I matched his shrug. “I can agree to a little bit of both.”
“Splendid.” He gripped my hands a little tighter. “Now don’t look now, but there’s a wisp of shadow creeping under the door.”
I went still, then rasped, “What is it doing?”
“It’s slinking this way, attempting to remain hidden in the dark corners.”
“Okay, so what arewedoing?”
“We are letting it get close enough for me to attempt trapping it.”
The seconds dragged on as we waited on the shadow. I had finally spotted it out of the corner of my eye when it crept a little too close to a dome of lamplight. It was only a few paces away now.
Crispin moved suddenly, then a flash of cool light nearly blinded me. I staggered back, blinking rapidly as my vision cleared. A ring of what looked like pure moonlight circled the shadow on the ground, caging it. Every time it tried to drift upward, the light would flare, forcing it back down.
Over the shock of it all, I crept closer. “How did you do that?“
“I told you my magic is stronger here.” Crispin knelt on one knee in front of the caged shadow. His eyes reflected the little ring of moonlight as he observed his quarry. “It obviously came back to find you. I wonder if it’s some sort of scout.“
“A scout for whatever nighttime dangers your mom was alluding to?”
“Yes,” his voice was all cool reasoning as he went on, “I have been thinking about that. Before I left, these dangers did not exist. Normal dangers, yes, like running afoul of beasts in the wood, but my mother wouldn’t have felt compelled to mention anything like that.” He glanced at me, then returned his eyes to the shadow. “I can’t help but wonder if I let something through with my departure roughly fifty-three years ago.”
I lifted my brows, getting brave enough to kneel on the other side of the trapped shadow. “But the pathway you made was just big enough for one, and it closed up once you were on earth.”
“Yes, but I potentially passed through any number of pocket realms on my way. While I did not stop in any of them, the pathway behind me could have been enough for something to creep through. And if that something has been causing trouble for the past fifty years, I imagine it’s a little bigger than this.” He gestured at the shadow.
“Maybe we should let it go and see if it leads us to its source,” I said, not liking the idea, but if we were going to heal the full pathway, we needed to know what we were dealing with.
Crispin’s eyes lifted to the sword over my shoulder. “I suppose we are as equipped to deal with it as we can be. But promise me something.“
I narrowed my eyes. “Depends on what that something is.”
“If what we face is too dangerous, you draw on my magic and use the Realm Breaker to guide you home.”
I lowered my chin. “I’ll use it to guideushome.”
“If it comes to it, you’ll let me protect you, and you’ll leave me behind.”
“No,” I said instantly, knowing I’d never be able to do it.
He gave me a patient look. “There’s much depending on you, Eva. Your mother, for one. But also all of our allies. You’ll be needed to put things back to rights once and for all.”
“I don’t care.”
“You do care, Eva.”
I huffed, because he was kind of right. Just when had I started caring so much? “I’ll agree to your promise if you agree to not do anything stupid. No acts of honor. If we can both run, we run.”
After a moment, he nodded. “Deal. Now are you ready?“
I looked down at the caged shadow. “Not at all.”
“Good.“ He waved his hand, and the moonlight disappeared. The shadow darted toward the door like an imp out of the hells, with both of us hot on its heels.
You know, if it had heels.
Crispin ledthe way as we ran through the darkness. Which was just as well—he had better night vision than me and I couldn’t even see the shadow we were following.
