And High Earth can’t let someone live who has proven she can and will cut off their surplus magic supply.
Nariel muses, “You need to anchor the spell in three power spots that have naturally gathered a substantial amount of magic on their own, even with High Earth’s spell draining the vast majority of this world’s magic dry. That’s where I come in, then—a tour guide in your own world.”
I snort. “No. I already know where the biggest power spots in this world are.”
He blinks.
“I have been obsessed with accessing magic in this world forten years,“ I reiterate. “Do you really think I wouldn’t go wherever I could find it?”
I have traveled... a lot. Like, alota lot.
There was never any reason for me to stay.
Nariel cocks his head. “Then I assume you have another role in mind for me, or you wouldn’t risk telling me this.”
I nod. “As soon as I expend a great amount of magic in one place, they’ll find me. It’s how they find Low Earth wizard kids in the first place. Which means, Mr. Hide-in-the-Shadows, what you can help with is getting me on site in stealth so that I don’t have to expend magic in large quantities until it counts, because as soon as I do they’ll be able to find me. Deal?”
I take the proto-wands from him.
Nariel smiles slowly, and my whole chest eases with it. “Deal.”
It’s not a binding oath, but what I really need to see is how seriously he takes a promise when it’snotbinding.
I take a breath. Bringing magic back into the world, making an enemy of all of High Earth and possibly the angels too: Here we go.
“Help me get a few more sticks, and let’s get on the move.”
I can control myself. This will be fine.
“And then where to?” Nariel asks. “Partner.”
Partner.
What a world.
I smile wryly. “Stonehenge.”
Chapter 5
Nariel conveniently has a fake passport—in fact, apparently he has several, but we use his US one so we can stay together through customs and catch the first plane to London out of Seattle. I wonder why he has so many, since the entire process of going through an airport clearly bemuses him—I mean, he can fly, right? Are long trips too much exercise? Why can he even drive?—but he just gives me an amused look and doesn’t answer. Or let me see all his stamps.
In retrospect, probably it’s just the amount of magic he has access to. Like everything else.
But the whole process of boarding an airplane is rendered deeply weird doing it alongside Nariel. I’m used to traveling alone, but I have taken my sister places and it’s not like this.
Now that I know he’s a hundreds of years-old demon—at least; I know he was alive during the fall of Rome, since Dark Earth being choked off from magic predates Low Earth’s choking, but I don’t know if he has multiple thousands because I don’t know how old he was then—it’s bizarre to watch him manage normal interactions with humans. Like, I guess he has practice, andI understand why he seems so amused at whatever arbitrary security theater humans have come up with now, but it’s just so effortless for him.
I had the benefit of feeling his magic to know from the get-go he was something other than normal, but no one else does.
Then again, it’s effortless for me, a person who spent my formative years in another universe, to blend in here too.
Normally, anyway.
It’s different, to know there’s another person waiting for me as I pick up some over-priced toiletries, since we came straight to the airport without any luggage.
It’s different, to wonder what a demon thinks about the assorted gadgets on display as I acquire a cellphone charger, and how much technology he has seen change over more than a thousand years.
It’s different, to pick out a change of clothes—my jeans will make it, but I definitely want new underwear and a less sweaty shirt after my exertions—with someone smirking at me. Is it the choice of extremely basic underwear? My new shirt even has color, if only a sort of foresty green to go with Seattle’s outdoorsy vibe. It’s a local airport store, my options are limited.
