He nodded quickly. “Thank you, thank you. I will wait here.”
I walked toward Joy, my feet dragging over the rug until I reached her.
“Can we go?” she asked.
I exhaled shakily. “No. I… I need your help.”
Her brows creased faintly. “What is it?”
“I need to go with this man. I need to help him, and I need to fling. Can I have your necklace?”
My lips pressed together as Joy unclasped the cord without question, offering the gemstone charged with her mana.
“Should I go with you? You’re not very good at flinging yet.”
A trembling laugh escaped me. “No, you can’t come. But I need you to do something for me. After I leave, fling to the training hall. Find Elaith or Cerridwen. Stay with someone, and then both of you need to look for Reagan.”
Her fingertips tapped against her thigh as she nodded.
“Tell him I had to go but that he can use the flask we made together.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to ignore the instincts telling me to stop, telling me there was another way to handle this. But none came to mind.
Joy’s eyes flicked toward Onorio. “Where are you going?”
I hugged her before I could think, feeling the stiff line of her shoulders.
“Reagan will know,” I murmured, kissing her cheek before turning away, my robe suddenly stifling.
Joy’s relic pulsed against my palm, and my own mana stirred in response.
It would have to be enough. Maybe we could find his family before being seen.
I didn’t allow myself to stop or think again as I reached Onorio. “All right. Take us there.”
???
It was easy to siphon from Joy’s relic to fling with Onorio. The sensation was the same as when Seraphyn siphoned her power to me, but it burned less. Joy’s mana was different, eager and responsive.
A weathered stone building loomed across a wide and empty road, the train tracks carving a line between bare dirt and cracked pavement. There were no other structures in sight, only this one, its barred windows catching the blood-red light of dusk.
A dark figure slipped behind one of the windows, and my hope of arriving unnoticed died.
Cold wind swept around us, tossing the dark green shapes of the trees against a scarlet sky. I swallowed as a foreboding instinct washed over me.
“This is it,” Onorio said, sounding both tense and resolute. “This way.”
“Wait.” I touched Joy’s relic, slipping it into my cleavage for quick access as I whispered a warding charm. With the eagle fixed sharply in my mind and the relic at my skin, the shield unfurled around us and disappeared into the air. “We can go now.”
Mere citizens like Onorio wouldn’t have so much experience into warding themselves and the absolute stillness of power around him confirmed he hadn’t. Or hadn’t thought it would make a difference.
It was the silence inside the building that unsettled me most. The foyer was empty, with a dark stone floor stained beneath a thin coat of dust. Nothing about this place suggested it was a permanent hideout.
We ascended a staircase that creaked under our footsteps. Then voices drifted down the corridor above, muffled and difficult to distinguish. Four, perhaps five different ones.
A figure stepped into view at the top of the second floor. We froze.
“They are here,” the Scion called over his shoulder, looking like a shadow with most of the light behind his back. Yet, his mark was clear on his wrist when he raised his hand. “No cloaks.”
