The Lion's Den (Book One of The Savior Fables)

Chapter Three

Dumbledore tells Theseus about the "package," and Remus and Severus meet Lucius's new ally.

***

When Theseus had agreed to this case, he'd hoped that the two idiots he'd been asked to help weren't the two who had nearly ruined the Christmas raid last year. The two idiots were Barlowe and Wright. When Theseus had walked in, Khione by his side, the two had been arguing, harsh words and rude gestures with hands. He'd cleared his throat loudly, and the two had both yelped, Wright throwing a disarming spell at him. He'd easily deflected it, and had been scowling heavily. Khione had growled low in her throat, showing her sharp teeth threateningly. Barlowe and Wright had immediately backed up.

In the seven, almost eight months that he'd had her, Khione had grown exponentially. When he had gotten her, she had been the size of a golden retriever puppy. Now, Khione was the size of a fully grown wolf and was still growing. In all honesty, he had no idea how much longer she was going to grow or how much bigger she was going to get.

Maybe he should have asked Newt.

The first time he'd bought her to work with him, everyone had skirted out of the way because while she had been small, she was still a wild animal, and definitely looked like a wolf with her sharp, pointed ears and sharp razor teeth. He'd started bringing her to work a month after he got her; he would have brought her sooner had there not been a need to train her.

Theseus had been asked to help Barlowe and Wright with finding a rare old artifact, and they kept coming up with dead ends. Barlowe had thrown a particularly eventful tantrum at the fact that Theseus was also having difficulty trying to find the sword they were supposed to be finding.

Currently, all three of them were in a conference room Wright had snatched and claimed for this use. The round redwood table was littered in pictures of the sword and pieces of parchment that predated Wizarding Britain. A bulletin board with red strong leading to pins on a map covered with pictures and people was across from Theseus.

They were looking for the sword Excalibur, the sword forged in dragon's breath, the sword destined to be used by King Arthur himself. He'd been helping these two idiots too long. He was starting to retain facts that were completely useless for anything other than this.

They only had two hours before all of them were let off work, even though, quite honestly, Theseus could leave whenever he pleased. "There are museums all over the world that might have Excalibur. Why don't we work on that angle until it's time for us to head home?" Theseus' words went unheard by the bickering pair.

When he noticed he was going unheard, he grabbed his phone and unlocked it, snorting silently and grinning when he saw the text notification from "Little Brother <3". Tina had helped him set this phone up on Emma's suggestion, because according to Tina, Emma thought they should have been talking sooner. Whether by text or call it didn't matter. And her logic was actually appropriate. She'd suggested it because a) they could hear each other's voices and talk about their days easier than in letters or Patroni, and b) Dumbledore couldn't track it because he didn't know how. If he did, he'd be able to track hers, and she texted Queenie and Newt (and Tina) over text and call everyday. So, upon her request, Tina had gotten them both proper burner phones only used by Newt and Theseus. Only they had the number for the other's burner. They talked whenever they weren't busy, and even then they texted when they were busy. Tina had set everything up, and by everything he meant everything. She'd set up the number, his contact information for Newt, and his ringtone. She'd handed it to him, and when he'd looked, he saw Newt's contact pulled up and smiled shakily at it. It had been almost two weeks, and he'd not changed it. He wasn't planning on it.