Chapter 10
Nyx’s phone rang the next night at eight o’clock, while she was picking at leftover takeout in the hotel room’s kitchenette. “Yes?”
“Oak Bridge in Central Park, ten p.m.” Valerie hung up before Nyx could say a single word in response.
Ninety minutes later, Nyx and her friends stood at the edge of Oak Bridge, staring across at where it led into a wooded section of the park that a hastily located online map had identified as the Ramble.
The darkness of the night was broken by lamps along the path, but there were plenty of places those lights didn’t reach.
Searching online for something as general as “Is Central Park safe at night” had returned the expected results of almost all online searches.
Meaning there had been just as many people replying “I go running through the park at eleven every night, never felt unsafe” as there had been people replying “Oh my god, you’ll die, what are you even thinking? ”
Surrounded by Morgen, Evra, and Kaden, Nyx felt perfectly safe. But it wasn’t lost on her that Valerie had sent her to one of the heavily wooded areas. Specifically, the wooded area where the paths had been intentionally designed to give visitors the experience of feeling lost in the woods.
“Anything?” Nyx asked Morgen, as he was the member of their group most sensitive to magic. They’d arrived early to get the lay of the area and see what they could find on their own.
“Something faint, across the bridge.”
They crossed to the other side, not going far before Nyx felt it too: the faint hum of magic.
“It doesn’t feel Shamanic,” she said softly.
She wasn’t as sensitive and attuned to the various types of magic as Morgen was, but she’d been around Tobi enough to have a decent feel for Shamanic magic.
Yet every time she tried to pinpoint the origin of this particular magic, she failed.
In Dead Earth, it should have been easy—there wasn’t much magic to be found, so any little bit should stick out like a ruby in a sea of colorless diamonds.
And it did, but…she still couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.
“It isn’t,” Morgen answered. “It’s a standard misdirection spell.”
A childhood memory surfaced of sitting around a campfire with Seth and Viktor while the latter placed three stones around their campsite that would form the points of an equilateral triangle.
Magic had snapped into place and the next thing she’d known she was standing in the woods alone, not quite remembering how she’d gotten there, and unable to find the campsite.
She’d started off in the wrong direction before Viktor had found her and handed her a ring.
It had been tied to the stones he’d laid down, and holding it had pulled her through the spell’s simple bit of misdirection.
Because that was what it had been—a misdirection spell.
She’d sat next to the fire, clutching the ring while Viktor explained that misdirection spells were for temporary protection.
She could remember the mini lecture word-for-word.
Misdirection spells are for temporary protection, he’d told them.
The magic they use is slight enough that it does not draw attention, but that same slightness means they are easily overcome.
Place one on a campsite, and anyone without a token tying them to the anchor stones will pass right by you.
Attempt to hide an area with one longterm, and you will fail.
If a single area remains unreachable for too long, it will draw attention.
She’d been upset, at the time. Having already known, instinctually, that her mother was not someone she could rely on to be there for her, the idea that her other two connections could disappear right in front of her, from something other than Seth’s budding illusion magic, had panicked her.
She’d petulantly demanded to know why she needed to learn anything about this magic, when her own Hidings or Seth’s illusions would do a better job of the same thing.
This had led to a lecture on being too reliant on the magic one was born with, which had led to Nyx getting a more thorough education on misdirection spells than she would have preferred.
They were quite simple pieces of magic, which was likely why this set of anchor stones retained its function in Dead Earth.
Pre-spelled items survived Dead Earth by being either very basic, or very powerful.
Where would Tristen have gotten them? Shamanic magic didn’t bend itself to other pursuits, so he hadn’t made them himself, which begged the question of whether he had another magic user with him.
It was something she hadn’t considered before, because she’d assumed Tristen would avoid anyone from outside Dead Earth with magic.
She still thought that to be the likeliest case, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility that he might have someone else with him.
Evra poked Nyx’s shoulder.
“What?”
“I was saying,” the said with exaggerated patience, “that we could disable the spell.”
Misdirection spells were easy to dismantle, once they’d been identified.
It was why they were best for temporary uses, and why trying to use one to keep people away from an area permanently was doomed to failure.
Once someone realized what they were dealing with, all they had to do was locate one of the anchor stones and destroy it.
“If we disable it,” Nyx said. “Tristen will know someone from outside Dead Earth is here and run for the hills.”
“Chasing him could be invigorating,” Evra offered.
“I don’t want to tip him off just because you want exercise. Not to mention, chasing him is unlikely to endear us to him. We’ll wait for Valerie.”
They waited in the middle of the bridge, looking out over the lake. She could feel some invisible tension leave Kaden and Morgen at its proximity.
“I do miss being by the water,” Morgen murmured, more to himself, she thought, than to anyone else.
Kaden had said he’d grown up by the ocean, which meant Morgen had, too.
She was a little surprised Morgen had never mentioned it before, but then most of the stories he told tended to be from his time in the Enforcers, rather than his youth.
And given what she’d learned about his and Kaden’s rocky past, that made a little more sense to her now.
She made a mental note to add a pond out back of the Station when they returned.
“On your left,” Evra said quietly.
“I see him,” Nyx answered. The older Asian man who had met Valerie outside of the coffee shop the day before was on the path on the other side of the bridge.
Nyx couldn’t say exactly when he’d gotten there, which might be the result of magic, or might be the result of it being dark out.
An elderly woman clung to his arm, and as he escorted her back across the bridge, Nyx noticed she was weeping softly.
The kind of crying that came from the relief of having a crushing weight lifted.
One person, at least, had been healed tonight.
Nyx watched, but he didn’t return. Instead, she spotted the pink-haired woman next, leading a nervous-looking teenager across the bridge and out of their sight. Twenty minutes later, they both reemerged. Like the other guide, the pink-haired woman did not return.
Instead, a few minutes later, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valerie approaching. “I told you if he agreed to see you, they couldn’t be here.” Valerie indicated Evra and the others.
“You didn’t actually expect me to come to Central Park at night alone, did you?”
The look on Valerie’s face said she had. “They stay on that end.” Valerie pointed to the side of the bridge opposite the Ramble.
“She is not going without me.” Evra took a step forward, into Valerie’s space.
Impressively, Valerie didn’t back down even when faced with a glowering Evra al’Daemon. “Then she isn’t going.” Valerie looked at Nyx. “I’ll be over there.” She pointed to the foot of the bridge on the Ramble side. “You meet me alone in the next five minutes, or this is off.”
“I do not trust this,” Evra said, as soon as Valerie walked away.
“You don’t trust anything,” Nyx pointed out, starting the stopwatch on her watch and herding them all to the opposite end of the bridge, away from Valerie.
“I am aware. It has kept me alive. There is no reason for him to lure you to such an odd location. In a city such as this, a building would be the much more obvious choice. There would be no need for misdirection spells.”
Nyx had been thinking about the location choice ever since Valerie had given it to her, and had eventually come to the opposite conclusion as Evra.
“Buildings can be traced back to the people who own or rent them, and there are cameras everywhere in the city. Plus, if you have to disappear quickly, buildings are full of annoying obstacles like doors and stairs and other people. This is a much easier place to slip away from unnoticed.”
Given what he was, Tristen wouldn’t be worried about ordinary Dead Earth dangers. He would be worried about being captured. “You know the odds are good he was kidnapped as a child and brought here. It would make anyone paranoid.”
“Your argument is valid,” Evra acknowledged, “but it does not negate the fact that he has killed with his power before. His break from the Congregation means he might not even be sane, which means you have no idea what you are about to be walking into.”
“He’s sane enough that at least two people tonight have met him and walked away. What do you think is going to go over better? One person announcing they know who he really is, or four of us? Especially when the three of you look like exactly what you are?”
Evra crossed her arms. “And what are we?”
“Trained soldiers.”
“I have never been employed by an official military division,” Evra objected.