Florian nodded, letting his hand hover in the air where it was. It didn’t feel magical, which was all the more strange—most powerful magic had a particular feeling in the air around it. It was strongest with the Arrows, which made the air feel almost syrupy with latent magic, but even lesser magic had a similar static tingle to it, if he got close enough. This sigil that hovered only five feet from where they stood, though it looked like it should be exuding magical force, gave off no such sensation. There was no hint as to what it was meant to keep out, nor what might allow them to pass.
“Do you think we have to give it an offering here?” Florian said, turning back to look at Kade. “Like your dad said?”
“Hmm,” Kade murmured, his eyes still trained on the sigil. “Maybe. He didn’t say they gave it directly to her or anything.”
“Worth a try,” Florian sighed, and he gingerly let his backpack slide off his shoulders and set it at his feet.
Carefully tucked into one of the small pockets of his backpack was the flower Kade had first given him, the midnight princess. Florian had wrapped it delicately in parchment paper, but it was still looking a little worse for wear after nearly two weeks of travel—not to mention the water that had just gotten into his things—but overall, it still remained in one piece. As he unwrapped it, he saw what was surely a flash of sadness across Kade’s face in his peripheral vision; but when he glanced up at the other man, his expression was that same careful, neutral face that he pulled whenever he was hiding what he felt. Not that Florian could blame him: the thought of giving the flower away sent a little pang of sadness through his chest, too. It would be worth it, though, or at least so he hoped.
“Think I should just touch it?” Florian asked, eyeing the ward.
“No,” Kade said quickly.
“Then what?”
“I’m not sure. But don’t touch it.”
Florian huffed, looking with uncertainty between the dried flower in his hand and the glowing ward ahead of him. He took a slow, experimental step toward it; Kade tensed next to him, but didn’t stop him this time. When he was right in front of the floating sigil, he bent down and set the flower on the ground in front of it, then stepped back.
They waited, but nothing happened.
“I’m going to touch it with the flower,” Florian said. Kade grimaced.
“Let me try first,” he said, reaching into his own backpack. He pulled out a little wooden figurine, though Florian couldn’t quite make out what exactly it was since his hand covered it so fully.
“What is it?” he asked curiously, and Kade sighed.
“Yuka made it for me,” he said, turning the wooden figure over in his hand. Florian could now tell it was a four-legged creature with pointed ears and a long, shaggy tail—a wolf, he was sure. “He gave it to me before we left.”
Florian nodded, eyes lingering on the figurine. Kade had seemed fondest of Yuka out of all the family members that they’d met in their short visit to the wolf kingdom; it only made sense it was the most sentimental thing he could bring. Though, he realized with some guilt, he had never thought to give Kade any sort of gift or token of affection, like the flower that he’d given Florian. He’d have to find some excuse to give him a present--when they got home.
He pushed the thought away, though, as he watched Kade cautiously step up to the ward, holding the figurine as far out from his body as he could. With a nervous intake of breath, he touched the nose of the wooden wolf to the sigil, all his muscles tense, as if he were ready to spring away at the first sign of anything dangerous.
But nothing happened. Gingerly, Kade took a step forward, and the wooden figure passed through, though Kade himself stopped just before his fingertips connected with the glowing sigil. He glanced back at Florian, who nodded encouragingly, then pushed his hand through.
The sigil had remained perfectly still as the figurine passed through it, but when Kade’s skin made contact, the surface of the ward rippled, like the once-still surface of a pond broken by rain drops. But despite the reaction to his fingertips, Kade’s hand passed through the magical barrier as if it weren’t there at all. Slowly, he continued with the rest of his arm, then stepped all the way through in one quick motion.
“That seemed to work,” he said dryly from the other side of the ward. Now that he was through, it had gone still once more. Florian grinned, but stopped short as the little wooden wolf was suddenly wrenched from Kade’s hand. “Hey!”
They watched as it sailed through the air as if pulled along by an invisible cord, then it struck the trunk of a thick, squat tree a little ways off and disappeared. For a moment they both stared at the tree, half in disbelief, then Kade looked back at Florian and shrugged, sighing.
“Your turn,” he said, and Florian nodded. Carefully, he held the dried flower out in front of him and pressed it toward the sigil. It passed through with no resistance, and since he had seen Kade walk through so easily, he stepped forward with confidence until he was on the other side of the ward.
Florian could feel his skin prickle with the magic of the ward the moment he was through: whatever it did, its presence was masked from the outside—only making it a more effective defense, he supposed.
Florian felt the flower being tugged from his grip, and he let it go. It followed the same arc through the air and disappeared against the trunk of the same tree.
“I guess that’s where we’re headed?” Florian said, glancing up at Kade, who nodded in reply.
They trudged through the dirt, though it seemed a little less muddy here—and as they drew closer to the tree, there was even some semblance of a stone path leading up to it. If this wasn’t it, Florian thought, it was a very convincing decoy.
The tree was very thick, but no more than maybe twenty feet tall at its highest point. Stones encircled it all around, sunk into the dirt like a cobblestone path. Kade looked down at the spot where their items had vanished, but Florian kept following the path all the way around the tree—on the other side, a knot in the gnarled wood had a tall, purple-capped mushroom growing right in the center of it. He looked over at Kade, who was still trying to see where exactly their offerings had disappeared; but when Florian looked again at the mushroom, he saw instead a door handle. He blinked, startled, and called out,
“Kade, come look at this.”
Quickly the other man straightened and walked up to Florian—he pointed at the door handle. “That was just a mushroom.”
“Hmm,” Kade said, eyeing it with obvious suspicion.
