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Phaedron falls silent. There’s a look on his face that makes me think I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with this man’s brother. And suddenly it falls into place.
“Your magicians,” I say, with a gasp. “Your own magicians are working with Rensivar, aren’t they? That’s why you had to use unstable magic to get here, isn’t it? Because you couldn’t trust your own magicians to make a real portal?”
Phaedron nods. “We don’t know who’s working with Rensivar and who isn’t. But, until we can make that determination, we can’t risk working with any of the magicians in the entire kingdom.”
I lean back against my wall, blinking. I can’t believe I’m even entertaining the thought of accepting this man’s story. He’s just given me the single most ludicrous explanation I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s much more plausible that I really am part of a prisoner exchange, or a ransom, or that he’s just going to drag me into a different prison to serve as a reward or punishment for my sister’s actions.
But. My eyes drift along the rumpled blankets on my bed and to my traveling bag nestled in the middle, full of stolen gold. It’s not like I have a lot of reasons to stay here. Hells, I was ready to follow this man into the Lands Below even before I heard his half-assed explanation.
“So,” I say. “Now that your portal’s blown up, how are you getting me into the Lands Below?”
He gives me that smile again, the one that looks like he’s trying to laugh at the world, and he waves his left hand in the air. It’s an odd sort of gesture, one that looks almost incomplete.
“I have no idea,” Phaedron says.
My eyes drift back to my bed, pulled by the weight of all the secrets I’ve stuffed into my innocuous little traveling bag. The bag I’ll be carrying to the Dragon Pass tomorrow morning. The bag I planned to take with me through the anomaly in the barrier and into the Lands Below. Just before my fellow magicians close that anomaly forever.
“I have an idea,” I whisper. “Can you ride a horse?”
Chapter3
Phaedron
SO THAT’S A HORSE
Oh. So that’s a horse.
When I said I could ride a horse, I was thinking it couldn’t possibly be that complicated. We used to ride goats sometimes, as children in the Outer Ring, before the glowsoft orbs dimmed, the void moved closer, and it got far too cold for livestock. I remember the rough hair beneath my hands, the heat of an animal moving beneath me, screaming as it pulled my legs over the ground.
But that was a goat. That was something manageable.
This thing before me? This is a freaking monster.
Alindra raises an eyebrow at me, then turns toward the enormous blood-colored beast with its terrifying, rolling eyes. The horse is behind a wall now, some sort of gate with rails to keep it back, and I realize I’m holding the heavy leather thing Alindra handed me tight against my chest.
“You can ride a horse, right?” she whispers.
I give her the kind of smile most ladies respond to, then reach forward to brace myself against the wall.
And stop. I was reaching forward with the hand that no longer exists. I catch myself, then grit my teeth and look down at my illusion. My illusory arm still looks good. It’s perfectly convincing from a distance, but I can’t move it very well yet. It just sits there, ornamental and stupid, a lovely reminder of the time I was soundly defeated by the first enemy I’d ever met from the Worlds Above. The Prince of the Kingdom of the Summer.
I take a deep breath and turn back to Alindra.
“Is that a horse?” I ask.
Alindra rolls her eyes. The horse snorts like it wants to push down the flimsy little wooden wall between us. I take a nice, wide step back. Okay. So I’ve just learned something important about the Kingdom of the Summer. Horses are to be avoided at all costs.
“Oh, for the star’s sake,” Alindra mutters. “You can’t ride a horse?”
She makes it sound like riding a horse is basically equivalent to walking, like only an idiot would be incapable of doing such a thing. I glance over at the horse. Its lips peel back, revealing a row of very, very large teeth.
Oh, hells no. I’m not getting any closer to that thing.
I shift the heavy leather thing on my arm and try, once again, for a convincing smile. So far smiling hasn’t done anything to put Alindra at ease, but hey, it’s the one trick I have.
“You know what I can do?” I say, trying to project a level of confidence I don’t feel. “I can walk. So, why don’t you tell me where you’re trying to send me, and I’ll walk there.”
Alindra sighs, then pushes her thick hair back from her forehead. She looks tired, and suddenly, I feel a completely different type of regret that the portal exploded. Not because I’m stranded here, although that certainly isn’t great, but because this woman took my hand. Because she was willing to walk into a portal she later said was so unstable it might have killed her.
