“Watch and learn.” He slips me a crooked smile, and then the shadows gather. The moon has set, but with my night vision, I easily make out what he’s doing from thelight cast by the smoldering embers and the lamp in the tent. The shadows heed his command, maneuvering the leather to form a net around the box without a single shadow directly touching any part of the spelled wood. The dexterity and coordination he demonstrates are better than anything I could ever have accomplished. I’m positively awed. He buckles straps and secures knots, all so silently that even the rabble beasts don’t look up from their grazing.
“Your turn,” he whispers.
I call Phantom, projecting what I want them to do. The only clue to my invisible dragon’s arrival is a strong gust of wind from the flap of their wings that blows across the embers. Phantom grasps the loop of the harness in their claws. The box and cart lift from the ground and are engulfed by the dragon’s invisibility. We have them!
“Phantom sees a clearing to the west. They’re taking the kids there. Follow me.” I turn to run in the direction Phantom is beaming into my head, but I stop short when a familiar face emerges from the glowing tent.
Nevina lifts her eyes to the invisible Phantom. Although she can’t see the dragon or the children, somehow she knows exactly where they are.
A bow appears in her hand, and she nocks a sunlight arrow, drawing the string back to her shoulder.
I grab Damien’s arm, but he’s already locked on her. “There must be tracker magic on the cr?—”
The arrow flies. I fall.
6
Sympathetic Magic
Damien
Icatch Eloise in my arms as her body seizes, and she crumples to the ground, blood blooming across her thigh. Carefully, I test the wound, but I find no direct cause of the injury or for the way her eyes roll back in her head and her spine arches in a rigid, bone-bending fit when I probe it. Nevina’s arrow struck Phantom, and Eloise bled.Damn it! We should have foreseen this. Their bond goes both ways. Eloise is suffering the effects of Phantom’s injury. Which means I must get Eloise to Phantom and remove that arrow from the dragon’s leg or she won’t heal. And I need to do it before Nevina finds us, or the dragon, and finishes the job.
Calling on the darkness, I surf the night, becoming one with the cool air as I rush west, searching for the clearing Eloise mentioned. Nevina’s passionate curses reach me as she finds her rabble beast’s tack missing and her soldiers scramble to produce a replacement. Shades are generallyfaster than elves, and we can see better in the dark when the moon has set, but that’s assuming we can fully shift and surf the darkness. I can’t do that with Eloise in my arms. That said, while elven hunters are trained to move silently and quickly in full dark, Nevina is no hunter. She’ll have to use her magic to track the box and her lamp to guide her way.
My head start means I’ll get there first. The question is, can I fix what’s happened before Nevina catches up? I move as fast as I can with Eloise’s rigid body clutched to my chest. Truly, she weighs next to nothing, and I wonder if she’s been eating enough. How much stag did she have tonight? How much blood? As always, she was more concerned with Ariadne’s and Warbill’s health than her own. What she still doesn’t understand is that her health, her existence, is more important than anyone’s on this planet. She is the dragon, our best hope for freedom.
World be damned, she is the force that keeps my heart beating. I swear to the goddess that if we make it out of this alive, I will force her to take better care of herself. No more unnecessary risks.
The forest opens sooner than expected, and I find the dragon in a mass of downed trees, the box and cart smashed a few yards to the east. The beast never made it to the clearing and must have crashed into the edge of the wood. I rush to Phantom’s side, set Eloise gently beside the dragon, and grip the sunlight arrow protruding from their thigh with both hands. It burns, and I feel my body changing, becoming mortal, but I don’t hesitate. Bracing my foot on the creature’s white scales, I use all my remaining might to pull the arrow free, and then I toss the evil thing as far as I can throw it. My palms have blistered,but as soon as I’m free of it, they begin to heal. I hope to the goddess that the same will happen with Phantom and, by connection, Eloise.
Immediately, her body relaxes. The rigidity in her arms and legs gives way. Her breath evens out. She doesn’t wake, but she appears to be sleeping now instead of tortured with internal pain.
“Did Dad send you to save us?”
I turn to find a set of wide blue eyes staring up at me. The boy, Zander, looks just like his father, with a head of tousled brown hair and the intense stare of a shade who has seen too much, too young. His sister, Zarissa, clings to his side and is covered in tiny cuts and burns. Although both their shirts are bloody, they’re alive and they appear to be healing.
“Are you injured?”
“No, sir. The box broke when we fell, and my sister was burned, but we’re okay now,” Zander says.
Zarissa holds out her arm where a bar-thick stripe of blisters mars her skin. “Zander dragged me away from the elf magic.”
“Good. You did the right thing. But you both must follow my orders now, exactly, or the elf queen will have you again. Understand?”
Both children nod.
“First, I must know. Did you eat or drink anything since your capture?” Nevina once placed a magical tracker inside Eloise by convincing her to eat a single gumdrop. Nevina definitely knew exactly where the crate was, but was the tracker in the crate itself or inside the children? Before I take these children with us, I must be sure they aren’t magically tagged.
“No,” the boy says. “Dad told us never to eat or drink anything from an elf or silver coat. They gave us that.” He points at a broken bowl beside the crate. A puddle of blue sludge remains in it. “But we didn’t touch it.”
“Nothing from the shade soldiers either? No candy? No food?”
“No,” they both say in unison. “They offered it to us, but we know better,” Zander adds.
I hear the dry rasp in his voice now and notice the severe thinness of Zarissa’s arms, the fatigue that seems to weigh both of them. They’re telling the truth. Thank the goddess. That severely limits the chances they’re tagged. “Excellent. You’ve done very well. I know you’re tired and you can’t shift, but I’m going to need you to follow me, as fast as you can run. Got it?”
Zarissa swallows hard, but they both nod.
