult?” I yelled, losing control.
“No.”
I leaned my head against the bars, willing patience. “Who are the people who put me in here?”
“Mages. Women. Very brusque, if you ask me.”
I was going to ask for their names, or who they worked for, but at the moment it made no difference. I had to get out of here. The question, as ever, was how.
“How long will I be in here? What are they going to do next?”
“Yes, that is a good question. It has been a long while since I have been solely in charge of this mountain, and for the last…oh, many years, this holding cell has been nonoperational. I agreed to guard it because that was my job of old, and also because they surprised me with the task, but…” He scratched his hairy stomach with his furry hand. “Well, I never really cared for this job. My home is in the wild. In the woods. There are no woods within the mountain. Besides, I don’t much like the problems of the magical world. Very dramatic. Did you know…” He tilted his head back up to me, and the hair on his face moved, as though he were smiling. “They think I am one of their Bigfoots. Absurd, I know. That’s just a made-up creature. But…” He nodded at me, his hand still resting on his belly. “I’m something of a legend around here. Maybe not as big as my cousin up north in those redwoods, but I have a nice little following around here, hunting the trees for me, trying to get a peek. Sometimes I show them a little leg, as it were. Maybe dart between the trees, too fast for a photo. You have to be quick in