Swimming wasn’t exactly conducive to conversation, but after what felt like an hour — though was probably just ten minutes — I started to feel a little lonely paddling along after Warner. Granted the sentinel wasn’t big on chatting in general … or rest breaks, it seemed.
Still, the ocean felt very, very vast, and that vastness was isolating. Vancouver wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, but it wasn’t tiny either. I was constantly surrounded. By magic, by people — human and Adept. But here, if I fell far enough behind Warner, I might get lost and never, ever be found.
Then I began to wonder what was swimming beneath me, and what sort of strange fish the ocean’s denizens thought I was. Then I started to fret.
“What about sharks?” I asked, getting a mouthful of salty water as an answer. I’d never learned how to properly front crawl with my face in the water. “Are there sharks in these waters?” I couldn’t remember if sharks preferred warmer or colder water. “Great whites?”
“What would sharks want with you, alchemist?” Warner called back as he lifted his head to one side to breathe. He didn’t bother pausing. He was also getting far too accomplished at the art of snark.
“You don’t think they’d at least try a test bite?”
Kandy laughed. She was clinging to the sentinel like a freaked-out barnacle, but still, she had the gall to giggle at me.
“Glass houses, wolf.”
“You’re the biggest predator around here, Jade,” Kandy said. “Except maybe the dragon here. I haven’t formed an opinion about him yet.”
Warner stopped swimming. Kandy’s head momentarily went underneath a wave. Hacking and spitting out water, the green-haired werewolf clambered up onto the sentinel’s shoulders, even as I realized he’d managed to touch ground.
I hadn’t thought we were anywhere near land. In fact, I still really couldn’t see anything ahead — but then, I was madly squinting from the sun reflecting off the water.
I kicked my feet down but went under when I didn’t touch the anticipated solid ground. Warner widened the gap between us as he pushed through the water like an army tank, or whatever the waterborne equivalent would be. My arms were screaming with the effort of the last few strokes, the pain made worse because I knew the ground was so near.
Warner was head and shoulders out of the water by the time I got the tips of my toes to touch. I didn’t even want to think about how utterly destroyed my boots were. I was fairly certain the leather wouldn’t bounce back from a saltwater bath. Warner’s jacket, too … though seeing as his clothing was somehow a manifestation of his magic, maybe he was actually walking around naked all the time —
A wave crashed over my head. I choked on a mouthful of water before I realized I needed to spit it out. The surf picked up strength, and I had to fight against it to retain my footing. But even like this, walking was quicker than swimming.
I was up to my waist before I actually saw land. The white sand was difficult to distinguish in the bright morning light, but the greenery beyond made it obvious we were walking toward an island. I’d never known a beach to taper like this. The beaches I knew dropped off deeply after a dozen feet or so, depending on the tide. But then, I usually couldn’t see all the way through the water either, like the clear view I now had of my ruined — but still pretty — black boots.
Kandy jumped off Warner’s back, landing up to her knees in the water, and then made a mad dash for the beach. Her green hair was fluffier than I’d ever seen it. It also looked practically dry. Though it was early in the day, it was still warm. If I let the sun dry my hair and didn’t tug on the curls too much, I shouldn’t look like a complete wreck. I wasn’t sure about my outfit, though.
The beach stretched for miles and miles in either direction, without a single rock or shell that I could see. A dense forest stood a dozen or so feet from the sandy shore. Well onto the sand now, Kandy tugged her T-shirt off over her head to reveal a sports bra. She then yanked off her jeans, one soaking, clinging leg at a time. Thankfully, the werewolf had excellent balance.
Between Kandy and me, Warner was almost clear of the water himself. Until he suddenly whirled around, stumbling as he looked at me … or rather, turned his back on Kandy’s striptease. He looked so utterly aghast that I had to laugh.
“That’s a lot of skin for a five-hundred-plus-year-old dragon,” I called to Kandy.
The werewolf barked out a laugh, but continued to unabashedly wring the water out of her jeans. She’d already jogged over to the nearest tree she could find and hung her T-shirt over a branch. Which was odd, because I thought tropical trees were all supposed to be palms. The forest behind Kandy had some palms along its edge, but most of the trees looked a lot like super-skinny pines.
Warner didn’t seem to want to look at me either. Still ankle deep in the water and utterly soaking wet, he cast his gaze left, then right as if determinedly scoping out any possible security issue on the beach. This was an attempt to cover his obvious embarrassment.
“If you hang out with shapeshifters, they get naked,” I said. “Often. You’ll get used to it, sixteenth century.” I stepped by the sentinel and finally got my wet ass out of the water.
I, at least, would find a stand of trees to strip behind. Not that I was sure I could call the jungle that spread out before me simply ‘trees.’ For that matter, I wasn’t sure it was actually a jungle either. Where was Wikipedia when I needed it? Oh, yeah. With my utterly waterlogged phone in my completely ruined, beloved satchel.
The entire area thrummed with the wild, natural magic I associated with grid point portals, but I was surprised to feel it this intensely this far away from the portal. Oddly, with every step I took I felt like I was somehow crushing microbes of magic underneath my feet.
Unstrapping my knife was easy enough, though the leather of the sheath was stiff. But I absolutely loathed taking off wet jeans. It was the most undignified, ungraceful, and frustrating thing in the world of clothing. And I knew. I owned and operated a lot of bras — aka torture devices — and wet jeans were worse. By the time I got mine off, I was covered in freaking sand — me and the jeans. It was even in my hair and mouth, though how that had happened, I had no idea. I might have lost a bit of time to my white-hot rage.
“You okay in there, dowser?” Kandy called from somewhere deeper in the forest. She was obviously already patrolling. Half naked. Warner was probably about to have a heart attack. Though, it was sort of lovely that a man —
“You didn’t get bit by a snake or anything, did you?” Kandy continued.
“Snakes!” I shrieked. “There are freaking snakes in here? And what do you mean by ‘or anything’? What else is there in here to bite me?”
Kandy’s laugh faded as she continued to scout farther into the trees. The fact that the werewolf just casually expected there might be snakes hanging around didn’t help my mood.
After I got the jeans off, I realized my mistake. Was I just going to wait around here for my clothing to dry? Freaking hell, use your freaking head, Jade. Damn it.
I stopped to breathe deeply. Why the hell was I stressing out about such a stupid thing? Because I couldn’t freak out about the treasure hunting mission that had become super intense super quickly? Because I had to prove I was brave and capable? And therefore something else had to snap?
I asked for this responsibility … well, at least sort of. I’d asked to police Blackwell, at least. To be judge and jury in regards to the sorcerer. And Pulou deemed this more important. Hissy fits about wet jeans really weren’t becoming. Thank God I was currently surrounded by trees and not judgement-happy vampires and dragons.
I started wringing my clothing out. I was going to have to put it all back on, wet and covered in sand.
Kandy appeared before me wearing a new blue tank top, green Lycra shorts, and holding a swath of red and orange material. Material that turned out to be an ankle-length sarong.
“Umm, you went clothes shopping in the jungle, and orange was the best you came up with?”
Kandy snorted and tossed the skirt over my wet head. She’d found me an orange tank top and flip-flops as well.
“The town is, like, literally ten steps over that ridge.”
I pulled the skirt off my head to see Kandy pointing off into the jungle. “Literally?”
“Well, I jogged.”
“So like a thirty minute walk for a normal person?”
Kandy bared her teeth at me.
I laughed. “And what about being half naked with crazy green hair and wet American dollars?”
“They didn’t even blink twice,” Kandy said. “I got this for the sentinel.” She held up a T-shirt that was painted in a swirl of blue and greens.
I was fiddling with threading the ties of the skirt through its holes around my waist. “That’s at least a size too small —”
“Exactly.” Kandy flashed me her predator grin and took off toward the beach.
Damn it. I tugged the orange tank top on over my still-wet bra. Like I needed to see Warner in clothes any tighter than what he was already wearing. And the swirl of green and blue would only emphasize his eyes …
Damn, damn, damn it.
“Are you having some trouble, alchemist?”
I spun around to find Warner watching me as I strapped my knife to my right thigh. “No trouble.” I shook my head, straightened to let my skirt fall back into place, and very deliberately did not check him out. He was wearing the T-shirt Kandy had found, along with a pair of beige shorts. Warner’s gaze lingered on my leg, but I was fairly certain it was the knife that had caught his attention, not my thigh. All dragons could see magic, even through Gran’s invisibility spell.
Warner lifted his gaze to meet mine, and I realized that I’d been staring at him despite vowing not to.
“You are beautiful, warrior’s daughter,” he said.
My mouth literally dropped open at this admission. Then I noticed he looked displeased, so I snapped it shut.
“It’s perturbing that something so beautiful could be so deadly,” he continued as he closed the space between us. “But that’s how nature works, isn’t it?”
“Perturbing?” I mocked, holding my ground at his advancement. “Also, Mr. I-tear-demons-in-half-with-my-bare-hands, who are you calling deadly?”
“It was the combination I was remarking on,” he answered. “All dragons are deadly. You more so, and not just because the far seer referred to you as ‘dragon slayer.’ ”
“He was talking about you,” I said.
“He didn’t even notice I was in the nexus.”
“He sees all.”
“Exactly my point.”
Okay, I’d been lost since the beginning of this conversation, and was only more so now. Bravado didn’t seem to be getting me through this time. “Just what are you accusing me of?”
He looked surprised. “Nothing, warrior’s daughter. I was simply putting the pieces together. You, the map, the knife, the werewolf, the vampire, the witch … and now here we are.”
“Doing our duty, like good dragons.”
He inclined his head. “I’ll need a weapon.”
“You could have mentioned that the three times we’ve been in the nexus in the last twelve hours.”
He shrugged. I ignored the way this gesture tightened the T-shirt across his pecs. I was pissed at him. I didn’t really know why, but I wanted to be pissed at him, so I clung to the feeling.
“Why? You already have a blade perfectly suited to me.” He cast his gaze to my ruined satchel, which I’d propped on a tree root in the hopes of keeping it out of the sand. I hadn’t opened it yet, because I was afraid to acknowledge the extent of the ruin.
“That blade is not for you,” I said.
He looked at me, all dark and serious. “The knife scares you, alchemist. I can take it off your hands.”
“I take responsibility for what I make,” I said. “You seem to do fine with just your hands.”
“The knife would do even better.”
“I don’t trust it.”
“You don’t trust me.”
I couldn’t deny that — not with utter truth — so I spun away, grabbed my satchel, and headed toward the beach, following the taste of Kandy’s magic.
The map had led us to the Abaco Islands, a group of small islands within the Bahamas. Apparently, the grid point portal dropped us vaguely near the village of Hope Town, which we reached after much swimming and some walking, of course. While I’d been wrestling with my jeans, Kandy had done some quick but thorough scouting. The green-haired werewolf was currently poring over a pile of tourist brochures she’d picked up along with the clothing.
I pulled out the map and tried Kandy’s trick of placing the key over the tattooed image of the key, carefully aligning the colors so that the missing green line was accounted for. The magic of the map shifted underneath my fingers again, but with more flash this time, and a mouthful of smoky dragon magic.
“We’re closer,” Kandy said as she peered over my shoulder.
“Yeah, if we’re reading it correctly at all.”
“We are.” Kandy pointed to a small black rectangle that had now appeared on the green portion of the map. “That’s the lighthouse.”
“Once again, if we weren’t just superimposing our guesses on a bunch of pretty green and blue blobs that were once tattooed on the back of a guardian dragon.”
“Not a lighthouse,” Warner corrected Kandy. “A doorway.”
I flinched. That was the second time the sentinel had snuck up on me. He was good at muting his magic, but not that good. It was the natural magic that thrummed sleepily around me that dulled my dowser senses.
“Yeah,” Kandy countered. “A doorway in a lighthouse.”
“A lighthouse?” I asked, just to get in on the conversation like I was an active participant and all.
“On the other side of the island, see?” Kandy unfolded the tourist map she’d picked up along with the brochures. “The island is long and skinny, and we’re currently here on the other side of this low ridge.” She pointed to a specific spot on her paper map. “The lighthouse is in the middle of town here, on the beach opposite and a bit north of us. There’s a path just over there.” She pointed toward the trees farther up the beach.
She placed the tourist map alongside the tattooed map so we could compare them. They weren’t identical, but the tourist map was obviously intended to be easy to read rather than overly detailed.
“That’s how this stuff works, right?” Kandy asked. “Treasure hidden in landmarks or monuments? Like in Indiana Jones.”
“If this were a movie, I wouldn’t be wearing orange.”
“It looks great on you.”
“Funny how you found green Lycra shorts for yourself.”
Kandy shrugged, then grinned at me wolfishly. Great. It seemed that if Kandy had her way, I’d be adorned in pretty skirts every day.
“Show us this lighthouse, wolf,” Warner demanded. Well, it sounded demanding to me. Kandy didn’t seem to mind.
The green-haired werewolf took off across the beach as I rolled the map and tucked it back into my ruined, waterlogged satchel. I’d dumped the contents and most of the water out, then repacked it with what I could fit. Thankfully, I could lace my boots to the strap, but I couldn’t do anything about the sand that now permeated every inch of everything I owned. And the chocolate was gone. Melted away, I guessed, seeing as all I’d found were waterlogged wrappers. I really didn’t want to deal with that reality at all.
Kandy disappeared into the pine forest. I followed with Warner at my heels, still feeling like I was crushing the natural magic underneath my feet as I walked. I remembered Gran saying that magic was dying as the earth was slowly being polluted and destroyed by humanity. Here, that didn’t feel like the case at all.
I wondered how many witches lived near grid points. At least the grid points that connected over or near land. Witches borrowed magic from the earth. Well, when they weren’t ripping it from other Adepts through bloody sacrifices as Sienna had done. Thankfully, black witches were rare. The Convocation made sure of that.
Or maybe witches would find it too intense, and the magic difficult to harness, this close to a grid point. For me, this magic didn’t come with a specific taste or color. Just a freshness that made the natural hues of the vegetation surrounding us seem brighter and more intense.
We crossed out of the pine trees and onto a paved path that was too narrow to be an actual road.
“We haven’t seen any animals,” I murmured. “I can’t even hear any nearby.”
Kandy turned back to flash me a grin. The green of her shapeshifter magic rolled over her eyes. “They’re near. Just not stupid enough to move when greater predators tread the earth.”
We rounded a slight curve in the path, and I could see the top of the red-and-white horizontally striped lighthouse through the trees.
Then a golf cart tried to run us over.
Literally.
It zoomed up behind us and cut around as I was gazing up at the lighthouse. The cart actually brushed my skirt as it passed by.
“Hey,” Kandy snarled as she stepped off the path.
“Sorry,” a young woman cried as the cart sped away. “It’s our honeymoon!”
“That’s no excuse!” Kandy yelled after the speeding, swerving cart.
“The cart explains the narrow roads, though,” I said.
“Honeymoon,” Warner mused behind me. “The first month of marriage is the sweetest.”
“Yeah?” Kandy asked. “Because of all the mead?” The green-haired werewolf chortled at whatever joke she thought she’d made. Though Warner snorted like he found her amusing, so maybe I was missing something.
“Do Adepts still practice the marriage ritual, then?” he asked me as he stepped up to my left, perfectly matching my stride.
“Yep,” I replied.
“And your parents? The warrior and the witch? They are married? In my … understanding, it is unusual for a guardian to marry.”
He stumbled over the word understanding. I was fairly certain he was going to say ‘time,’ but then didn’t. I felt bad for him. Just for a second. Then I shook it off, reminding myself he was just doing his ‘duty.’ No less and no more.
“No,” I said. “They … ah … the circumstances surrounding my birth were unprecedented.”
“I imagine.”
“They only just reconnected. About ten months ago.”
“Do they plan on marrying?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
Warner shrugged as he glanced around at the tiny village that had practically appeared out of nowhere on either side of the paved path. “It’s good to know the customs of a strange land before walking there.”
Right. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard a dragon use the term “walking” when referring to visiting the human world. Haoxin had done so, in fact, speaking from the portal. But Warner seemed to be asking about Adept customs — or, specifically, dragon customs — rather than human. Maybe he was wondering how to ask Haoxin out. Guardian dragons had to date, right? They couldn’t all be nuns and monks. Otherwise, baby dragons like Drake couldn’t go around breaking the necks of baby half-dragons like me.
The single-storey buildings and homes of Hope Town were all painted in bright colors, dominated by seashell pink. Kandy cut up between buildings toward the red-and-white-striped lighthouse that towered easily five storeys higher than any other building in the village. I spotted a few people dressed in bright colors, most of them shopping or hanging around a local coffee hut, but no one gave us a second glance. Kandy had outfitted us perfectly for what was obviously a tourist destination. The sparse population of three hundred — according to Kandy’s brochures — appeared to be a mix of Caucasian and people of African ancestry, but the village didn’t feel desolate. More like everyone was elsewhere — perhaps the cluster of taller buildings on the edge of town that the golf cart was zooming toward. A hotel, maybe.
My stomach grumbled, but I ignored it.
The lighthouse was before us. A pink rope hung across the entrance, which I took to mean it was normally open to the public. Just beyond and down a slight hill, the ocean lapped against a grassy shore. Tiny seaside houses on that shore had boats tied to individual wharves. The low buildings surrounding the lighthouse were painted pink with white-trimmed windows and balconies, which was an odd contrast to the thick red-and-white stripes of the lighthouse tower. We’d left the pine forest behind us. A few palm trees were mixed with the low buildings, but nothing as dense as where we’d come through.
I stopped and stared up at the lighthouse looming before us. Kandy tucked up to the back of my right shoulder, as she always did. Warner stood directly to my left, placed so he occupied too much of my peripheral vision.
“Do you taste that?” I asked. I took another step forward and held out my left arm to block Warner from following. He took my hint.
“Magic?” Kandy asked.
“Sorcerer, I think. Maybe witch.”
Kandy stepped off to the right, her footsteps practically silent as she circled the buildings around the lighthouse. Over the six or so months since Pulou had first tasked us with collecting treasures for him, we’d fallen into a rhythm. Kandy would scout and secure the area while I dealt with the magic — whatever that entailed.
I closed my eyes and focused on the new flavor. It hovered just underneath the natural magic that had been dulling my senses since we’d come through the portal. I brushed my fingers over my invisible jade knife through the fabric of my skirt and then twined them through the wedding rings of my necklace. I’d been so unfocused — so distracted by wet jeans, hunky, unattainable dragons, and missions far beyond my comfort zone — that I’d been walking all over this new magic without noticing it.
But this was who I was … fundamentally … utterly. There was no use dancing around it. No use trying to be sunshine and light, trying to make up for all the darkness Sienna had left behind in my soul. My deep, deep core. The darkness was there … and it was time to move through it. It was time to embrace the new, to relish the present.
I was a dowser … an alchemist.
I was the warrior’s daughter.
I had a job to do. A job I wanted to do.
“Sorcerer?” Warner prompted from just behind me.
I opened my eyes. The natural colors around me were a blur of green and blue, pink and white. I blinked and the colors settled into trees, lawn, and a dirt path. Kandy was crossing back toward us from around the other side of the lighthouse.
I turned my head toward Warner. He stepped closer. I leaned into him and whispered, “You taste just like black forest cake. I like black forest cake. A lot.”
How was that for embracing the future?
Warner opened his mouth, apparently flustered by my confession.
I grinned, then laughed. A low, husky sound that I hadn’t felt like making in a long time.
“Black forest cake,” Warner said.
“It’s an insanely delicious dessert made with layers of whipped cream, cherries, and chocolate cake.”
“Cake?” Kandy asked as she jogged up to join us. “Who has cake?”
I laughed louder.
Kandy grinned. Then, playing the tourist guide, she swept her arm toward the lighthouse and said, “The Hope Town Lighthouse is one of only three manual lighthouses left in the entire world. It’s operated by a spring mechanism that has to be hand cranked every few hours.”
“Very informative,” I said. Still grinning, I started toward the lighthouse.
Kandy slipped around to stand behind my right shoulder. Warner remained a step behind me.
“I can’t smell any magic around the other side,” Kandy said.
“It’s strong here,” I said, indicating over the pink rope hanging across the open doorway of the lighthouse. “Some kind of sorcery. Like a ward, but not.”
“The lighthouse itself?”
“No. I think that’s real … built by humans, I mean.”
“It’s a doorway,” Warner said. His tone was even, but I was aware he was repeating himself.
“Okay, sixteenth century,” I said. “You’re going to have to elaborate. I’ve never encountered a so-called ‘doorway’ of magic before.”
“You encounter one every time you walk in or out of the nexus.”
“Nexus?” I asked. “As opposed to a portal?”
“The nexus doesn’t exist in the same pocket of time as this world does,” Warner answered.
“Yeah, it’s a magical construct,” I said, still not completely following him. “That’s why time is weird in the nexus. Like it’s disrupted by the intense magic of the guardians. And the rooms are never in the same place. They can be bigger, or smaller, or missing altogether.”
“I hadn’t noticed that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a dragon. I’m not.”
“I still don’t get it,” Kandy said.
“The nexus is anchored at a physical location,” Warner said. “A temple in Shanghai.”
“I thought that was just the gateway to the far seer’s territory,” I said.
“It is, and more.” Warner nodded toward the lighthouse entrance. “Something similar is situated before us.”
Kandy looked at me. I glanced around to see that we were still unobserved by the locals, and nodded to the green-haired werewolf. She ducked under the pink rope and crossed into the lighthouse, cutting immediately right to disappear from sight. Though, I could still taste her berry-infused dark-chocolate magic.
“You let the wolf precede you?” Warner asked. Again, his tone was even, but I heard the rebuke nonetheless.
“We all have our talents. Kandy’s is scouting … and, you know, roughing people up. She’s happier doing her thing, and so am I.”
“I’m not questioning you, alchemist,” he said. “I’m simply figuring you out.”
I turned to look at him. The morning sun did wonderful things to his eyes … or maybe it was the T-shirt Kandy had clothed him in. Either way, he was delectable.
“I’m an enigma.”
“I don’t think you are,” Warner said. Then he grinned at me. “I would appreciate if you shared your thoughts about the magic you sense and what its presence means to you.”
“I’ve been trying to perfect a black forest cupcake, but I can’t quite nail it,” I answered.
“I meant the sorcerer magic you’re sensing here.”
Ah, okay. I thought there’d been some flirting going on.
“Though I would be happy to taste any cupcakes you create, alchemist,” he added.
“What the hell is with all the cupcake talk?” Kandy groused as she exited the lighthouse. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” I admitted. “Warner would like us to share our process with him more.”
“Yeah?” Kandy eyed Warner. “Thinking of sticking around?”
“It’s my sworn duty,” Warner said gruffly.
“That means nothing to us,” Kandy said. “When the world falls on our heads, we make it through. Me, the dowser, and the vampire. You’re just some dragon following us around and acting pissy about it.”
“When the world falls in, I’ll hold it up,” Warner said, quietly and terribly deliberate.
“Don’t tell me,” Kandy said. “Jade is the one it always falls on first.”
Warner looked at me. I caught his gaze and smiled. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll try not to get you killed.”
Warner turned to look thoughtfully up at the lighthouse. “There is little in this world that can wound me, Jade Godfrey, warrior’s daughter.” He looked back at me, or rather at my necklace. “Except perhaps you and your creations.”
Kandy laughed huskily. “He’s no idiot.”
“Nothing inside?” I asked her. I was fairly certain that what I was sensing wasn’t something easily triggered by a tourist, or even a werewolf, wandering through the door of the lighthouse.
“Stairs,” Kandy answered. “I popped the lock on the room at the very top. Nothing. You can walk right through here. There’s a door directly on the other side.”
“And what happens when the alchemist walks through?” Warner asked. I was already ahead of him, though.
I offered my right hand to Kandy and my left to Warner. “Let’s find out.” Then we stepped forward to awkwardly duck under the pink rope and squeeze through the door of the lighthouse.
Nothing happened. The round, white-painted room was empty except for a cloudy window, a set of open steel stairs that wound upward, and a doorway that matched the one we’d just crossed through, straight ahead. But I could feel the magic intensifying before us.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I said. “Wrong door.” Then I stepped forward to pass through the open door before us, which by all appearances simply led to the front lawn of the pink buildings that surrounded the lighthouse.
I could see a rainbow-colored beach ball abandoned off to one side of the lawn.
I took another step and the colors of the ball flared, intensifying, as did the lawn and the buildings. Then everything blurred before me.
Magic lapped against me. Sorcerer magic, to judge by its earthy base … old, dry, untouched … musty but not unpleasant.
“Ready?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Kandy squeezed my hand. I stepped into the magic, stepped through it as if it were a fine spider web — and for a moment, the world was just a wash of colors … a rainbow of gossamer light.
Warner grunted as if in pain.
I took another step and felt the magic of the web snap around Kandy and me, but not Warner. The ward was trying to deny him entry, even though I was pulling him through.
Warner’s deep chocolate and cherry magic rose beside me. I could actually feel it shifting underneath my hand.
A third step left me standing on a grassy knoll and looking down at an austere temple sitting in the middle of a tropical jungle. The lighthouse, its surrounding pink buildings, and the village of Hope Town were nowhere to be seen. Oddly, the sun was directly overhead now, as if it was midday, not morning.
“Cool,” Kandy said.
Warner grunted and dropped my hand. He brushed his arms and torso, then his legs, as if trying to remove the residual magical web. I felt nothing similar. Just the sorcerer magic of the entrance behind me. Though when I turned to look, all I could see was a slightly warped view of the beach and ocean beyond. No wharves or boats.
“Are you sure you should come with us?” I asked the sentinel. “I know your magic is different. Adaptive. And you told Pulou you’d stay with us, but …”
“I will go as far as I can go by your side,” he answered. “Then I will find another way.”
He didn’t mean it the way he said it. Not romantically at least. But damn if my stomach didn’t flip at the inference.
“It looks more like a temple to me,” I said, hoping to cover my reaction by keeping us on task. “Not a fortress.”
“Yeah,” Kandy said. “Isn’t there supposed to be a moat?”
“That’s castles.”
“Blackwell’s castle doesn’t have a moat.”
“There is no God here.” Warner’s tone was distant and darkly tinged, but not angry.
“Okay, then,” Kandy said. “To the fortress we go?”
“Apparently,” I answered.
The fortress — as Warner preferred to call it — wasn’t terribly ornate, its builders obviously subscribing to the function-over-form method of design. It was built out of gray stone. Its curved roof and gargoyles appeared vaguely Asian influenced. A long sweep of stairs led to wide, blue-painted front doors. Though I couldn’t see particularly well from this distance, I thought the door might be hanging open.
A dirt path led from the hidden entrance we’d just passed through to the wide stone stairs of the fortress. Dozens of two-by-two foot stone slabs — their color making them appear as though they were carved out of the same granite as the fortress — looked as if they’d been shifted or flipped to one side of the path.
I stepped onto the bare dirt and slowly walked toward the fortress. The flipped stones hummed with sorcerer magic as I passed.
“Don’t touch the slabs,” I said.
“Roger dodger.” Kandy slipped by me to stride ahead.
“Someone lifted these,” I said.
“Yes,” Warner agreed.
“They look heavy … and spelled.”
“Yes,” he agreed a second time. “More sorcerer magic.”
I nodded and looked up at the fortress stairs as we neared. They were also constructed out of stone, but certain slabs appeared to be missing. “The magic in the slabs is in the stairs, too.”
Kandy paused at the base of the fortress to look at the first empty slot. The stone that had previously capped it was flipped onto the neighboring stair. She sniffed the packed dirt that remained. Then she sniffed the air. “Magic all around,” she said.
“The air is still. Almost stuffy,” I said. “The natural magic isn’t as strong here.”
“Like it’s been used up?” Warner asked. “It takes a lot of energy to create a pocket area this large and detailed.”
“You think they stripped the naturally occurring magic to create the pocket and build the fortress?” I asked, attempting to follow his train of thought.
“And its defenses.”
I gestured toward the stones that had been flipped. “Its disabled defenses. But sorcerers can’t tap into and manipulate magic like that. It would have taken a lot of alchemists, wouldn’t it?”
“Or one very powerful one,” Warner answered without taking his eyes off the fortress above us.
Kandy, who was obviously tired of all the yammering about magic, stepped up on the first empty section of stair.
Nothing happened.
She pivoted and hopped to the next empty section, one stair up and to the left. The empty sections zigzagged up to the blue-painted doors of the fortress. Now that we were closer, I could see that they were indeed off their hinges, hanging to one side like they’d been half ripped off.
“Anyone else getting the feeling we aren’t the first Adepts to come through here?” I asked.
“Yes,” Warner answered. “That’s obvious. But I assume they didn’t get far.”
“Why assume that?”
“Because I was called to you because you possessed the map, and not here to stop a theft.” He stepped to follow Kandy up the stairs. His long stride closed the gaps between the empty treads effortlessly.
“If the guardians don’t own this artifact we’re looking for, how do you know it’s theft?” I asked, just trying to play devil’s advocate.
“What we seek shouldn’t be in anyone’s hands, Jade Godfrey. Not even the guardians. And I would hope that whoever it originally belonged to, whoever originally created it, is long dead. And that such deadly alchemy has died with its maker.”
Ah, there it was. “I thought you didn’t know what we’re looking for.”
“I know that I was tasked to protect the guardians from it.”
“And now you’re helping another alchemist to retrieve this deadly item.”
Warner paused his ascent to look back at me. “I am.” There was something in his tone, something dark and serious, but not toward me.
“Because I can perform deadly alchemy as well.”
“I’ve held the knife you made, alchemist,” he said. “I know of what you’re capable.”
“But you’ll do your duty.”
“To the end.”
“And beyond.”
“Always.”
I nodded, then jumping from stair to stair, I climbed until I stood before him. He watched me as I approached.
“That makes two of us,” I said.
“Yes. We are well matched.”
“Really? Here I thought I was just a half-blood.” Yeah, that still smarted.
“A powerful half-blood,” Warner murmured. He was still looking at me, but I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
“You’re killing my buzz, sixteenth century.”
Warner raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Yeah, sentinel,” Kandy called from above us. “Don’t block the dowser when she wants to dance.”
“It was not I who brought up the world falling down on our heads.”
Kandy laughed. “We aren’t the dwelling type.”
Well, not out loud anyway.
“Door’s open,” Kandy said. “Looks like we don’t even need to knock. That’s too bad. I like the knocking part.”
I laughed. Warner and I climbed the last few steps to join Kandy on the landing. Two gargoyles — resembling some sort of demon I didn’t recognize — were placed to either side of the landing. The double doors — one of which hung off its top hinge and one of which had fallen to the side — were carved along the edges with a series of runes, all of which had been scratched through.
“Does altering a rune, scoring through it like that, void the magic somehow?” I asked.
“If you’re strong enough to affect it,” Warner said. “Or die trying, when the displaced magic backlashes.”
Kandy glanced around. “No dead bodies lying around.”
“Other than the runes and the gargoyles, it’s not very ornate,” I said.
“Serviceable,” Warner muttered. He turned to look back the way we’d come. I couldn’t see the warp effect of the magical doorway from here. Just the crashing surf and the white sandy beach beyond.
“The nexus doesn’t feel like this,” I said. “It feels full and vibrant.”
“It’s not the same,” Warner said. “This is just a pocket. The nexus is a universe. Nothing lives or grows here.”
“Things die here, though,” Kandy said. She’d stepped just inside the fortress doors. “I revise my previous no-dead-bodies-lying-around assessment.”
Taking extra care to not accidentally brush against anything, Warner and I followed Kandy into the fortress.