by Jane Glatt
“Stay close,” Reo whispered.
He turned, and she met his eyes, cool and shadowed in the moonlight. Kara nodded, and Reo squeezed her arm before he turned to view the garden again.
He tensed and then he was off, a low, dark blur against the hedges and bushes. Kara picked up her skirts and followed. He didn’t stop until he was flat against the far building. As she scrambled towards him, he looked past her, scanning for danger. She hunched against the cold, stone wall, trying to be quiet as she gulped in air. She was nervous and scared, and her heart was pounding after that mad dash across the park.
Reo peered out at the garden for a few minutes more. Finally he turned to her.
“Stay here,” he said. “While I go inside.”
“Don’t you want me to look for mage mist?” she asked.
“Not this time,” Reo replied. He studied the open space around the door. “If I’m not back in half an hour, don’t come after me. Keep heading for the southern edge of the island.”
He opened the door to the building and entered it. Kara shivered. If he didn’t come back, she’d have to manage—she’d keep to their plan and make her way to the south part of the island. Then she’d find a boat and try to get to Old Rillidi.
The door to the building finally opened again. Reo beckoned her forward, and she sighed with relief.
“All clear?” she asked once she was inside.
“It is now,” Reo said. “This way.” He set off down a corridor.
Kara smelled it first. A tangy, iron odour mixed in with the smell of urine. A door along the corridor was slightly ajar, and a long, dark smear led from another closed door straight to it. As she passed by, she peered in. Bodies—three that she could see—lay tumbled over one another. One face stared up at her, the man’s mouth open in an O of surprise. She looked away and found herself staring directly into Reo’s eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Something—she thought it was relief—flashed across his face.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “We need to keep moving.”
Kara followed as he rounded a corner and strode through an open door. Stairs led down, and she could smell the floral scent that masked the salty smell of the bay. Reo opened a small wooden door, and for Kara, the bottom stairs were illuminated by the glow of mage mist.
“It will be dawn soon, and too bright for us to stay above ground,” Reo said. “We’ll take a boat and try to find a quiet place where we can stay until dark.”
“Can we take the boat all the way to the southern edge of the island?” Kara asked.
“No,” Reo said. “We’ll be too exposed. We’re being looked for, and a moving boat can be seen for miles down here. Even this late at night, I don’t dare row.” He crawled down a few steps, crouched, and leaned over until his eyes were below the bottom of the island. Reo shifted around until he’d scanned every direction.
“I don’t see anyone,” he said when he came back up. “Is there magic?”
“Lots,” Kara replied. “I’ll keep it away from us.”
Reo helped her into a small boat before he shrugged out of his cloak, took off his boots, and tossed them into the bottom of the boat. Then he untied the boat and slipped into the dark water.
Reo’s hands gripped the gunwale, and his head bobbed beside her.
“Keep the magic away from us and stay as low in the boat as possible,” he said. “I’ll tow you until we find a safe place to hide for the day.”
“We should leave the boat,” Kara replied. “Why don’t we both swim?”
“No, the water is too cold,” Reo said. “I’ve trained for this, and even I can’t do it for very long.” His head disappeared, and the boat jerked forward. His head surfaced. “Can you swim?” he asked.
“No,” Kara said. She’d waded into her share of rivers and streams, but always with her feet on the bottom.
Reo smiled. “Then it’s not a valid offer anyway. I can do this for about half an hour, maybe more, then I might need your help getting back into the boat. Now you get out of sight.”
Kara lay down in the bottom of the boat and concentrated on letting the mage mist swirl past them. She was grateful for the small reminders that Reo was still with her—his hand on the gunwale, a sharp intake of breath every once in a while. Soon the stairs they had descended were left behind as Reo navigated them through the waters beneath Mage Guild Island.
Mage lights lit their way, almost as bright as day, and for Kara, the added glow of mage mist meant that she had to keep her eyes closed against the glare. Then the light changed, and they were beneath a shadowed section. There were no mage lights here, and when she peeked over the gunwale, a small dock was bare of mage mist.
Kara reached out and placed her hand on top of Reo’s. His head swiveled towards her.
“This dock is different.” She pointed. “There’s no magic.”
Reo tugged the boat to the dock and heaved himself up onto it.
“Then this is where we stop,” he said. He quickly tied the boat up.
Kara tossed him his cloak, and he swept it over his shoulders, pulling the hood over his head. He reached for his boots and pulled them on. Only when he stopped moving did she notice how much he was shivering.
“Are you all right?” She’d been asking him that a lot in the last few hours. And it wasn’t simply because she needed his help to get out of this situation. He is willing to die for me. And tonight, he’d killed for her.
“I’m fine.” Reo’s voice came out in a whispery shudder. “Just need to warm up. You’re sure there’s no magic?”
“None,” Kara said. “I think it’s abandoned. See, all the other docks are brightly lit and in good repair, but this one is dark and run-down.”
“You don’t think anyone lives here.”
“No,” Kara replied. “Not for a long time.”
Reo frowned and looked around. “I can’t see a better place to try to hide. I can’t swim any further—not without rest—and it will be daybreak soon. We need to be off the water now.
“Careful.” Reo steadied her as she stepped onto the dock. He untied the boat and shoved it away. “Let’s go.”
Carefully, Kara followed him along the rickety dock and up the stairs. After seeing such huge amounts of mage mist, the absence of any left her blind. Wood scraped against wood, and a dusty breeze puffed down the stairs.
“Be careful on the fourth step,” Reo called softly.
Kara felt around, and her hand caught on jagged wood. She relaxed a little—no one had used these stairs in years—and scrambled past the broken step.
A faint, natural light highlighted Reo against the doorway. Dawn had arrived. As soon as she was through the door, he swung it closed, shoving it hard. The wood groaned, and the door wedged shut.
They were in a hallway. A high window let in pink-tinged sunlight, and dust motes floated in the air. More dust layered the floor in front of them, and a few bare patches of floor showed through where their feet had scuffed the yellowed tiles. She’d thought that Santos’ house on Old Rillidi had been in disrepair, but this was far worse. If magic had ever kept this place clean, it had long since faded. Just as on the dock below, there was no trace of mage mist.
“I doubt we’ll run into anyone,” Reo said. He drew a finger across the handle of a half-open door, and a thick film of dust clung to him. “But there could still be magic.”
Reo took her hand and peered around the door before he pushed it completely open. Swaths of yellowed fabric draped lumps that must have been furniture.
“There’s no mage mist,” Kara said. “None. Which is odd.”
“Could it have run out?” Reo asked. “Do spells fade with time?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure.” She walked around the room. Something about it felt familiar. She spun around. The furniture was placed the same as the Old Rillidi estate. “I think this house may belong to Santos.”
Reo looked over at her. “Is there a spe
ll?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t know—but the room—it’s almost as though it’s an echo of his estate on Old Rillidi.” She shrugged. “Not that it matters, but it feels like him.”
“It makes sense,” Reo said. “They left him on Old Rillidi, and his house on Mage Guild Island is intact. Does he have any living relatives?”
“None that he’s talked about,” she said.
“Good,” Reo said. “No one to suddenly appear.”
It took them just over half an hour to search the house, then Reo led the way to the workroom.
“We’ll stay here until it’s dark,” he said.
The room had two doors, one that led to the kitchen and a second that probably led outside. Daylight filtered in through a window set high up in the same wall as the second door.
“Get some sleep,” Reo said. He gently tugged a cloth off a bench and wrapped it up, dusty side in. He set the bundle down in a corner and gestured to Kara.
“You too,” she said. She huddled into her cloak and sat on the floor near the cloth. She stifled a sneeze as the dust settled.
“Later,” Reo said. “Once I’m sure we haven’t been followed.”
She stared at him for a moment before she lay down and closed her eyes, content to let Reo watch over her. She pulled the hood of her cloak tight around her face, blocking out the light. She shouldn’t trust him, not after he’d taken her to her mother, the person who had tried to hire him to kill her. But everything he’d done since then, every look he’d given her, everything he’d said, even the way he held himself, all told her that he hated himself for what he’d done and that he would do everything within his power to get her out safely.
The arrogant Assassin who had manipulated her into his bed and then been furious when she’d refused to co-operate was gone. And this new Reo, this apologetic, considerate Reo, she trusted. But now she worried that he was almost too calm. Had he already decided that she was the only one that would come out of this alive?
ARABELLA SAT MOTIONLESS, trying not to let her fatigue overwhelm her. She wasn’t positive, but it felt as though the weariness she was experiencing now was natural—a result of the mostly sleepless night spent creating spells to find the girl and the Assassin—and not because Valerio was stealing her energy.
“This one should do it,” Valerio said. His eyes were dull and his movements slow—proof that he too was suffering from overextending his power.
“So you said the last time.” Arabella was too tired to keep the reproach out of her voice, and the Secundus winced.
“Yes. There is no reason why that spell failed, and yet it did.”
No reason. Arabella hadn’t told him about her own futile attempts to use magic against the girl—or about the girl’s claim that she could see and manipulate spells—she’d said that her own exhaustion had made her spells too weak. He’d seemed uneasy at her words. She wondered if he felt any guilt over using—stealing—her power. He should.
“I have no idea why, but I’ve been unable to find your daughter.”
This time it was Arabella’s turn to wince—she hated that she’d given birth to the girl, and he knew that.
“This spell targets the Assassin. There can only be a few dozen Warriors on the island—I don’t care if they all die today, as long as the Assassin dies.”
“Warrior Guild will not be happy,” Arabella commented. She didn’t care about a few Warriors either, but she was interested in how he thought he could manage their guild.
“I’m not happy,” Valerio said. “A Warrior Guildsman is helping a Mage Guild runaway escape capture. Even Warrior Guild cannot deny our right—our obligation—to uphold Guild Law. When they learn of this, losing a few Guildsmen will seem a small price to pay. Come. Rorik will be awake by now. I need an update from the guards he sent out.”
Silently, Arabella followed Valerio out of his workroom and into the hall of his home. She was beginning to see the pattern in how Valerio managed his affairs. He never seemed to care, and he was always able to find a way to minimize his own responsibilities by attacking how poorly others had managed theirs. In this case—it would work.
Chapter twenty-one
“KARA.”
A hand grasped her shoulder and shook it gently.
“Time to go.”
She pulled her hood off her head and blinked open her eyes. Reo crouched in front of her.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“Some,” he replied and moved away from her.
“Good.” Kara stretched her left arm over her head. It tingled a little as the circulation returned. “We both need to be rested if we’re going to get out of this.”
She stood up, smoothing out her skirt.
“Now what?” she asked.
“The door leads to a small laneway,” Reo said. “I checked while you were asleep. Once we’re outside, we’ll make our way south.”
“To the far side of the island,” Kara said.
“To the far side,” Reo agreed. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Reo opened the door, and a breeze wafted through it. She smelled flowers and damp earth and grass. She took a deep breath before she followed Reo out into the night. He gently pushed the door shut behind them, grabbed her hand, and tugged her after him down a short alley.
They made their way through alleys and streets that were bright with mage mist. At times Kara pulled Reo to a stop to let clouds of magic sweep past them. Sometimes it was her mother’s purple mist, but most of it was the familiar dark grey-black of Valerio Valendi.
Had Reo known who the Mage was who’d wanted to hire him? Had he known that she counted the Mage Guild Secundus as an ally? Perhaps. But he hadn’t known that Arabella wanted him to assassinate her own daughter, and so he might have underestimated her resolve. And for that, Kara had to shoulder some of the responsibility. Reo hadn’t told her someone wanted her dead, but neither had she told him that her mother was a powerful Mage. They’d both made mistakes, and now they were both in danger.
Reo found a fountain in a small park, and Kara knelt and scooped water up with cupped hands. Too soon, Reo pulled her to her feet, and they set off again, keeping to the narrow, twisting alleys as much as they could.
Reo stopped and bent towards her. “We should start looking for a place to hide for the day,” he said, the first words he’d spoken to her all night.
Startled, she glanced around. The mage mist was so thick and glowed so brightly that she’d lost all track of time.
“Everything’s covered with mage mist,” she said. “It’s coating all the buildings and streets. Even the trees and flowers.”
Reo nodded. “Let me know when you see a place, any place, that has a little less magic.” He set off down another alley way, heading south, always south.
They’d gone a few more blocks when she tugged on Reo’s hand and pointed towards a small roof that barely poked above a rough, wooden fence.
“No magic,” she said. “Just a little on the fence.”
Reo nodded, and they stopped beside the fence.
“Stay here,” he said. “In the shadow.” He took off his cloak and bundled it into her arms. “I’ll be back soon.”
Reo grabbed the top of the fence and slowly pulled himself up high enough to look over it. A few moments later, he dragged himself up and over.
Kara slid down to a crouch, leaning against the fence. Reo had told her that she was in shadow, but she felt exposed. Light from mage mist swirled around the alley and flowed along the side of the building across from her. A few wisps of yellow and green mist trailed along the bottom of the fence, and idly she poked her finger into it, watching as the mist curled away from her. She didn’t even have to concentrate—mage mist simply passed by her. When her mother had attacked them, all she had done was redirect the magic as it recoiled from her.
So much hate from a woman who, by all rights, should love her more than anyone else in the world. Gyda, she was tired of be
ing alone. Maybe when she and Reo got off this island, she’d head back into the mountains—she could build a cabin near Mika and Allon. The few weeks that she’d spent there had been the most serene of her life. She’d have to visit Santos and Vook and the others before she left. Could she take them with her? Would they want to leave Rillidi? She’d only known them for a few months, and already they were more important to her than her own flesh and blood.
She rubbed her eyes. What had Arabella said about Noula and Osten? That the child had been sent somewhere. She remembered the smiles and bright laughs when he was young, before he was old enough to follow Noula’s lead and treat Kara with disdain. She hoped he . . . what? What did she hope for him? That he survived and lived a horrible life filled with pain and misery or that he sickened and died quickly? That he lived, she decided. As long as Osten lived there was hope—hope for a better life, hope for some small joys. Hope. That’s what she was clinging to as well.
“Kara, throw me both cloaks,” Reo’s whisper drifted over the wall.
She tossed Reo his bundled cloak and quickly pulled off her own. The cool night breeze lifted the edge of her skirt. She wadded up her cloak and threw it over the fence.
Reo tossed them down on the other side of the fence and reached for her. She stretched her arms up, and he gripped her left forearm. She copied him, feeling his warm flesh beneath her hand, their wrists fitting together like a puzzle. He heaved her up, and she grabbed the top of the fence and swung her legs over it. Reo dropped into shadows and caught her as she slid over the fence.
“Thanks,” Kara said. “Sorry I’m not better at this.” She steadied herself against his warm chest.
“Not to worry,” Reo whispered into her ear. “You have other talents that make up for it.”
For a moment she wondered if he was referring to the night they’d bedded, but no, he would be thinking about her ability to see and avoid magic. That’s what he’d wanted from her all along.
Reo guided her to a small hut.
“Anything?” he asked.
