“I'll keep a shroud up for most of the day,” Jerah said. “But if you could help for part of the day, too, that would make things easier. But your most important task will be the quickening spell. If you can keep that up for even part of the day, that will help cut down a big chunk of our travel time. Otherwise it would be closer to a week.”
“Of course,” Florian agreed. He glanced over at Kade, who had looked away out toward the gate. His expression was perfectly blank: the same intentionally neutral face that he had worn so often when they first met. Florian blinked, realizing with a start that Kade had not ignored him so thoroughly in weeks.
“Well, I'd say we're ready to head out, but Tatiana wanted me to wait so she could see us off,” Jerah continued, glancing around.
“And I appreciate it!” Tatiana's voice called out as she appeared from the stairs that lead down to the courtyard from the other end of the castle.
“Speak of the devil,” Jerah teased, a fond grin on his face. “Thank you for seeing us off as always, Tatiana.”
“Only because I always worry,” Tatiana replied, walking up quickly to hug Jerah who embraced her just as readily. “Be careful, alright? Extra careful since Florian's with you this time.”
“I have every intention of getting him home safe,” he replied, his grin becoming a serious expression as he spoke. “I promise, Tatiana.”
“And you come home safe, too,” she murmured, barely audible as she pressed her face against his chest. He patted her back, nodding, and answered in a low voice. Florian couldn't hear what he was saying, and the moment seemed intimate, so he turned away.
After a moment they parted, and Tatiana stepped over to him, smiling despite the obvious concern in her eyes. For all her reassurances in the dining hall that morning, she seemed just as worried as he felt now.
“Be safe, alright?” she said, taking his hands into hers. “Listen to your father and Kade. As long as you do what they say, everyone should come home safely.”
“I understand,” he stammered with a nod. “I will.”
She only smiled down at him in return, again looking very much like Jerah when he wanted to say more but didn't—an expression he was starting to recognize. He managed to smile back up at her, which seemed to assuage her; and she patted his hands a few times, before giving them one last squeeze and moving on to Kade. To Florian's surprise, she hugged him too. He wrapped one arm around her, looking uncomfortable but unsurprised. Florian heard her say something to him as well, low and quiet enough that he couldn't quite make it out; but Kade simply nodded in reply, and after a brief moment, she released him.
“Well, boys,” she sighed, looking each of them over in turn. “I wish you safe travels. I hope you have good news for us when you return.”
“That's the plan,” Jerah said with a boastful grin, and she chuckled, shaking her head.
“I'll see you when you get back,” she said. They said their goodbyes, then she went back the way she came toward the castle once more. Jerah watched her go, then looked toward Florian with a sigh.
“Ready?” he asked. Kade nodded, and Florian agreed, so they started walking out of the courtyard along the eastern path.
Before long, the path faded away into grass and dirt—the same field where he and Kade had first kissed, Florian realized. It was lucky that he was behind the other two, since he could feel his face redden at the thought.
For a while, they walked in silence along the hillside and out into the empty field. Jerah had told him the Blight was out quite a ways from the city: no one wanted to ever get too close to it, so nothing was built along the edge where the Blight reached. Jerah had said Florian would know it when he saw it, so he kept his gaze on the horizon as they walked; despite the flat field that they were tramping through, he couldn't see anything like what they'd described.
Then a layer of white light appeared on the horizon, as perfectly as if someone had taken an eraser to the edge of the sky. Florian frowned—it looked like a trick of the light at first—but after only a few more steps, the white had grown and grown, and he realized that this must be it. The brilliant light was so perfectly demarcated against the rest of the sky that he hadn't realized what it was at first, but now...
“Is that it?” he blurted, pointing. It looked so benign from this distance, but he had no idea what else it could be. Jerah glanced back over at him, but his expression had become grim.
“That's it,” he answered. From here, it didn't look so bad—inconvenient, perhaps, the way the sun got in his eyes around sunset and made it difficult to see. It didn't look deadly, but Jerah's face was more than enough to convince him that it must be far worse than it appeared. He looked back over at the thick white line of light in the sky apprehensively, but followed closely as they continued on.
The line of light seemed to grow thicker with each footstep, and the closer they got the more it took over the sky, until finally there seemed to be no blue left at all. Florian could see up ahead the border meet the ground, which went almost instantly from brambles and thick undergrowth to bare, dry dirt.
Kade paused a few steps away from where the light hit and turned back to look at Jerah and Florian.
“Everyone ready?” Jerah asked, glancing between them. He lowered the goggles that had been pushed up to his forehead down over his eyes, and the other two followed suit. They nodded, and Jerah took a deep breath—with the dark lenses of the goggles, Florian couldn't quite tell, but he imagined that his father’s eyes were closed as he pressed his hands together.
“Darkness hides us. Darkness protects us,” Jerah murmured, and Florian could feel the air tingling with magic as he said it. “The Blight cannot touch us. The Blight cannot harm us.”
The shadow between his fingers, where his hands were pressed together, seemed to grow and stretch of its own accord, moving to envelop first his hands, then his arms, then his whole body. Florian watched as the shadow seemed to spread out as if it were oozing from Jerah's body—moving along the ground until it touched his own feet. He could feel the faint tingle of it as the shadow moved up his legs, then his torso, until he was fully covered in the shroud. When he looked up, Florian could see the shadow linger over Jerah and Kade, almost like a dark bubble hovering just over the surface of their skin. There was a snapping sensation as Jerah tilted his head back up, and his hands fell to his sides; but the shadow remained over them, moving with Jerah as he took a step closer to Kade.
“We should get a few good hours out of that before I need to top it up,” Jerah sighed, glancing back at Florian once more, before turning away and gesturing for Kade to continue. “Let's go.”
Kade nodded, looking toward Florian for only an instant, before he too turned away and stepped into the light. Jerah followed, and Florian took a few nervous steps forward, lingering with uncertainty at the very edge of where the light touched. It was so strange how it was perfectly delineated, as if there were a wall there that was invisible, but somehow still blocked out the light. He realized, feeling foolish, that he had never asked Jerah what prevented the Nova Blight from touching the Winter Court. His hands were trembling at his sides.
But they were waiting for him. He could see their figures—now blurred shadows in the light, even with his sun goggles on—looking back toward him.
“It's alright, Florian,” his father's voice came encouragingly. “Come along now.”
