Chapter One
MINA
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I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, looking at Auberre’s public park through the windshield. Honestly, how hard could this be?
My heart pounded and my fingers tapped faster, but my nerves were still on edge.
You can do it,I tried telling myself.
What if I couldn’t? What if I failed?
If Marius were around, I would have been eager to prove to him what I was capable of. But my dragon shifter lover was away on another job with his colleagues Roux, Bene, and Henrik — their second trip since we’d returned from Mallorca. Only three days this time, but it already felt like an eternity.
To avoid moping over Marius like a love-sick puppy, I’d assigned myself a list of tasks to accomplish in that time. So far today, I’d gone for an early morning run, scraped peeling paint in the west wing of the château, and set out on an epic shoppingtrip in anticipation of the guys coming home — er, coming back — soon.
Now it was time for the next item on my list. Shadow-walking, right here in the public park, where everyone could see — or rather,notsee.
All my life, I’d been brushed by magic that came and went as it pleased — little relics of my mixed ancestors’ much greater abilities. The way normal people vowed to master knitting, gardening, or a foreign language, I’d made halfhearted resolutions to learn magic. I hadn’t ever actually accomplished much, though.
But the past few weeks had shown me I had to sharpen every tool in my box if I wanted to survive another brush with ruthless supernaturals.
Shadow-walking was tool number one — making myself invisible, in a sense. To do that, I had to maintain an illusion of myself in one place while sneaking over to another. I’d succeeded a few times in the past, but I needed to do it reliably. Confidently. Hence, this visit to the park.
But now that I was here, my resolve faded away like moonlight on a stormy night.
You can do it,I pictured Marius saying.
I pushed the car door open, strode to the park, and plopped down on a bench, rubbing my hands nervously. I could do this. I could definitely do this. Once I started, it would all come naturally. Right?
I looked around. No one in sight. I settled into as natural a position as possible, gazing solemnly at the tricolor flags flanking the village war memorial. I carefully noted every detail, from the angle at which my ankles crossed to the way one hand rested over the other. I catalogued the length of my shadow and the way the autumn breeze flowed around my body. Then,recreating that exact scene, I inched silently away, checking the illusion I’d left behind.
Sad gaze aimed at the war memorial — check. Body and shadow unchanged — check. I was there, but I wasn’t there.
At the same time, I had to conceal every trace of the real me. That meant erasing my shadow, rearranging the breeze, and creating the illusion of untrampled grass under my feet.
Intensedidn’t begin to describe the process. It was like painting two different scenes at the same time, keeping one eye and one hand on each. But the consequences of an error now weren’t merely a smudged canvas. It was smudging myself right out of existence.
My head started to throb, but I kept it up, maneuvering farther away with every step. Then, for practice, I turned away, because an illusion was that much harder to maintain without visual feedback. Had my illusionary head tipped to a strange angle? Was my nose migrating over to my mouth like a warped Picasso portrait?
A cloud covered the sun, dimming every shadow. I hurried to correct the faux shadow at my fake double and the too-bright spot I’d been mind-casting over my real shadow. Then the sun emerged again, and I reversed the process.
Whew. I made a mental note to stick to indoor shadow-walking — if I had to shadow-walk at all.
I paced from side to side, trying different distances and checking for another cloud. Luckily, the sky looked as if it would remain clear for the next few minutes.
I was just congratulating myself on a job well done when someone called from the street.
“Oh, Mina!Bonjour!”
It was Madame Fontaine, the retired schoolmistress, approaching the park.
The good news was, she was focused on fake me. That proved the illusion was working. Yay, me!
The bad news was, she was closer to the bench than I was, and my illusion was about to be exposed.
