Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Snack Thief has spent the afternoon outside, but when Lander’s team arrives I grant them temporary access to the chapel, and he swoops in with them. I’m in the middle of making sandwiches for lunch. I wash my hands, dry them on a towel, then turn.
All four of them are in the kitchen, staring at my model of the island.
“How on earth did you get that?” asks a tall, broad-shouldered blond man.
I tilt my head. He is a shifter. I had not expected Lander’s team to include non-magic users. Interesting. I cross the room just in time to see Lander smack the man’s hand away before it touches the map.
“Don’t touch it,” he says, guarding the model as if it were a newborn.
“Hi,” I say lightly.
The newcomers face me: the big, blond, tanned shifter; a dark-haired woman; and a man who looks like her twin. They share olive skin, golden eyes, and matching expressions—siblings or cousins, something close. And Dayna.
“You already know my sister, Dayna,” Lander says. “This is Jilleen”—he nods to the woman—“and this is George.”
“Hello. Pleased to meet you. I’m Harper.”
“Jill,” she replies, shooting Lander a playful scowl. “Only my mother calls me Jilleen.” She offers a warm smile and shakes my hand, her grip firm.
“So who made this model?” the big blond man asks, eyeing it with a mix of suspicion and admiration, I cannot tell which.
Lander points at me.
“This is Riker,” he says, gesturing towards the shifter. “The Alpha Prime sent him to help. I have kept the group to people I trust.”
“Hey, Harper. Pleased to meet you.” His green eyes sparkle as he folds his arms across his chest; his biceps bulge beneath his T-shirt—typical shifter, built like a tank.
Riker. The name is familiar.
Lark has a friend called Riker. After I helped her, I’m almost certain he came around, poking near the boundary of the property. I zapped him with the ward—not hard, just enough to send a message. He was not unkind, merely nosy.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I say politely.
George whistles low, staring at the map. “You made this?” He studies me for a moment, something thoughtful passing behind his eyes.
“Yes. I have got sandwiches, if anyone’s hungry?”
Everyone agrees, and I fetch the tray.
Since the shock of my mistake with Lander’s magic, I force myself to pay closer attention to what the others can do. I taste their magic.
Dayna’s speciality is the same as Samual’s ritual, but with a minor in healing. Jill is an illusion mage, and George is a ward mage, a barrier specialist.
He stares at the wall, eyes narrowed as he surreptitiously dissects my wards. He shakes his head. I know what he sees: no one uses magic like this any more. It is layered—densely layered—and it demands an enormous amount of power.
As the kitchen table has the map, we squeeze around the breakfast snug. It is a tight fit, six of us crammed in—especially with Riker and his muscles taking up the space of two people—but we manage. The bench creaks. Snack Thief hops from backrest to backrest, hoping for dropped crumbs.
Riker snatches two sandwiches at once. “Thanks, Harper. I’m starving.”
“You are welcome. I can make more if needed.”
Dayna snorts, though there is affection in it. “Don’t encourage him. He gets worse if you feed him.”
“I don’t get worse,” Riker protests, mouth full of beef. “I get charming.”
“That’s one word for it,” Dayna says dryly. “You’re too grumpy to be charming.”
Jill grins. George chokes on his tea.
“I’m not grumpy. I’m brooding. There’s a difference.”
“Brooding?” Jill arches an eyebrow. “You sulked for an hour yesterday because someone ate your biscuits.”
“They were the good biscuits. Triple chocolate chip. Some of us have priorities,” Riker says, holding up his sandwich like a trophy. “And mine is this absolute masterpiece of roast beef and horseradish.”
After we finish eating, Lander clears his throat. The easy chatter stills.
“Right. We’ve got to move quickly while surprise is on our side. Whatever Meredith is planning, she won’t wait around.”
The easy camaraderie evaporates; everyone straightens, attention sharpening.
I stand and lead them back to the model.
“Harper received a message from Knox this morning,” Lander says. “Within the last twelve hours, Meredith, her coven, and several guards have taken the island and are holding the paper mages and their people hostage. She’s broken the treaty.”
Silence settles. Riker mutters a curse.
The treaty’s breach does more than spark an international incident; it risks sector-wide war. No one wants their secrets exposed, and the law was sacrosanct—until Meredith shattered it.
“We’ve confirmed nothing through official channels,” Dayna adds, leaning in.
“Meredith knows how to conceal her arrival, which is why we’ve heard nothing from our usual sources.
No one else knows. She must have cast some serious spells, which means she’s either masking and blocking the whole location…
or she’s targeting specific buildings and people. ”
“She has more than spells,” I say. “She has glass magic that suppresses paper magic. Knox is powerful, but his hands are tied without his power. Meredith has guards, coven members, possibly even sympathetic councillors.” Lander and Dayna murmur dissent, but I ignore them.
“We do not have days; we have hours to fix this mess.”
“We need an extraction plan—and contingencies if things go south,” Lander says.
“We’ve limited access to sanctioned kit, so we’re relying on personal stores, not Ministry stock.
Harper’s right, Meredith has sympathisers on the Council.
We can’t tip her off, so the op must be clean, quick, and with minimal casualties. ”
“A surprise assault, then,” George replies.
“I can get us more gear,” Riker offers.
Dayna shakes her head. “Having you on the team already bends the rules; using shifter kit would push it too far.”
We go over each plan carefully, agreeing on some and ruling out others. Everyone has an opinion, and every suggestion is sound. Moments like this prove why Lander chose them.
“The island is roughly one and a half miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide,” I say. “About four hundred acres.”
Riker points at a flat stretch near the eastern rise. “If we skip the causeway and land here by boat, we can bypass the obvious security.”
I push magic into the area; the section detaches from the model, enlarges, and spins in mid-air, hovering like a paper hologram.
“There is a security office and a ward there,” I warn. “If you can handle it…” I glance at George.
“I can,” he says.
“If we can get close enough to disable the paperweights,” I continue, “the paper mages will regain full magical access.”
“That we can do,” Lander says.
The discussion turns to weapons—lethal versus non-lethal. We agree non-lethal options are preferable, then consider potions and spells. Most Sector forces rely on stunners: they knock people out, but they are noisy and need frequent recharging.
An idea spins through my mind; I wonder if I can pull it off… probably.
Lander pulls out his phone. “Gear up. We leave in twenty.”
Chairs scrape. Weapons and tools emerge from bags. The kitchen turns into a war room.
And me? I fetch more paper.
Everyone gets a ream of thick paper in their backpack. Before I hand them over, I magically prime each one.
“Paper? Why paper?” Riker asks. “I don’t mind carrying it for you, but it’s not going to do any good. It’s not as though it’s bullet-proof.”
I tilt my head. “Is it not?”
I leave him staring at it.
Then I sit cross-legged in the centre of the living room while the others pack, and I get to work.
I have less than twenty minutes, but I have been playing with this idea for some time. The only limit to my magic is my imagination. With paper spread out before me, I begin crafting weapons.
They are simple: a one-shot design reminiscent of flintlock pistols from centuries past, yet entirely magical. Each gun draws a sliver of the ream stowed in its owner’s pack to reload—potentially endless ammunition.
We do not know how many opponents we will face, or what kind of magic they will wield. These paper bullets aren’t lethal, more like enchanted rubber rounds. I weave a spell to give them punch. They will not kill, but they will knock a target cold.
If I had more time, I would add adjustable power levels—from a warning sting to full unconsciousness—but I do not, so I make sure they hit hard enough to drop someone safely.
By the time I’m finished, six paper guns rest in a neat row. Jill’s, Dayna’s, and mine are smaller, easy to grip. Riker’s is larger, chunky enough for shifter strength. The last two are a standard gun size.
I cannot contain my magic in them indefinitely, so they will last only a week, perhaps less, and I have designed them to disintegrate—no magical trace to analyse, no blueprint to reverse-engineer.
I use my filaments to twist a tiny sample of each person’s magic into their weapon. It is a subtle lock: in anyone else’s hand the gun will not fire.
I am oddly proud of the result.
Each gun holds eight enchanted rounds. After they are discharged, the user simply sweeps the barrel near their backpack, and the primed paper flows in, refilling the weapon. Thousands of shots, if necessary, and none of it drains their core magic or requires a wand.
Riker does not even carry a wand, so that is a bonus. Whatever form he shifts into, he should save his strength; let the weapon do the heavy lifting.
I cast one last spell—waterproofing. We are travelling by boat, after all. I have not set foot on a vessel in… a very long time. I am halfway through that thought when Lander strolls over and studies my handiwork.
I look up at him.
“What are you up to?” Lander asks, eyes on the weapons laid out before me. I hesitate, so he answers himself. “Guns? Paper guns?”
“That one’s yours.” I slide it towards him. “Eight paper rounds,” I add, lifting a loose sheet. “But lots of ammunition.” A corner curls, folds, and compresses into a small, sharp shape—a white bullet.
“May I?”
I nod.
He takes it and turns the bullet between his fingers, frowning. “This is… unusual. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Give it a go.”
Gun and primed ream in hand, he heads outside. Riker spots the larger weapon immediately.
“That one’s yours,” I tell him.
“This is so cool. ‘Go ahead, make my day,’” he says, giving a spirited but inaccurate movie impression.
The rest of the team collect their assigned guns.
“Don’t swap,” I warn, following them out with my own weapon. “They are keyed to you alone.”
“Good security,” George says with an approving nod.
“Got anywhere to test these?” Riker asks.
I picture bottles or hay bales, then remember paper targets. We cross the back meadow, untouched since I moved the ward—ideal for target practice. Beyond it lies the boundary of the Magic Sector, and any stray round will disintegrate harmlessly.
With a push of magic another ream appears, and I conjure targets that glide through the air, unfolding into human silhouettes before stabilising.
“How far do people usually shoot from?” I ask.
“About there is fine,” Lander says, indicating roughly sixty-five feet. “Will they be loud?”
“No.”
He adopts a textbook stance—clearly no stranger to firearms—and fires. The silent bullet zips away, punching dead-centre in the paper chest. He glances from gun to target, shaking his head.
“What damage do they do?”
“They will shred paper, not flesh. The spell’s tuned: a human hit goes straight to unconsciousness. No pain. Two hours on average; longer if they are small, less if they are huge. Any longer than that and it edges into dangerous territory.”
They all look at me, but I ignore them. I raise my gun. I have never fired a gun before, yet I command paper, so how hard can it be?
My first shot veers wide. Far too wide. With a flick of intent I nudge it back on course, and it plants itself in the silhouette’s forehead. I mentally fist pump.
Then groan when I realise that works only as long as I can draw on my paper magic, and I know I soon won’t have that luxury.
I close my eyes and send my filaments inward, tracing along my magic until I locate the tiny sliver of Beryl I channelled in the graveyard.
There.
I snap my eyes open, raise the gun—my stance now rock-steady—and fire. Each round finds its mark, effortless.
Thank you, Beryl.
“This is the coolest thing,” Riker says. “When we’re done, can I take it home?”
“I’m sorry, but it will disintegrate in a few days.”
He pouts. “Our Alpha Prime would love this. We’ll probably want more.”
“I’m not making more,” I say firmly. “One-off mission kit. Stick to your claws.”
Riker grins. “Worth a shot.”
Once target practice is complete and the reloads have been tested, we are already an hour behind Lander’s schedule.
Time to move.