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“Put it on the list of things to explain once we’re safe,” she said.
“That’s a long list.”
“I know.” She shut her eyes for a moment. “It’s one of the things I learned from Devere, alright? One of the many reasons the Guild wants me dead. If you thought the Dean was angry about the prospect of me having stolen secrets from Brisant…” She trailed off, and despite his suspicions, he believed the look of bleak terror on her face.
“If you can navigate the Fog, why didn’t you leave weeks ago? You could be anywhere by now.”
Her expression flickered, twisted. “You think I’d have left you?” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Just—disappeared like that, without even saying goodbye?”
“I don’t know, Kaya.” He spread his hands helplessly. “I mean, I don’t even know your real name.”
A long silence between them, then, the wind stirring the sand around their feet. He was struggling to read the expression on Kaya’s face. Not for the first time, he got a strange impression that she badly wanted to tell him something, but that something was holding her back. Finally, the distant sound of students’ voices caught both of their attention, and the spell was broken.
“We’d better go, then,” he said reluctantly. “To the Valley still, yes?”
“It’s the only place I’ll be safe. I promise, Callan. I promise I’ll explain everything once we’re there, okay?”
He didn’t know what he could say to that. Instead, he shifted, trusting his draconic form to hide his expression from her. He waited for her to join him in his winged form, but instead, she moved up beside his shoulder, and he realized that her plan was for him to carry her. That made sense, he supposed. Perhaps she needed her hands to cast whatever magic it was that would guide them through the Fog?
“Focus on home,” she called to him, her voice almost carried away by the wind. “Hold a picture of it clear in your mind—I’ll use it to steer us there.”
He waited until she was settled astride his neck, then leaped into the air, beating his wings hard and trying to stay as steady as he could as the wind buffeted him left and right. He could feel Kaya hanging onto his neck, oddly small and fragile in contrast to his draconic shape, and he winged his way swiftly over the choppy waves beneath them. He didn’t look back at the island as they reached the roiling expanse of Fog that obscured the horizon. As tempted as he was to take one final look at the university that had been his home for the last year and a half, he knew that he had to focus on what lay ahead. He ignored the pang of grief as the Fog enveloped them both, focusing his mind instead on an image of his home, as Kaya had instructed him. Keep looking forward, he thought to himself. If he kept his focus on the future, all the doubt and worry and gnawing dread of the past wouldn’t be able to creep up on him…
It was cold in the Fog, and he felt the disorienting effects creeping up on him, distorting his sense of himself. He was already struggling to remember where they’d come from, and which direction they’d been headed… each beat of his wings seemed strangely, subtly different, as though each stroke was sending him in a different direction. But whenever the gray threatened to cloud his mind out entirely, he focused again on the single spot of warmth in the cold. Kaya, holding tightly to his neck, steering them safely through the Fog. He’d trusted her this far, hadn’t he? Trusted her enough to throw himself into the darkness without so much as a backwards glance.
He redoubled his focus on the image of his home, trying to incorporate as much detail as he could. The range of mountain peaks jutting up out of the dense embrace of the forest below. The lake to the east, a great oval shape cut out against the trees, the slender thread of the river that joined onto it … he closed his eyes against the Fog, feeling his wings burn, wondering just how long they’d been here. It felt like no time at all, but at the same time like it could have been hours, as though he’d been drifting in and out of a strange twilight sleep. But he hadn’t, had he?
Focus, he told himself as fear threatened to take control. Focus on the Valley. Focus on why you’re doing this.
It could have been seconds or hours later, but he realized with a jolt that the Fog was beginning to thin out. He sped up, wings burning, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. He’d been so focused on the mental image of the Valley that for a moment he almost believed that that was what he was seeing, that he’d visualized it so strongly that it had appeared before his eyes. But no—he could hear Kaya whooping with joy from her vantage point on his back, and as they left the last vestiges of Fog behind them, he felt the cool, fresh air of home envelop him instead.
Home. He realized he hadn’t been back since the break. The chill of winter was in the air, now, and he was grateful he’d thought to jam some warm clothing into his satchel when he’d packed it. Ahead of them, the tallest peak loomed, the cloudless night sky above illuminating the way with starlight. Had they been in the Fog for so long, he wondered? The strange magic of that place had a way of distorting time, Cato had told him. Impossible to know how long they’d been there.
And at any rate, no matter the time of day, he wasn’t interested in taking a fugitive straight to his community’s secret home within the mountain. The two of them needed to have a long conversation first. And so he peeled off, spiraling down towards the familiar outline of the lake that lay below them. Several times now, Kaya had asked to meet him on a beach. It seemed fitting that this conversation take place on one, too.
She slid gracefully down from his neck as soon as he’d landed, and he collected himself before he shifted back, folding his wings against his back and taking a deep breath of the bracing night air. Once he was human-shaped again, he and Kaya looked at each other for a long moment.
“Well done,” he said, gesturing toward the horizon where the distant bulk of the Fog still loomed. “You got us here safe and sound.”
“Sorry about the timing,” she said with a faint smile. “I’d hoped to get us here closer to the time we left, but…” She was doing her best to hide it, but he could see her slight frame was trembling in the cold. As determined as he’d been to be strong until he got a straight answer out of her, Callan couldn’t resist stepping closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and gathering her close. She tucked herself against his side gratefully, and the two of them gazed out over the unruffled waters of the lake. Strange, how small she felt. He could have sworn she’d been taller than this the last time they’d been together.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Where would you like me to start?”
Chapter 20 - Inota
She’d forgotten how freezing cold it was on this blasted insula. Inota genuinely hadn’t wanted to look as pathetic as she did, shivering by the lakeshore, but there was nothing contrived or performative in the grateful way she leaned into Callan’s embrace. She could tell his suspicions of her were at an all-time high, and she had a feeling that was why he’d landed them here on the lakeshore, miles from where the dragons actually lived. Keeping the actual location of his home a secret from her until he’d gotten a little more information. Smart, she supposed. She had no right at all to be hurt by his lack of trust in her at this point, but she was hurt all the same.
How much of the truth to tell him this time? She needed to go beyond the Mage’s Guild, distract him with other stories. The real reasons the Guild was hunting her would be impossible to explain without blowing a lot more of her cover story. But there were plenty of people who wanted her dead who had nothing to do with the Mage’s Guild, mostly as a result of the work she’d done under Haspar. But she had to be careful there, too. She couldn’t risk Callan realizing that she’d been one of the mages who’d attacked his home.
“So—you know that Devere, my teacher from the Mage’s Guild, taught me things he wasn’t allowed to share.”
Callan nodded, his eyes on the lake in front of them. They’d settled on the soft grass by the shore, sitting close together to chase the chill of the night away. He’d also pulled a spare jacket out of his satchel, which she’d gratefully clutched around her shoulders like a blanket. Having the warmth of his body pressing against her made her feel a lot less like she was on trial, but she knew she still had to be very mindful of what she said.
“What I didn’t tell you was what I did with those things, once Devere was found out and I fled the Mage’s Guild.” She took a deep breath. “At first, it came out of desperation. I was terrified of what they were going to do to me if they tracked me down—I was doing whatever I could to get enough money to make it to the next insula, searching for anywhere that didn’t have a Mage’s Guild chapter. It turns out there’s a lot of work for magic users out there… especially ones who are willing to do things the Mage’s Guild won’t. I ended up falling in with a pretty bad crowd. I know you were hurt when you found out I’m not using my real name, Callan, but the truth is I barely have a real name any more. I change it more often than my clothes. I’ve gone by Kaya longer than I’ve gone by just about anything.”
“So it’s not just the Mage’s Guild who are hunting you?”
“Iwishit was just them,” she said softly. “Callan, I’m wanted on just about every insula, by legal and illegal organizations alike. People I’ve tricked, people I’ve stolen from, people I’ve betrayed… trust me, there’s a reason I keep changing my name. These last few months at Brisant have been the most peaceful of my life.”
