CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Harry looked like a piece of grass.

Or, rather, Luna had made him look like a piece of grass. Or just grass in general, since when he stared down at himself that was all he saw. He couldn’t see any part of his body, not even when he waved his hand directly in front of his face—or, at least, what he assumed was his hand. And, of course, that would only be the case if what he hoped was his face was actually his face, and if that were so, then—

“Stop thinking about it, Harry,” Luna mumbled.

“I wasn’t,” said Harry, glancing up at the Wall rising ahead. Rose’s carriage had passed beneath a few minutes earlier.

“Fine. But in case you were,” said Luna, “I just wanted to let you know that I can’t see you. At all.”

Harry was used to blending into the shadows—literally—so it wasn’t that weird. But this was different. This was grass, apparently.

“Are your knees okay?” he asked. When they had broken out of Rose’s luggage compartment, while Harry landed like a cat, Luna had scraped her knees against the road. Luckily, no carriages followed Rose’s in the right lane, and no one in the left lane seemed to have noticed the trunk open for two people to tumble out.

“I’ll survive.”

“Sorry,” said Harry. Unlike mortal magic wielders, he didn’t have the capability to heal anyone other than himself.

“Stop apologizing. Just remember not to move too abruptly,” Luna reminded him. Sudden movements would only make it that much harder for her to maintain their guises.

“You can get us past the Wall, right?” They had a little more than a quarter of the way to go up the mountain before they reached the Wall.

“Yes.” A nervous pause. “Probably. All right, slowly now.”

Together, they crept along the side of the road, crawling on all fours through the grass. Harry watched the carriages in the left lane, as sluggish as they were, pass one by one.

“We need to move faster,” he said.

“Okay,” Luna whispered. “Stand up. One step at a time now.”

Harry couldn’t see the girl, but he could taste her fear as they prowled closer to the Wall—the salty tang of the sweat trickling down her neck. He could hear her heartbeat quickening tenfold, each inhale more raspy than the last. But still—still, Luna persisted.

Finally they made it to the crest of the mountain, the gated entrance to the Wall just fifty paces away. Beyond lay what must have been the palace gardens. Harry narrowed his eyes at the soldiers patrolling the ramparts above, and the dozen soldiers standing guard at the gate itself. Six guards checked the luggage trunks of three carriages at a time, two per carriage.

“We have to get past all those guards first,” Harry whispered as the carriages passed inspection and moved onward.

Something brushed his arm. He looked down, but of course, there was nothing. Then a hand latched around his wrist, tugging him behind the third carriage in the line, its wood-paneled exterior painted in rich strokes of fuchsia. With awkward coordination and a lot of elbow bumping, Luna camouflaged them into the background and led Harry around the two inspecting guards as silently as she could. The next carriage alternated navy and gold, which Luna also managed to copy. They had almost reached the final carriage when Harry made a mistake. His shoulder brushed against the hindquarter of the bay stallion harnessed to the carriage. The horse reared, spooked, and Harry, distracted by the hoof swinging at his head, didn’t notice the soldier running to calm the animal. The soldier rammed right into Harry’s back. The impact didn’t harm either of them, but the soldier’s reaction to crashing into an invisible person, on the other hand—

“Halt!” the soldier shouted, startling the other guards. He drew his sword, eyes darting to and fro. “Show yourself!”

“Close the gate!” another guard yelled.

Harry cursed under his breath. He grabbed what he prayed was Luna’s hand and yanked her forward, nearly tripping over a potted hydrangea. “Hurry!”

“This is so not according to plan—”

The soldier closest to them pulled out his affinity stone. “Astyndos!”

They ducked beneath his outstretched arm. The hydrangea pot exploded, terracotta fragments shattering against the side of the third carriage in a shower of petals.

“Ovdekken!” another guard yelled.

Luna let out a near-silent gasp. Harry’s eyes widened as the edges of their shadows began to appear, nothing more than a watery gray outline—but there, nonetheless. He immediately banished them away, but the damage was done.

“I saw something!” the hydrangea-killing guard shouted. “Close it! Close the gate!”

“Ah, to hell,” Harry muttered, grasping Luna’s hand. “Run!”

Luna didn’t argue.

They made a break for it, sprinting as fast as they could through the growing throng of soldiers. They managed to evade the rest of the spells, but if they couldn’t make it past the Wall and the wards—

The gate lowered, faster than they could run.

“Come on, Luna!”

Ten strides.

Harry squeezed her hand. “Luna, hold your breath when I say.”

Five strides.

“Hold my breath?” Luna squawked. “What in the world for?”

One more stride—

They dropped to the ground and slid beneath the gate just before the bars settled into the ground with a hollow clank, sealing them off from the soldiers on the other side of the gate, though more were currently running in their direction from posts on the Wall’s interior.

“Now!”

Harry sucked them into oblivion.

The shadow dimension had no air. Sometimes, it felt as though walls enclosed him on all sides, pressing closer and closer until he was certain his body would burst. And other times, it was as easy as slipping into a lukewarm tub of water. Shadow travel was strange that way.

Luckily for Luna, on this occasion, it was the latter. He couldn’t see her, and he didn’t bother trying. His only anchor to her was the solid grip of her hand in his. Shadow travel reshaped one’s physical form into whatever it pleased. Furniture and people whizzed by. As if in a gaseous state, he—and whomever he traveled with—simply passed through.

Harry didn’t know anything about the interior of the Axarian palace, so he simply thought closet in his mind. When the shadow dimension spat them out, Luna crashed on top of him in what indeed seemed to be a closet, towels and bath soaps raining down upon both of them. In her struggle to stand, she kicked him in the face. Eventually, she managed to squirm into the small gap between Harry and some wooden crates.

“Sorry,” she said, both of them visible once more, while Harry rubbed his cheek. “Are you okay?”

His ragged panting filled the silence. “Just give me a minute.” The intense scent of lavender hung heavy in the air. He sneezed a few times and cursed quietly, waiting for his breaths to even out. “I wish I was better at shadow jumping,” he confessed. “If I was, I could have saved us a lot of time going from the forest to the palace. But I only use it as a last resort, when it could mean the difference between life and death.”

“It wasn’t your responsibility to get us here, Harry,” said Luna. “We’re thankful enough that you even came along. And I …” She trailed off and raised her hand, a blue ribbon weaving into existence in her open palm. “I wouldn’t have discovered this if it hadn’t been for you.”

He ducked his head, still impressed by her newfound abilities. “And yet … especially after all the trouble I caused, I can’t help but feel selfish.”

Luna spread her fingers through the air, the ribbon looping and spiraling in an intricate dance. She observed her own hand as if it belonged to someone else. “I’ve had the experience of living both with power and without,” she said. “I don’t know my limits yet. Once I do, I will push past them—on no one’s terms but my own. That’s not selfishness. It’s survival.”

A hero protects the good people, but a hunter does anything he can to survive.

In the end, Harry couldn’t figure out a response, so he fiddled with the closet handle instead. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He cringed as the door creaked in protest, and then he forced it open a little further to peek out into the hallway. Unable to distinguish anything through the oily murk, he semi-shifted. Though still in his human form, his every sense intensified. He couldn’t keep it up for long—a few more minutes, at most, already feeling as though he stood with one foot in a pool of churning water and the other upon shaking ground. He inhaled, the musty air filling his nostrils. From afar came a peculiar trickling sound, perhaps from a spring or fountain deep below them.

“We’re in a servants’ passage,” Luna said as they emerged from the closet. “Hallways and tunnels like this run all throughout the palace. Actually …” She slipped back into the closet, where Harry could hear her digging around. When she reappeared, she waved a little paper package with a flaky golden label at him. “Lavender bath soap. I know for a fact that Queen Priscilla is the only one in the palace that uses it. We must be below her quarters.”

Harry sniffed. “Hold on. What’s that smell? Not the lavender.” Something else, a very particular scent, inexplicably dark. “There’s something wrong,” he whispered, blood thrumming. “I think—I could be mistaken, but … we have to go and investigate.”

Luna stared at him in disbelief. “But what about Garringsford?”

“It’ll be quick,” Harry promised. “Just follow me and stay close.”

“What’s wrong?” she demanded. “Are we in danger?”

“It’s nothing like that. We’ll be fine. I … I just need to make sure of it myself.” Harry started forward, only to be jerked back by the wrist. He looked over his shoulder in surprise.

“No,” said Luna. She had her feet planted steadfast into the ground, looking for all the world like she might tackle him at any moment.

“No?” Harry echoed.

“We have a task, Harry. A crucial task that we must complete. Eadric’s success depends on ours. I won’t allow us to be the ones that fail.” Luna tightened her iron grip on him. “Asterin comes first.”

“But—”

“If we have time afterward, I promise that we can come back.”

She’s right, he thought. Everyone was depending on them. They needed to meet General Garringsford alone, before Eadric arrived, or all their careful planning, everything that they had worked for, would be worthless. “Okay,” he agreed.

“Pardon?” Luna stammered, her stance faltering.

“I said, okay. You’re right.”

A small huff of wonder escaped her. “You … you’re actually listening to me?”

He tilted his head in confusion. “Yes?”

“Oh. Right.” Luna smiled. “It’s just that no one usually listens to me,” she said, staring at the ground, her fingers knotting together. “Ever.”

Harry regarded her in astonishment. To think that no one—not even Asterin—took Luna seriously … He imagined what it must have been like for Luna, suffering in the silence of her own mind, destined to be surrounded by some of the most powerful individuals in the world while she could barely summon anything more than a spark of magic.

He tipped his head toward the hallway. “Well, I’m listening now. So lead the way.”