Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I sit cross-legged on the kennel floor and consider my options.
Getting in was one thing. Getting out with Mina will be another.
My body has wielded magic without my conscious mind before; perhaps it can do so again. I recall the tree, the fear of being seen, and use that memory as a focus. I concentrate on the burning sigil beneath my coat sleeve as the heat spreads slowly up my arm.
Mina makes a strange noise beside me and tilts her head at the space I occupied a moment ago.
Good.
The spell works.
And I have no idea how to project my voice beyond the magic so she can hear me.
I let the invisibility fall and stand.
“Mina, come.”
She presses against my leg.
“Quiet. Close. Heel.”
In theory, as long as she maintains contact, the invisibility should hold for both of us.
We move.
She crouches low, her body brushing mine with every step, and we slip through the door, across the grounds and towards the rear wall.
The guard dogs do not react. They cannot scent us.
By the time we reach the wall, the ache behind my eyes has sharpened and my legs feel hollow. I release the spell. Mina’s eyes lock on mine, proof the invisibility has faded.
I back up, take a short run and leap. I catch the top of the wall. Pain pulls through my shoulders as I haul myself up and straddle the coping, breathing hard.
“Mina. Up.”
She backs away, runs and springs. Somehow, she reaches halfway up the wall, scrambles sideways and climbs, all muscle and confidence.
She is over before I can admire her technique.
I drop after her—considerably less gracefully—and manage not to twist an ankle.
We creep past the garage and down the drive towards the street.
Nearly clear.
Nearly—
Something crunches behind me.
I turn.
Mina growls.
A vast, warm hand clamps over my mouth, and a voice murmurs against my ear, “Call your dog off. Get her under control.”
I signal low with one hand.
Mina drops at once, her eyes fixed on the figure behind me and every muscle taut.
He opens a side door and pulls me through into the house. Mina follows without being asked.
The door closes behind us.
Pinned against the wall, I stare up at the bodyguard, his large hands braced on either side of my head.
So the house I climbed from is his. Staff quarters, at a guess—everything on this street belongs to the Overseer’s estates, and apparently that includes him.
No doubt the same Overseer in the pristine coat and red scarf, the one who stopped me at the roadblock, is the very person who had my dog taken.
Why did I not realise the escape was too easy?
Yes, I was using magic, but did I truly believe I could slip in and out of an Overseer’s estate unnoticed?
Three houses backed onto those grounds. I picked the one with him in it.
I am having a spectacularly bad week.
He reaches to one side and clicks on a light.
For a moment, the glare blinds me. When my vision clears, he is not looking into my eyes.
He is staring at the bruises. The palm print across my cheek. The swollen jaw. My split, puffy lip.
His hand rises. His fingers curve towards my face. Heat gathers in his palm—hotter than the warmth that always seems to radiate from him.
Healing magic.
Of course.
“May I?” he asks quietly.
Every instinct in me recoils. Magic users can do anything to a body, then fix the evidence well enough to make you doubt your own memory.
“No.”
He stops at once. His hand closes into a fist and drops to his side.
Something flickers across his face—not offence. Restraint.
“What happened?”
I glare at him.
His expression hardens.
“I’m fine. It was work.” Uneasy beneath that look, I add, “Getting knocked around is part of the job.”
“Is it?” His voice turns dangerously quiet. “And is breaking into the Overseer’s estate also ‘part of the job’?”
“Getting my partner back is.” I hold his gaze. “The Overseer’s people stole my dog.” I make no attempt to soften the accusation.
“Did they do this to you?”
“No.”
“Do you have documentation for the dog?”
“Yes.” I lift my chin. “I didn’t have time to go through the proper channels.”
Not that anyone would have listened.
“I didn’t know what they would do with her. Use her as a guard dog, breed her, or decide she was too unfriendly and put her down. I had to get her out.” I gesture towards Mina. “She’s safe and unhurt. I have no quarrel with your employer, so we’ll be on our way.”
He still does not move. One hand remains braced beside my head, its warmth far too distracting after the cold outside.
“Tell me, Elenora Morris,” he says quietly, “why haven’t you informed the government about your magic?”
I almost laugh.
As an Overseer’s bodyguard, he must already know. Yet something about him unsettles me, and the words spill out before I can weigh them.
“One of tonight’s revelations,” I reply. “Don’t pretend ignorance. The government is draining the Districts. When I came up here, my magic returned as though it had never gone.”
He goes completely still. His brows draw together. “What are you talking about?” He steps back.
I miss his warmth more than I care to admit.
“Explain.”
“I’ve said too much already.” I shrug. “Once I’m back below, it’ll drain away again. You needn’t worry.” I nod towards the door. “And I won’t tell anyone. Who would believe me?”
Confusion lingers on his face. For a moment, I almost believe he genuinely does not know.
Almost.
Not only do I now possess a secret dangerous enough to get me killed, but I have also told the person most likely to do it that I have it—out loud, unprompted and in detail.
I am never going to change.
After years—decades—of keeping my mouth shut, letting silence do the work and giving nothing away, I choose tonight to start talking.
To him, of all people.
It is like finding graves in a man’s garden and then helpfully telling him which ones I have counted.
“Can we go?” I ask.
Without a word, he disappears deeper into the house and returns with a set of car keys. “I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.”
I consider the secrecy of Fountain Square and the Drop, but it hardly matters. If I need to return, I will find another route.
I nod.
He opens the utility room door and steps aside.
I walk out into the freezing night. “Mina, come.”
She abandons her watchful crouch and falls in beside my leg. Her eyes track him as we head towards the garage.
The garage door slides open automatically, revealing a large black car.
We step aside while he reverses the car out. I open the door, then slip into the front passenger seat, keeping one leg outside. She climbs in and squeezes forwards into the footwell. Once she settles between my feet, I pull my leg inside and fasten my seat belt.
“The invisibility,” he says as he reverses smoothly down the drive. “Have you done that before?”
He knew I was invisible. Of course he did.
“No,” I mutter.
“It worked well on the dogs,” he continues, “but it doesn’t fool the cameras.”
I huff out a short laugh. Good to know.
“When I saw you slip past Rocky on the monitor, I had the dogs shut away and the recording wiped before I came after you. I assumed you were heading for the house. Some sort of assassination attempt.” He glances at me.
“I was surprised when you went to the kennels and freed your own. Somebody in that household bought a stolen dog. I intend to find out who from.”
I nod.
At the end of the road, I say, “Could you drop me at Fountain Square? I have another way home.”
He ignores me.
Silence stretches as we glide through the immaculate streets towards the western edge of the Zone. The Immortal Zone is not large, and the official transport lift is only a few minutes away.
I begin to fidget, tapping my fingers against the seat. He glances at my hand. I force myself to stop and bury my fingers in Mina’s soft fur instead.
“It’s fine,” he says. “You don’t need permission. You’re with me.”
He reads me far too well.
“I said I’d take you home. If I don’t, I can’t guarantee what shenanigans you’ll get up to.”
The lift is vast. The car fits inside with space to spare. Calling it a lift feels insulting. It is more a private chamber disguised as transport.
Dark brass walls gleam with faceted crystal. Looping Immortal script is etched into the metalwork, and the floor is a single slab of black stone threaded with veins of gold.
The guards at the entrance nod to him with quiet respect and do not so much as glance at me.
I am with him; therefore, I am permitted.
The doors seal with a soft, expensive hush. No scrape of metal. No jolt. None of the breath-stealing lurch of the Drop.
Crystal panels brighten as they catch the light and split it into thin gold lines that glide across the ceiling. Somewhere beneath us, magic hums—deep, steady and perfectly controlled.
The descent is smooth and unhurried, designed so that no one loses their composure or their lunch.
Through the crystal panels, the Zone recedes above us. The Districts rise to meet us.
The doors open, and we drive into noise and grime.
I feel it at once. The drain. Slow and insistent, as though something is drawing a long breath from my body. Whatever magic I gained during those few hours above the clouds is already thinning.
He focuses on the road, both hands properly positioned on the steering wheel. He wears a hoodie and jogging bottoms, no coat, even in this cold.
I notice despite myself and roll my eyes. What does it matter whether he has a coat?
He does not ask where I live. He drives straight to the government apartment—the address on my record. It makes no difference. I must walk back to collect my car anyway, and he does not need to know where I truly sleep.
“Tell me what you saw,” he says, his voice so calm the question seems almost offhand. “The government is draining the Districts?”
I look at him. He glances across, those deep navy eyes holding mine for a moment, then returns his attention to the road.
I remind myself that he is the enemy. I do not trust him. I should say nothing. I have already said far too much tonight.
Yet I believe him.
Not for any reason I can articulate. Not because I have activated the truth mark. I could trigger it, focus it on him and know whether his words carry lies.
I do not.
I simply… believe him.
It is an instinct I have learned to obey around dangerous people. Perhaps that makes me a fool, but instinct has kept me alive when logic failed.
He asked before he touched me, and when I said no, he stopped.
Everything in me says his confusion was genuine.
I take the risk. I do not know why, but I start at the beginning.
I tell him about the observation tower. About looking out over the Zone and seeing the Districts below. About the runes carved into the streets, pulsing in the darkness.
I tell him about my magic returning without warning and draining away the moment we descended.
I tell him it is not a disease.
The Fade is deliberate, and the people in the Districts come from the same bloodlines as those above.
“It’s as though we’re all oranges,” I say, “and our magic is being squeezed out of us.”
He says nothing. He is thinking. I can see it in the rigid stillness of his face.
This could go terribly wrong.
I remind myself that my coat is full of knives. He is large, but one-on-one, I will be able to take him. I have options. Some magic remains, and I do not lose fights without making them difficult first.
Today was an exception. Today involved an entire family.
He pulls up outside the government apartment. We both stare at the front door hanging half off its hinges. Disgust flickers across his face.
“I’m fine,” I say before he can release his seat belt and climb out.
I am not looking for a white knight.
He looks at me, then at the broken door, and finally down at Mina, pressed against my leg. “No wonder you’ve got the dog.” He sits back in total defeat. “Tomorrow, I’m having you reassigned. You’re going to help me investigate this.”
“Pardon?” Who is he to have me reassigned? “But you work for the government. You’re the Overseer’s bodyguard.” Right?
He turns towards me. The corner of his mouth lifts—not quite a smirk, but close—and entirely against my will, I notice how extraordinarily full his lips are. “When did I ever tell you that?”
I can’t admit that I assumed, so I stay silent.
Then I find my voice. “No.”
He waits, unbothered, as though he has all night and I am the one who will have to fill the quiet.
“People who ask questions about the government disappear,” I say. “I have stayed alive by being of no interest to anybody.”
“You broke into an Overseer’s estate a few hours ago.”
“That was different.”
“It really was not.”
I look at the broken door and say nothing, which he correctly takes as surrender.
“Tomorrow. Nine o’clock. I’ll collect you here.” He taps the dashboard once. “I’ll handle everything else.”
I nod, then open the door. Mina slips out, and I follow her into the cold.
“Elenora.”
I turn at the sound of my name.
“My name is Cáel Valera,” he says.
I close the door softly, stand on the pavement and watch him drive away.