Chapter 10 #4
“Tristen’s fine,” he said shortly, and whether it really was fine or he thought she was seeking clues to send to her friends on his Earth identity, she didn’t know. Whatever. She’d opened the door. If he wanted to be called Clay, all he had to do was ask.
She debated her next sentence for a whole one second before deciding she didn’t care if it hurt her cause. He’s paranoid, so my phone’s staying here, and if any of you guys follow us, his answer’s no. I’ll meet you back at the hotel in a few hours.
“Do I have your blessing to send it?” she asked.
He held out his hand in answer. She sighed and placed the phone in his palm. He read the message a couple times and then began rewording it.
Tristen and I are going to talk. He is understandably wary, so I’m leaving my phone here. If we don’t have complete privacy, any deal is off. Go back to the hotel and wait.
“Was my grammar not to your liking?”
“Just making certain the only message sent is the one I can read.”
It took her a minute to figure out what he was saying. “This isn’t an episode of Alias. I’m not a TV spy sending coded messages to my fellow agents. I thought we were developing trust.”
He gave her a deadpan stare. “Trust takes time.”
She gaped at him. “Did you just attempt to quote Alias to me?”
“What do you mean ‘attempt’?”
“It was truth takes time.”
He looked up, as if he was trying to see the scene in his head when CIA spy Sydney Bristow’s earrings had started emitting Morse code with a message from her mother. Finally, he shrugged. “Close enough.”
“I’m going to forgive fifty-percent of your obstinacy for being a nerd who can almost quote Alias.”
“Thanks,” he said drily.
She sighed. “Look, I am not a superspy. So could you just let me call my friends?” If she called, she could explain it and they’d give her the time she needed.
She hoped. But sending a text? Even if they believed she’d sent it, they wouldn’t know whether or not it had been sent under duress. “I’ll put it on speaker if you want.”
“No.” The look in his eyes said she wouldn’t sway him.
“Fine,” she conceded, “but we’re going to need to leave the moment you hit send, because my friends are going to start dismantling your little misdirection spell as soon as they read that text.”
She and Tristen were also going to need to leave unnoticed. She’d barely unspooled a few threads of her Hidden magic when Tristen’s free hand shot out, fingers wrapping around her throat, his magic a building storm. “What are you doing?”
Her heart pounded savagely behind her chest. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But she hadn’t realized he would be that magic sensitive.
The Hidden ability went unnoticed by almost everyone.
Even as sensitive to magic as Morgen was, he had to be actively paying attention to realize she was reaching for it.
“Nothing to hurt you. Do you remember how my sword and dagger just popped into existence earlier?”
Warily, he nodded.
“Well, they were always there, you just couldn’t see them.
I can keep things from being noticed.” She didn’t want to use the word Hidden on the off-chance he remembered it and knew her kind were supposed to be extinct.
“All I want to do is keep us from being seen. Because, like I said, that”—she pointed at the still un-sent text—“isn’t going to convince anyone. ”
He swallowed. His eyes were wild, and his magic still pulsed and roiled within him, a hair-thin trigger from release.
“You don’t want to kill me,” she said softly. “I haven’t done anything to hurt you.” Slowly, she reached up and laid her hand over his. Gently, she squeezed it. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. Okay?”
A small tremor went through him. “Okay.” His fingers flexed against her skin, his thumb brushing along her jawline. “Okay.”
She removed her hand. His fell away a second later, and she almost regretted the loss. His touch might have been intended to kill her, but that didn’t make it less intimate. What was intimacy except vulnerability? And she hadn’t been physically vulnerable with anyone since Seth died.
She closed her eyes. Fuck, Evra had been right. If Nyx was drunkenly propositioning Kaden and now waxing poetic about nearly getting killed, she clearly needed to just pick someone and get this out of her system.
“I’m sorry,” Tristen said gruffly.
Her eyes flew open. “It’s fine.” She just wouldn’t think about it too hard.
“May I?” She drew up a few more strands of Hidden magic.
When he nodded, she went to work. Weaving the cloak and casting it around them both was an uphill slog with Mary’s memories still taking up so much of her attention, but she managed it.
When she was done Tristen frowned, looking at her, then down at his hands. “I can still see us.”
“You can. I can. No one else can.”
He looked dubious, but lifted her phone.
“Wait before you send that. We’re going to have to lose my Hound first. How are you with portaling?”
He looked startled. “I—what?”
“You do remember portaling, right? I’m assuming you didn’t come to this planet through the Stations.”
“Of course I remember portaling,” he said unconvincingly. “I am not leaving the planet with you.”
“You don’t have to. The ability works planet-side too.
We are going to portal across the city to your house, so Kaden can’t follow us like we drew him a literal map.
” There was no point in trying to Hide her trail, because Kaden would ping it so many times she wouldn’t be able to keep it Hidden.
Especially not with her magic stretched thin as it was in Dead Earth, with Mary still fighting the Hiding of her memories. “Sound good?”
After a moment of hesitation, he nodded. He looked vulnerable again, like the idea of portaling had reminded him of being the child who’d been brought here all those years ago, who had no idea where he was.
They slipped out of the misdirection spell, and she waited while he pulled the anchors and packed them into a small backpack. Across the bridge, Morgen’s head tilted.
“Shit,” she muttered.
“What?”
“I think Morgen just noticed the misdirection spell cut out. Send the text and let’s go.” Tristen sent it and tossed the phone on the ground. Morgen took a step forward just as Evra pulled out her phone, frowning.
Nyx glanced at the path that led further into the Ramble, but she couldn’t see far enough to portal any meaningful distance.
She was going to have to portal them back the way she’d come.
She focused on the farthest spot past Evra that she could see and placed her hand on Alihana’s hilt.
They didn’t speak to her, but she didn’t feel irritation from them this time.
She felt a nervous energy instead, and she thought they weren’t talking because they knew it put her off balance sometimes, and right now, they very much wanted her to be balanced.
When she reached for portal magic, it flowed from Alihana’s hilt easily.
But while they might be powerful enough to be unaffected by the magiclessness of Dead Earth, Nyx was not likewise so unencumbered.
The magic was harder to grasp, more difficult to mold.
Like playing with clay that had dried out and gone stiff from too much use and was difficult to shape into the structure she wanted.
She stretched the magic into a doorway and decided now was not the time to tell Tristen that if the portal closed on him suddenly, he’d be cut in half.
She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the doorway.
They were maybe ten feet past Evra and the others.
She grabbed another handful of portal magic, stretching a new doorway into existence.
“Nyx?” Kaden’s voice cut across the night, followed by a wave of magic cresting from him, pinging against her Hiding and making it shudder.
Fuck.
“I thought you said he couldn’t see us.”
“He can’t. He can, however, still attempt to track us.” If he kept trying long enough, he would break her Hiding.
She got the next portal open and wasted no time dragging Tristen through it with her. Then she opened the next and the next and the next, until eventually they were back on city streets, and she was able to open the portals to greater distances away.
“Will you just slow down a minute,” Tristen demanded, holding her back when she tried to pull him through another portal. “We are going in the opposite direction of where I live.”
“Good,” Nyx said. Her breathing was labored, and she was tired from flexing so many magical muscles in Dead Earth. “Leading them the wrong way first is good.”
“I’m not trying to judge your relationships,” Tristen began, “but it doesn’t seem like you should have to work this hard to get away from your friends.”
“It sounds exactly like you’re judging, and they’re…overprotective right now. They have their reasons.” She took another deep breath and another string of portal magic. “Which way back to your place?”
He pointed to her left.
“Great.” She tried to muster some enthusiasm as she opened yet another portal.
“Could I have my hand back now?” Tristen asked. “I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own.”
Nyx hadn’t realized she was still holding on to him.
She looked down and a ripple of pain went through her, seeing it entwined with hers.
She had to make herself look for the differences.
His fingers didn’t have Seth’s long, tapered elegance, didn’t have the same calluses. There was nothing to confuse.
“Staring’s still rude,” Tristen said, ripping his hand from hers. “And it’s not catching, I promise.” He wiggled the three fingers on his right, then the five on his left. “See? These are all still here.”
“That’s not what I—”
“No?” he taunted. “You just looked horrified for some other reason? Like you did when you first saw me?” He took a step closer, into her space, looking down at her. “What was it? Did I have dirt on my hand?”