Through Edinburgh.
And then…
I don’t know what.
“They will know we are gone,” Serena says. “Dray was looking for you in the atrium, wasn’t he?”
Words fail me.
In answer, I manage a faint nod.
“Why?”
I run my tongue over my dry, cracked lips—the winds too harsh for them. “He can sense.”
The worry keeps her face pinched. But it’s the face of a master I haven’t ever seen so anxious.
The illusion is disorientating, and I don’t like it one bit, so I turn my cheek to her and watch the decline of the mountain shrink, I watch our descent into the village.
There is always a guard on duty at the veil.
Sometimes more than one.
I have had my share of interactions with them over the years at Bluestone, each time I tried to sneak into the village and go through the veil.
Busted every time.
Hopefully not this time.
The gondola stops at the village.
The moment the door slides open, we are stumbling out, and marching down the path.
It’s downhill, sore on the calves, but we don’t break pace until we’re advancing on the shimmer of space.
The guard steps forward, out from the shadows of a wooden post.
Serena—Master Lockwood—strides towards him. But she doesn’t look at him. Her chin is lifted, proud and important, justlike the real Master Lockwood, and her gaze is locked onto the veil.
The guard’s brow furrows.
I don’t know his name, but he has stopped me before.
Back then, I was just going home.
Now…
Now I don’t think I’ll ever go home again.
The understanding is a punch to the gut. The breath that’s pushed out of me is ragged.
The guard narrows his eyes on me.
Instinct, suspicion—and it serves him right.
I wonder if his print is the sense.
He slides that suspicion to Serena.
