Asher’s gaze darts up to catch mine. A smile flits across his lips, and I know he’s in.
Thirty-One
Elodie
As I hustle down the stairs after my final class of the day, my skin itches to get on with the next stage in my investigation.
I’m still alert enough to notice the furtively narrowed glance a girl coming up aims at Stella beside me. Stella doesn’t catch it, her gaze aimed over her shoulder as she replies to something Madison just said.
The girl’s face tightens with momentary concentration. The quivers of ephemera shift around us.
My pulse hiccups, and I throw myself in front of Stella just as an invisible force knocks her feet out from under her.
The magical tripping would have sent her tumbling down several stairs if I wasn’t there for her to smack into instead. As I grasp her arms to steady her, the culprit sprints away.
“Damn.” Stella smooths down her hair in its neat braidand peers after her saboteur. “That was Opal, wasn’t it? I guess she wasreallypissed that I showed her up in today’s Influence debate.”
Which just about everyone at Luminary sees as a reasonable excuse for committing assault. This whole place is full of harpies.
As soon as I’m sure Stella’s legs are stable, I ease back to give her space. Her eyes dart after me.
“Thanks,” she says, abruptly but with more warmth than I’ve gotten since our spat. “For jumping in there and maybe saving me a few broken bones.”
I manage a crooked smile. “Any time.”
As Madison starts ranting about how Opal is a pathetic student in general, I part ways from the others as if heading to my locker. Instead, I veer toward the Defensive Magic room.
Our bond means I know exactly where Asher is standing outside the classroom door, even though my eyes can’t locate him. I come to a stop beside my sense of his presence.
With a tingle of sculpted ephemera, he extends his concealing bubble to encompass me too. He grins at me, green eyes bright beneath the waves of his fawn-brown hair.
I have the urge to slip my hand around his arm, but I wouldn’t have dared offering such an open show of physical affection even with the other Asher I’d been friends with for years.
Even though this Asher knows he’s my match, he barely knowsme. And I haven’t exactly been friendly most of the time we’ve had together.
I settle for grinning back. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.” He tilts his head toward the classroom. “What are we doing?”
“Professor Jovak said he has an appointment after class, and he seemed kind of edgy about it. I want to follow himand see what that’s all about. And I’m trying to be responsible by bringing along back-up.”
Asher nods. My other matches know what Cole found out about Jovak’s attitude toward me, so my interest won’t be a surprise.
“And you picked me,” he says.
“I know protective magic is your expertise.” I allow myself a gentle bump of my elbow against his. “This mission is about getting the info without getting in trouble, not picking fights.”
Before he can reply, two final students slip out of the room, with Professor Jovak at their heels. He pauses to lock the classroom door behind him and hurries off toward the nearest doorway. Asher and I stride after him.
The professor heads out into the staff parking lot, and my stomach sinks. This isn’t a surprising development, but it does make our plan harder.
I focus on the sporty orange compact Jovak reaches for—not the kind of car I pictured him driving other than the color—and extend a tendril of gathered ephemera toward it. Like I did weeks ago when I tracked Grady Tadros to The Eclipse, I latch the energy onto the fender securely and let a thread trail behind for me to follow.
“We’ll have to go after him on foot, but I can keep track of the car,” I tell Asher. “You just focus on concealing us.”
I considered dashing home at lunch to drive one of Other Elodie’s cars here, but that would both have raised questions and made discreetness impossible. Obscuring a whole vehicle on a crowded road is a surefire route to a car crash.
Asher gives me a playful salute. “Let’s get moving, then.”
