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Side Story Three

Two Years Ago

The Trap Two

“Yes,” Sarah said. “We think we have a way for you to banish them back to Earth, lock them out and stop the dragons finding them and letting them back in again. But it’s dependent on us being right about how they found them in the first place, and on them not knowing their heart friends. Otherwise it’ll be impossible to keep them out if they do even if you banish them and block the dragons from finding them.” She hesitated. “And I doubt it’ll be very comfortable for them, either.”

“Better than killing a bunch of kids. Apart from that grey-haired girl I think they are all younger than us,” Kyle said. “And has anyone seen her recently? She seemed to be holding them back until recently.”

“What’s the idea you have?” Sean asked simultaneously.

“I think the dragons found a way to track people who had a heart bond and used it to locate these ones. It’s certainly possible – it’s how we work out who the Core is summoning,” Matthias said. “While it’s impossible to sever a heart bond, Sarah and I think we’ve worked out how to occlude it enough to keep them from tracking it. But if they have met their heart friends, they’ll be able to use the bond to gate themselves.”

“Ah! That might work,” Sean said. “We haven’t seen any evidence that they know their heart friends or even that they know they have heart friends.” He looked over at Kyle. “And you’re right, we haven’t seen her recently.” He bit his lip. “I hope the dragons haven’t got fed up with her restraint and disposed of her.”

“I hope not,” Sarah said softly. “But there’s not much we can do for her unless she comes to us for help. Until then she’s an enemy and we have to treat her as such.”

“So how do we occlude the bond?” Hannah asked. “It’s not like a normal ward. It would take some sort of artifact, wouldn’t it? How do we stop them just removing whatever it was?”

Sarah gave a soft chuckle. “Yes it would. That was why it took us a while to think of it. I think I can make something to hide them easily enough with Matt’s help, but stopping them removing it themselves – that’s a problem.”

“But then I had an idea,” Matthias said. “That thing that attached itself to you suggests a solution: we can lock the device to their aura so it just returns if they remove it. It should work.”

“I have a prototype ready, so all that we need now is for you to capture one of them so we can test it.” Sarah looked over at her son. “Are you sure that their next attack will be at Elapyron?”

“Or somewhere near there, yes,” he said. “Like I said, they seem to be after potential power sources.”

“It’s almost certainly the Core gate, then,” Sarah said. “We can work with that. You’ll like Elapyron; it’s one of the most beautiful and hospitable cities in the other world. We’ll send them a message to expect you and spend the rest of today making a plan.”

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