by M. J. Scott
Sophie turned to Cameron. “What do you want to do?”
His face was grim. “I think she’s right. I think if we stay in Anglion, they’ll find us. I want you to be safe.”
He reached for her hand. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Nor I you,” Sophie said. Her head was pounding, too, now, the throbbing keeping time with her hammering heart. Leave Anglion. Leave her family. All that she had ever known. She’d never imagined such a thing. But then, she’d never imagined that someone would try to kill her.
And she wanted to live. Wanted Cameron to live. She tightened her fingers around Cameron’s, fighting back fear and grief and confusion by holding on to that desire. “All right,” she said. “Illvya, it is. How do we get there?”
“All the way to Illvya? No. If I were found with a portal link to Illvya, I’d be dead in short measure,” Chloe said. “Not to mention if such things were simple to make, use, or maintain, Anglion would have been overrun by Illvya centuries ago. A portal trip of that distance . . . across an ocean. That would take more power than a thousand royal witches could produce.”
Fear rose more strongly within her. She hadn’t thought about that part. She’d just assumed that it would be a portal that would deliver them to where they needed to go.
“How, then?” she asked.
“This will be faster if you just listen and let me do the talking.” Chloe went to a row of cupboards standing against one of the walls and pulled the middle one open, taking out paper and ink.
She carried it back to the table, and then she began to tell them what they needed to do. Use the portals to get to a tiny village that Sophie had never heard of somewhere on the west coast. Find a particular beach near that village. Then summon a ship using a lamp that would be hidden on the beach itself.
“Who will be in the ship?” Sophie asked, unable to help herself.
“Smugglers,” Chloe said shortly. “Whoever sees the lamp first. The best of them is a man called Jensen. Did you bring money? Or jewels?”
Sophie nodded. “I have this.” She pulled the queen’s pearls out of the pouch at her waist, handed them to Chloe.
Chloe whistled softly. “Yes. Those will do.” She went back to the cupboard, then returned with a silver knife. Several swift strokes slashed the pearl string into pieces. Of all the things that had happened that night, that was the first thing that was even vaguely pleasing. Chloe separated some of the pearls from the string, so they rolled free on the table. She gathered them in her hand. “Offer whoever comes six of these. Go up to eight if you must. If he asks for more, then he’s trying to rob you. It might be better to wait and try again the next night if that happens, but that comes with its own risks.”
“And if he agrees, he’ll take us to Illvya?” Cameron asked.
“Not all the way. Not at this time of year, with the trade fleets out. Too risky,” Chloe said. “There’s a small island a few hundred feet off a cove on the southern peninsula. There’s a portal there.” Taking the pen, she scribbled a symbol on the paper. “This is the portal symbol for Lumia.”
Lumia. The capital of Illvya. Right into the heart of the enemy. Or somewhere they would be safe. It was a gamble. But they had no choice. Sophie peered at the paper, memorizing the portal symbol.
“The island portal will take you only to the public portal in the nearest coastal town—Orlee di Mer—and no, that portal doesn’t have the symbol to return you to the island. As I said, this is a one-way journey. But the Orlee portal should have a direct link to Lumia. Just look for the symbol. It’s a long way to the capital. But I imagine the two of you can manage the power needed.” She looked at them. “I’m not sure which Lumia portal it will take you to. They change every so often. But once you’re in the capital, all the public portals have a crest on them.” She sketched another symbol, which looked like a sun with a square imposed over it. “That’s how you’ll know you’re in Lumia itself.”
Cameron was studying the symbols. “Then what?” he asked.
“You speak decent Illvyan,” Chloe said. “How about you, milady?”
“Some,” Sophie said. “Not well enough to fool anyone, I’m afraid.”
“Well, as I said, no one’s going to hurt you simply for being Anglion there. They might try to rob you blind if you wind up in the wrong part of town, of course.” She paused, thinking. “So perhaps a direct journey is safest.” She drew a third symbol. “Once you’re in Lumia, look for this symbol in the portal.” This time the symbol she drew looked like a bird with open wings. Or maybe a flame. Sophie wasn’t sure. “That will take you close to where I suggest you should go.”
“Where exactly is that?” Cameron asked.
Chloe said something in Illvyan too fast to follow. Cameron’s eyebrows shot up.
“Do you truly think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“I think it’s the only logical place, given your wife’s abilities.”
“And they’ll take us in?”
“I can’t imagine they’d turn her away. And you two are kind of a two-for-one proposition, unless I’m mistaken.”
“But if there’s trouble?”
“Then ask to see the man in charge. Tell him I sent you. Tell him I said . . .” She said something in rapid-fire Illvyan that once again Sophie couldn’t quite decipher.
“That will make a difference?” Cameron, who apparently had no such trouble, said.
Chloe smiled. A little too brightly. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s my father.”
Cameron’s mouth fell open. “Your father is—”
“Yes. You’ll understand why I don’t share that information here. So. That’s where you need to go. Look for the portal symbol. There’s only one portal in that sector of the city. When you leave the portal, turn right. Then follow this map.”
She sketched quickly before handing the paper to Cameron. He folded it carefully and put it inside his jacket.
“I—” Sophie began.
“No, no more questions. You don’t have time. The smugglers won’t come if it’s too light when you light the lamp to summon them. They need darkness to get back out to sea. Do you need anything else?”
Other than answers to about a thousand more questions? But she wasn’t going to ask any of them. What mattered now was getting away.
“No,” Sophie said. “We have money. And weapons.” Cameron’s sword and pistol were in their customary places at his hip. And her gun and Honoria’s dagger were in the satchel she carried. She thought of the bundle of magic supplies she’d swept into her bag. Eloisa’s gift. One that might also prove useful. “And other things.”
“Food?”
“No.”
“I will see what I have in the kitchen. Wait here.” Chloe disappeared through the door and then reappeared before Sophie could think of anything to say to Cameron. Her mind was whirling. Illvya. They were going to Illvya.
“Here.” Chloe held out a small sack. “Bread. Cheese. Some apples. Enough if you have to wait until tomorrow. Though if you do that, I would suggest you go somewhere else via the portal and return when it’s dark. Make you harder to follow.”
“Thank you,” Sophie said. “You don’t know what this means.”
“Luckily for you,” Chloe said, “I’m one of the few people in Anglion who understands completely. Now, quickly. You must go.”
They stumbled down the rocky path that led to the beach, trying not to fall. The moon provided light. Too much light, even. Cameron tried to ignore the feeling that they had targets on their backs as he held Sophie’s hand and led the way over the uneven ground. He’d kept up a punishing pace since they’d emerged from the portal. Sophie hadn’t been sick when they’d arrived. Maybe her growing magic had cured her of that affliction. Whatever the reason, it meant that they had been able to get moving fast instead of having to wait for her to recover.
Still, no matter how quickly he wished to go, there was
a limit to how fast they could travel at night over strange terrain. Chloe’s warning that the smugglers wouldn’t come to shore if it grew too light was replaying over and over in his head each time he slowed the pace to navigate an obstacle. But if one of them fell, that would slow them even more.
If they didn’t get on a boat, he expected they wouldn’t survive. Once the dead man in their room was discovered, people would be looking for them. If whoever had set this up was clever, as he suspected, they’d be waiting for a maid to find his and Sophie’s bodies. Which should give them until breakfast before it was discovered they were gone.
But once that news was out, Eloisa wouldn’t be slow to act. And she could draw the same conclusions that Madame de Montesse had, that the wisest thing for Cameron and Sophie to do would be to try to get to Illvya. She wouldn’t want to let Sophie get away even if it wasn’t her behind the attack. A royal witch fleeing the country? Going to the enemy? Eloisa would send soldiers to every portal in Anglion if she had to. If she wasn’t the one behind the attempt on their lives, then her bringing them back to the capital would just give whoever it was a second shot. And if it was Eloisa, well, then they wouldn’t make it back to the capital. Their bodies would merely be discovered somewhere in circumstances that would be explained away. There was nowhere to hide.
They had to leave tonight.
He registered sand rather than stones beneath the soles of his boots as they came around the last curve of the path.
“This is it,” he said. He looked around. “Triple rock. Madame de Montesse said there was a triple rock.”
“There,” Sophie said, pointing. Her voice rasped through heaving breaths, but she followed when he started for the rock as fast as the sand allowed. He fell to his knees and started digging where they’d been told. When his hand touched leather, the relief was so overwhelming, he almost lost control. But his training and his need to save Sophie overruled his emotions.
He tugged the leather bundle free, sliced open the thongs that held it closed, and pulled out the lantern inside. He recognized the design. Shuttered on all four sides, it offered the ability to open just one panel so the light was limited and directed. They used such things in battles sometimes.
This one had a peculiar grid pattern in the lead separating the glass panes, which was how the smugglers would know this was their lantern, he supposed. He wondered if there was some sort of magic involved as well. Something that alerted the smugglers that the lantern had been lit in case they weren’t looking for it.
Chloe hadn’t mentioned it if there was. So they would just have to take their chances.
He reached into his pocket for the matches he usually carried when Sophie grabbed at his wrist.
“Wait,” she said.
“There’s no time.”
Her grip tightened. “There is. I want you to listen to me. You don’t have to come with me. You can go back. Tell them you found me gone and tried to look for me to bring me back but couldn’t find me. You don’t have to lose your family because of me.”
He stared down at her, disbelieving. Did she really think he would abandon her? That he could let her walk away from him after everything they had shared? “You think I’m going to leave you? To let you do this on your own?”
Her eyes were wide in the moonlight, shining with what he was sure were unshed tears. “This is my fault. If you hadn’t saved me in Portholme, none of this would be happening to you. You can still have a life here.”
He laughed then, the sound wild and bitter. “If you think that, then the last few weeks haven’t taught you much. Do you really think they’d believe I didn’t help you? That the Domina wouldn’t suspect? Wouldn’t try to use me to find out where you are?”
“But your family.” She was crying now. Shock, most likely, and the strain of it all overwhelming her.
“My family will be fine,” he said fiercely. “So will yours. Once they figure out where we’ve gone, there’s no point in doing anything to our families. It won’t bring us back. At worse, Eloisa can banish them from Kingswell for a time, and being out of the capital right now is probably the best thing anybody can hope for. She can’t take Liam’s title away from him. It’s too soon in her reign for her to attempt anything so risky. It would likely backfire on her and make the lords band against her. Same thing if she tries to arrange any convenient accidents. The suspicion would fall straight on her. She needs to consolidate power, not destabilize it.” He held her tighter, hoping she was listening, willing her to believe him. “Liam will protect your family. You’re a Mackenzie now.”
She made a noise that was half sob, half laugh, and lifted her head.
“I won’t leave you,” he repeated. “Body and blood, remember? Shield and shelter. Always.”
She nodded and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Then she straightened her shoulders and stepped back, standing small and resolute on the sand, one hand clasping the strap of the satchel draped over her shoulder. Her cloak fluttered gently in the wind from the water, and her hair, so hastily tied up back in the palace lifted as well, shimmering in the moonlight.
She was beautiful, his wife. And he was going to keep her alive if it killed him.
“All right. Good girl.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Now be a clever wildcat and light this damned lamp for me because you made me drop the matches.”
That made her laugh again, the sound genuine this time, and the lamp sprang to life in his hand.
He put it on the top of the highest of the three rocks, as Chloe had told them, wrapped Sophie up next to him under their cloaks, and settled in to wait.
It took nearly an hour by his reckoning, and his nerves stretched and tightened with each passing second as he stared at the dark water and dark sky, trying to determine whether the latter was lightening or if it was just his imagination playing tricks of him. He strained for any sound of a boat, and then, when it finally came, he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just another wave. He leaned forward, which made Sophie, dozing against his shoulder, come awake.
“What?” she said sleepily.
“Ssh,” he said softly, trying to hear. Then it came again. So faintly he still wasn’t sure. A creak of wood, a splash that was out of time with the rhythm of the waves. The sound of a small boat being rowed to shore.
“Merciful goddess, thank you,” he muttered, and ran down to the water to meet the boat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Captain Jensen?” Sophie made her way to the front of the small boat, where the man who’d introduced himself as Samuel Jensen stood looking out over the ocean. He’d agreed to take them where they needed to go for seven of Eloisa’s pearls, his eyes lighting appreciatively when he saw the gems.
“Yes, lass?” He turned from the rail. He hadn’t asked for their names, which made her rather suspect that his name was no more Samuel Jensen than hers was, but she didn’t care. They were safely off Anglion soil. She’d stood at the rear of the boat once they’d come aboard, transferring from the small dinghy that had come to fetch them off the beach, watching as the Anglion shoreline disappeared into the darkness. She thought she’d feel sad at the sight when it finally faded from view entirely, but there was, at the moment, only relief.
“How long does it take?” she asked, gesturing in the direction they were headed.
He shrugged. “Depends a little on the winds. Most of a day, though. Should be there around dusk. Which will make getting wherever you’re going a bit easier for you. Harder to be sneaky in daylight.” He grinned at her, revealing teeth that gleamed very white in the moonlight. He hardly looked like her idea of a smuggler. No, he looked more like a court gentleman. He wore a long dark-gray jacket—velvet, she’d discovered when he’d helped her into the dinghy and her hands had clutched his arms—and a black shirt and breeches that were equally well made.
“Is it safe to sail in daylight?”
“Safe enough. Don’t worry, lass. My cloaking ward is as good as any your man there co
uld cast.”
Her brows flew up. “You’re an Illusioner?”
“Once upon a time,” he said. “Best not to ask questions about that. No more than I’ll ask why an earth witch is taking herself off to Illvya in the middle of the night. This business works better with a bit of ignorance to help it along.”
She smiled at that. “I imagine it does.” She took another lungful of salty air, trying to believe she was safe now. But goddess knew what was waiting for them in Illvya. So maybe best not to believe in safety just yet.
“You should go below and sleep like your husband,” Captain Jensen said. “Rest.”
“I tried. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Ah. Yes. It takes some people like that.”
“What does?”
“Fleeing for your life. Danger.” He swept a hand out over the water. “Freedom.”
“Is that why you do what you do? For freedom?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a ship to sail. You’re welcome to stay up here, but move if any of the crew asks you to. You needn’t worry about any of them. No paid passenger ever came to harm at my crew’s hands. Just mind you don’t tip yourself overboard.”
In the end she did sleep, curled beside Cameron on a straw pallet. Slept until one of the crew shook them both awake an hour or so before dusk. They climbed back on deck and ate bread and apples and freshly caught fried fish with Samuel Jensen, washing it down with wine. Then Sophie took up her spot on the prow again, watching the small rocky island Chloe had told them about grow closer and closer. Cameron eventually joined her, and they sat in silence together.
