Page 3 of A Shade Too Far
“Forget about it.” Emmett checked my watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes max until the fight ends.”
“I know,” I murmured, but I couldn’t let go of the sense that I was missing something.
My partner stood on tiptoe to read the small sign above the frame. “‘Old sins cast long shadows.’” He made a face at the mirror, which, thanks to my magic, didn’t show our reflections. “Guess I’m sin-free.”
“Yeah, right. Let me lose the magic cloaking and see how true that is.” I gasped. “That’s it! Santiago has light magic. If he faces the mirror and floods the room with light, he won’t cast a shadow. This is the way in.”
Emmett gestured at the wall behind us. “There’s a camera above the light bulb. You have to drop your magic to have a reflection and if you do, we’ll be caught.”
“Ye of little faith.” Facing the mirror, I dropped the cloaking over my face only. From the back—and therefore as far as the security camera was concerned—we were still invisible.
My reflection blinked back at me in the mirror and a doorknob popped into existence inside the frame. I pumped a fist in victory, but on second thought, hesitated to open it. My myth-loving side insisted that nothing would happen to us. We’d solved the puzzle to gain entry and this was our reward. My fairy tale–loving side, however, reminded me that the witch hadn’t padlocked her gingerbread house.
But, at the end of the day, we didn’t really have a choice
The bright yellow room with cheap laminate flooring hidden behind the art installation obviously wasn’t the vault, and there hadn’t been a scanner on the door indicating a heartbeat monitor, so we scurried inside.
As there were no cameras here, I recalled my magic, stretching out the tension in my neck and shoulders. I’d never held my cloaking for that long, and even though I’d trained to keep it up for longer and longer periods in the ten days since Zev had hired us, it was different doing it under the stress of the actual mission.
The place was empty save for two more white doors that were identical to the one we’d entered through: one directly ahead and the other to our left.
“Which one?” Emmett asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
At the sound of the unfamiliar nasal drawl, I whipped around, my pulse jackhammering, but the jolt of adrenaline wasn’t enough for my magic to do more than swirl around my ankles.
A ruddy-cheeked lad with tousled ginger hair had gotten inside with us. The little prat sported rolled-up khakis and a suit jacket with some preppy insignia on it, waggling his fingers in a wave.
“What do you want?” Emmett puffed out his bare chest.
“Same thing as you do,” the stranger said, managing to look down his nose at us, even though both Emmett and I were taller.
The clock was ticking, there were likely traps and certainly guards to avoid before we got off the island with our prize, and most importantly, my family’s safety hung in the balance. We hadn’t factored competitors into the mix.
He held up a hand. Dark streaks snaked across his palm and spiked out through the tips of his fingers. “Get me into the vault and I won’t have to let you die from my venom.”
I swallowed. When Sadie was little, she’d been fascinated with snakes, and we’d often visited the reptile sanctuary at a local nature reserve. As a result, I knew way too much about venom’s horrific effects, like slow paralysis and holes in our blood vessels causing us to bleed to death.
“Good luck tracking us when we can go stealth,” I said, putting on more bravado than I felt.
“Please. You might be able to hide from me, but then again, you do look tuckered out.” He clucked his tongue. “Have you considered midday naps? They do Mumsy a world of good.”
Tell me to go nap, you insolent puppy? Oh, payback was going to be fun. I just needed a couple minutes so I could summon Delilah and beat his punk ass.
Emmett approached the door directly ahead. He laid a hand on it, then crouched down, and rested his forehead against the wood, humming.
“What are you doing?” the stranger said.
“Getting you to where you want to go.” The golem strode to the door on the left. “This way.”
I grabbed his hand before he touched the doorknob, the two of us wrestling comically, before I clipped him and wincing, he knocked me aside.
There was a faint reddish smear on the door.
“You made me smudge,” he said, rubbing his elbow.
“We’re in a secret room on an island owned by a criminal,” I hissed. “Don’t just charge through some random door.”
