“Up, everyone up. We need to get out.” Lucas came down to the bedrooms at the end of the hut, banging on the walls. “Now! Up and out.”
Rathna rubbed her face. She hadn’t been asleep nearly long enough. They’d been up past midnight, getting another small group through the portal. Not enough. Never enough.
“What’s happening?” she managed to get the words out as Grietje rolled out of her own narrow bed, pulling on boots.
“Invasion. News in the journals, but one of the warding stones just went off. Four miles, the village, but that’s bad enough.” Lucas turned his head. “We need to move. Bombs at the airstrip at Waalhaven, paratroopers since.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s barely four. More news coming in. We need to move.” The last word was fierce and sharp. “Come on.”
Rathna launched herself upright, her mind running fast. She’d kept her things packed tidily. They could hurl the trunks through, now, if they had to. No cart. “How much time do we have?”
Grietje grimaced. “It’s an invasion. It’s not as if they sent a calling card ahead. We’re under two miles from an unprotected border, even if it’s damp ground. You guess.”
None of the possible guesses were good. Rathna shoved her feet into her boots after making sure the socks were straight - she didn’t need them rubbing a bloody spot after an hour. Whatever today was, she needed to be able to keep going. Gabe had taught her how to think that through.
She couldn’t write to him. He’d worry. Oh, he’d probably know soon, if he didn’t already. But she couldn’t take the time to write until she knew something that had meaning.
She shoved her last few items in the trunk, charmed it lighter, and hauled it out to by the portal. She could replace everything in it if she had to, but better if she didn’t have to. Beth was out there, starting to tally up. “Trunk if we can?”
“Please. My bag’s in the top, if we can’t.” She’d keyed Beth and Lucas as the senior guards into her trunk’s warding on principle. If something had happened to her, even an ordinary injury, they might have needed to get in.
She was still rubbing her face when Ferdinand came up behind her, just carrying his smaller bag. “Mistress?”
“Ferdinand.” She acknowledged him, sparing a moment for his personal logistics. “Not your trunk?”
“Nothing I can’t replace easily.” He nodded at hers. “Not like yours. I have my personal tools.”
Rathna wasn’t going to argue with him. “Make sure there’s nothing identifying then, or make sure it’s burned to ash inside.” No point in leaving things that could mark out exactly who was here. “Do you know the charms? No, I’ll have to do it.” She raised her voice. “Anything that needs to be destroyed, make a pile by the bench.”
She got a round of shouts of acknowledgement and sailed on. “Can we get anyone else out?”
“No one magical.” Beth looked up from where she was calculating. “It’d break the Pact.”
“We have enough potions for twenty.” She cursed under her breath in Bengali. They couldn’t send them to Amsterdam, nor to - was France safe? They couldn’t get across the Channel. She’d been assuming, wrongly, that if they needed to get out, Belgium or somewhere closer would be an option. The Channel needed one of the Fatae portals, and besides, she was sure the portals were being locked to the Continent, or at least anywhere near them. “Switzerland. Can someone round up whoever can, drug them, and take them through to Switzerland, anyone who’s willing for that?”
There was a shout from one of the other Guards, who went off at a run. Rathna settled into thinking about their options. They’d need somewhere to go, and she didn’t want to end up in Switzerland. “Lucas, what do we know?”
“Very scattered information, a few reports, more scrying once they knew they needed to. You know how that is. But maybe the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium.”
You needed people who got a hook to work with. Albion had some, people who had family in all these places, who’d spent time there, who’d apprenticed in ways that made them part of that web. But not many. Not everywhere they needed.
“France?”
Lucas grimaced. “No idea.”
Not Paris, then. Spain had likely locked its portals, such as they were. “Map, Ferdinand.” The unadorned request could only be for the portal map. A moment later he was holding it up, casting a charm light to let her read it.
Her fingers traced along the map. Not Paris. They’d stand out anywhere, as new and foreign, but Paris portals were in the midst of the city, and cities could be dangerous in a panic. Not Brittany. Everything she’d ever heard about Brocéliande had made it clear turning up without an invitation would go exceedingly badly. The south of France might do, but they’d be cut off from anything. Her fingers ran down the northwest coast, in Aquitaine.
Aquitaine had ancient historic ties to Britain, and had had them for centuries. Nearly to the time of the Pact, in fact. She knew there were portals there. More to the point, she knew there were Fatae in the Pyrenees, and she knew someone who had at least spoken to them once or twice. If they had to negotiate, there might just be a chance there. If not, they were at least on the right coastline. And the portal there was outside the mountains, by a few miles. Not in the Fatae’s own lands. Most of all, she knew it was active, but there shouldn’t be anyone too nearby who’d have the skills to lock it against them quickly.
There were entirely too many ifs in that sentence for any sort of comfort. But it was the plan they had, with some options available. Land, sea, magic. That was as good as it was going to get.
“Ferdinand, first set for Basel, but then we’ll want the coordinates for Dax. I’ll work them out.” It would be a stretch, with this portal, but - well. They’d stretch. It would work or it wouldn’t.
That had taken enough time that the Guard who’d taken off at a run was back with one sole family from the next farm to the south. “They’re willing. The others weren’t. I explained we were getting farther away, to safety, but they couldn’t know how we got there.” He was speaking rapidly in English, and Rathna kept an eye out to make sure none of the little huddled group were tracking. They were shivering in the cold, each with a small bag or suitcase of whatever they could throw together.
“Are you willing to go with them?”
He nodded, with no hesitation. “I’ve picked up enough Dutch to manage. And I have some French.” That and English would go a long way in Switzerland. “Go through with them. And anyone else who wants Switzerland.”
That took a bit - first convincing each of them to take a little dropperful of potion, then setting them out where they could be carried through the portal. They’d have to open it for a good couple of minutes to get everyone through, but Rathna could do that.
Not without some strain, as it turned out. As they got the last through, two of their own party going with them, Rathna loosened her grip on the magic, and let the portal close. She immediately wobbled backwards, and she only avoided falling because of a hand on her back, then another. Grietje and Ferdinand both.
“Mistress?” That was his voice over her shoulder.
“We don’t have long, do we?” She could feel it now. It hadn’t been even an hour, she thought. She couldn’t hear it, exactly. Wherever the planes were, the paratroopers, they weren’t close to this isolated little spot on the coastline. But she could feel something in the land, the more she was listening for it.
The human boundaries were passing things to the land, they always had been. Though Albion itself was a bit different, being an island with more islands attached by a bit of string and chewing gum. But the land responded to what people thought about it. That was one of the anchors of the land magic at the most primal level. And the land knew this was an invasion.
Grietje shook her head, the motion just catching Rathna’s attention. “What do we need to do before we leave?”
“I need to clear the hut. Not burn it, just - clear it. Of anything that can trace us. And burn the things we’re not taking, anything personal.”
“What do you need from us?” Grietje was fierce now, like a honed knife.
“Vitality.” Rathna took a breath, checking her own stores. “A fair bit.”
“Right. You prepare. We’ll sort that out.” There was a gentle push in her back, and Rathna took a step forward, then another, to the hut. She needed to summon anything that could be used to trace, hair or skin or fingerprints. Gabe called it blurring, and she wasn’t supposed to know how to do it.
On the other hand, Richard knew she could. They’d spent a week’s worth of winter storms arguing through the theory of it when she was home with Avigail as a babe at her breast. And if there was ever a time for it, it was now. The preparation wouldn’t be draining, but the doing - well. That was a trick.
She leaned her back against the doorframe, Ferdinand still hovering. “What should I do?”
“Check one more time outside, make sure there’s nothing anyone’s touched - I’ll have to try something different on the benches, the woodpile. And then. Well.”
She sucked in a breath, and let herself begin to draw from the earth around her. From the watery earth, for all that was trickier, things kept moving and shifting. In one way, that was a help. Water cleansed all. On the other, making water go somewhere specific in a controlled fashion had made engineers curse since the Egyptians, if not before.
She drew up all her magic, all the way she could, like ink filling a fountain pen. Then, and only then, did she stretch out her hands, palms out, facing the far wall, and pulsed the magic forward around her, around them. Her fingers bent slightly and straightened, three times. She could feel the effort it took as she repeated three sharp syllables, far louder in her head than on her lips.
It was an ancient magic, and all kinds of problems to work, and she would use it for her people. And herself. She couldn’t forget that. The world spun for a moment as she opened her eyes. That had taken more out of her than she’d hoped. A second later, there was a hand on her elbow. “Mistress? Vitality?”
Rathna turned to see the remaining people from their party. Lucas and Beth, Grietje and Nelis. “I need to clear the outside. And then what we’re not taking. Then through the portal.”
“To where, Mistress?” That was Beth.
“Aquitaine. I don’t want to risk Paris, even if we could get there.” She let out a breath. “Vitality, whoever’s willing. Don’t let me drain you. Keep enough to keep going for a few hours.”
Lucas stepped forward first, his hands palm down. Rathna placed her hands under his, then brought them up, barely touching. She drew off some of their vitality, not wanting to take too much. Sleep, food, rest, would all restore it given a bit of time, but those might be luxuries they didn’t have.
She shook her head at Grietje and Ferdinand’s offer. “I might need a bit in a moment. Right. Let me clear outside, then deal with what we’re not bringing with us, and then...”
Rathna felt the rumble, more than anything, but it made her suck in her breath. “We don’t have much time.”
The second charm was easier - outside, there was more for her to pull from. Burning the trunks to ash without causing a fire, that was harder work, a tight focus that demanded everything she had for an agonising minute. She counted out her heartbeats. When she let it ebb, there was a pile of dull grey ash, beginning to blow away in the winds, but she couldn’t make her eyes focus.
A hand was under her elbow. “Now?” Grietje held out her hands, and Rathna nodded, placing her own again, and drawing out enough that the world wasn’t spinning anymore.
“The portal.”
“What do we need to do when we get there?” That was Lucas.
Before Rathna could say anything, Ferdinand spoke up. “French-speaking, a little away from the town, in a grove near the road. We should be all right to come out. It’s still early in the morning. Move ten feet away or so, and wait for us to come through, yes, Magistra?”
“That.” Rathna didn’t waste words explaining or adding. “We’ll hold the portal.” Which left the challenge. “I don’t—” This was the part she hadn’t thought through. Not enough.
“What do you need?” That was Grietje, sharp as ever.
“I’d want to destroy it, but.”
Nelis shrugged. “Tell me how.” His chin came up, and he stared Grietje down. “I am safer in the country than you are. Go with them. Come back when you can.”
Rathna suddenly suspected there was something much deeper between them than she’d had any hint of in the month and more since they’d been here. Not romantic love, perhaps, but the kind of deeply rooted trust of shield brothers out of a saga. She saw Grietje nod out of the corner of her eye. “I’ll come back when I can.” Like it was an oath or promise. “Let’s to.”
Getting the portal to open was more effort than Rathna wanted to admit to. Holding it was harder. But she dug in her heels, set it for the portal at Dax, and through they went, one by one. Lucas went first, then Grietje and Beth taking her trunk between them.
Then it came down to Rathna and Ferdinand. He nodded once at her. “Go, Mistress. I’ll be right after.”
She went. The world went to the grey space between the places, with the shimmers of light that she saw and apparently few other people did. It was like the spark of light catching on minerals, for her. It had been since the first portal she’d ever taken.
At the other end, she stumbled out, taking three or four steps before she went to her knees in the soft grass. The portal was quiet behind her. Too quiet. For far too long. She glanced up to see the others gathered in the morning light, then twisted to look back at the portal and started counting, the way she’d learned as a child.
One Piccadilly. Two Piccadilly. Three Piccadilly. Four Piccadilly. Five Piccadilly. Six Piccadilly. Seven Piccadilly. Too long. Nine Piccadilly. Ten Piccadilly. Eleven Piccadilly. Twelve Piccadilly. Far too long. Fourteen Piccadilly. Fifteen Piccadilly.
Finally, the portal spluttered into life again, and Ferdinand stumbled through. He looked pale as a sheet, but he shook his head as she stood to offer a hand. “Minute.” It came out as a croak.
He fell into a tumble on the ground, but they were - well. Safe was a relative term. They were not currently under attack. They’d brought the portable food and drink with them. They could figure it out from here.
She hoped. She hoped very much.