Stella adjusted her hat and took command of the door. “We leave as if we have somewhere mildly important to be.
“You mean not like the future of magic depends on us?” I teased.
Stella winked and nodded. “Precisely.”
Chapter Six
Stonewick pretended not to watch. It had perfected the art. Tourists turned at shop windows, admiring what they knew not; pigeons arranged themselves like a living runway of indifference; the gargoyles’ eyes darkened just enough to meango.
We took the back lane to the river, the bramble mule clipping along with cheerful propriety. Wild roses caught at my sleeves and then, apparently recognizing me, let go with a rustle that sounded like gossip. The air cooled by degrees, like a polite conversation becoming serious. And that’s when I saw it. A shadow darted between trees but vanished. I looked around to see if anyone else had spotted it or felt it.
The new addition, the tiny foxlet, hopped on Bella’s arm and climbed to her shoulder, where she perched.
“Did anyone see that?” I asked.
“What, dear?” Stella asked.
“A shadow?”
“You mean like the tourist?” Twobble asked.
“No, a real one.”
“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Stella said, cautiously. “We don’t have time for that kind of interference.”
“Up north,” Lady Limora murmured as if reading the wind, “time does not behave.”
“Does it ever?” I whispered back.
“In small towns,” she said, amused, “often.”
The river ran silver and slow beside us.
“Here,” Nova said at the alder grove, tapping her staff to the root of the nearest tree. The alder’s bark was smooth and pale; someone had once carved initials there, long ago, and the tree had swallowed them whole. “Feel it?”
I did. The ground hummed, a steady, low thread as if a giant needle passed beneath the surface, drawing two fabrics together with a stitch you could not see but could sense forever. My breath clouded. Keegan’s hand found the small of my back just as the first stripe of aurora wove itself across the late summer sky.
“The Northern Luminary is hours away,” Ardetia whispered, and the words made the air choose winter. “But it feels very close.”
“Very certain,” Nova agreed, and I shivered.
I pulled my mittens on without argument. Twobble pulled his earmuffs down tighter and straightened on the bramble mule, who blew frosty kisses at his nose and then tried to eat my mitten.
“Boundaries,” I told the mule, and he nodded gravely, like yes, of course, after this leaf.
We crossed Spindle Bridge, the old stones arched in a polite bow over water, and we made it through woods andcornfields, down valleys, and along rivers. When my feet felt like they could no longer carry me, the wind threaded the air with faint music, higher than hearing and lower than comfort.
“Neutral ground begins here,” Nova said. “Say what must be said and nothing more.”
Stella’s breath misted, elegant and stubborn. “What must be said is that my nose is very offended by this weather.”
“Seconded,” Skonk said from inside his scarf. “Can we summon a heat wave by magic?”
“You two are not allowed to negotiate climate within the luminary,” Bella said, laughing under her breath, which steamed like a secret.
Keegan’s gaze scanned the stones, the spaces between them, the places where a body could hide and a shadow could pretend to be polite.
“So, I wonder where our dropped stitch is?” he asked.
