VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

11.2 || Of Breaking and Entering (...Again)

EVA

"SO MUCH FOR KEEPING the snoopers out." Eva's words hung in the air as if they were made of helium.

Books, clothes, and knickknacks littered the textured carpet so that there was hardly a path to walk. Torn pages crinkled under Emrys' sneakers while he crossed to his bed and picked up the mutilated spine of what had once been a cheap dollar-store journal.

"Dammit." He flicked the spine onto the floor and made his way to the wide-open closet on the far end of the room. "She's been here."

"She?" asked Eva.

Emrys ran his fingers along the doorframe, where large scratches sliced through layers of paint and wood. "Doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter when this person broke in and trashed your place?"

Pulling his attention from the closet, Emrys pressed a finger to his lips. He fought to maintain a neutral expression, but there was uneasiness within his gaze.

Eyes and ears everywhere. Right.

Once Eva nodded, Emrys smiled half-heartedly before stepping inside the closet to inspect the few hangers that remained on their respective poles.

She didn't want to be too far from his side in case of another rabid squirrel attack, but she was afraid to tiptoe through the ransacked room. While the objects in her immediate vicinity were just papers and the occasional black sock, the delicate jewelry and shiny trinkets in the distance kept her feet in place. Some looked familiar, but most held no place in her memory.

The last thing she wanted to do was step on the wrong item and unleash another new evil in her town.

However, when Emrys began clearing the mess on the closet floor, curiosity burned through her reservations. Careful to avoid anything remotely breakable, she stepped closer to him. As he tossed a balled-up paper over his shoulder, she crouched beside him, eyes shifting between his unreadable expression and the now-tidy closet floor.

Emrys flipped the Runestone around in his hand. "She might be smart, but she isn't thorough."

He ran his free hand along the floor, where one patch of carpet caught Eva's attention. If it hadn't been for the way the gray fibers refused to move under his touch, she wouldn't have noticed anything at all—not even how the color was a tinge darker than the surrounding area, or how much stiffer the material appeared.

With the tilt of his wrist, a thin flame emerged from his index finger.

Eva grimaced. Surely, the tenants in neighboring apartments were cussing out whatever appliances had gone haywire or rushing to replace a shattered light bulb.

Thankfully, he touched the flame to the inch-long square of carpeting quickly. The material caught fire as if made of gasoline, but the blaze didn't linger. It was gone in the time of a lightning flash, leaving a thin layer of ash and dust across a smoother surface. He leaned down and blew the particles away to reveal yet another Runestone lock.

"How many of these do you have lying around?" Eva quirked a brow, studying the intricate inscriptions on the slab.

"A few."

Emrys slid his Runestone into the lock with a satisfying click. Wedging his fingers around the side of the mechanism, he gave it a light pull. The carpet wiggled, revealing slits in the material that were nearly invisible at first glance.

It took a few tugs before the fabric broke free. Creaking hinges assaulted their ears as he lifted the lid of a small, wooden compartment, filled to the brim with trinkets of varying shapes and sizes. Amulets, corked bottles, Runestones... all staring back at them with an eerily familiar presence.