Page 44 of Guardian of Exile

“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.