We both ran straight for where Pearl was resting, and she lowered her shield so that we could step inside. We’d barely made it into the shield that rendered us invisible when a female fey and two armed security guards stepped into the meadow.
“I smell blood,” the woman seethed. Without another word, we slipped onto Pearl’s back and she kicked off the ground, beating her wings, which caused the bushes and tall grass around us to flatten.
“What was that!?” the woman shrieked, staring at the windstorm Pearl had created. The guards raised their weapons and I flinched, hoping they wouldn’t shoot randomly into the air. Pearl climbed higher until they were just a speck in the distance, then I relaxed a little.
“Let me see.” I peeled Marmal’s hand back and inspected a clean one-inch cut along her ribcage.
“That will need stitches, but it doesn’t seem to have hit any major organs,” I told her, the guilt of her injury weighing heavily on me. “Let me get the med-kit.”
She shooed my hand away. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse. How’s Sage? What’s going on inside?”
She handed the fey blade to me and I took it with gratitude. “Thanks for getting that.” I then quickly brought her up to speed about how things had gone with Sage as I dug around my pack for the med-kit to tend to her injury best I could while riding on a freaking flying dragon. After cleaning and bandaging her wound as Pearl circled the park area, I tuned into my wolf next.
She was on the forty-fourth floor, panting from going up all the stairs. She couldn’t use vampire speed because I had the cuffs on, and I was worried about taking them off. Somehow we were still connected, and even though she could go invisible, she couldn’t use some of our other powers. Me wearing the cuffs was draining her it seemed like…
She was worried to try to sneak into an elevator and get stuck going down, or have someone notice her. The stairwell was relatively unmanned but for one janitor she’d passed on floor twenty-six.
It was nearly four p.m. She had fifteen minutes to get to the eightieth floor, but I didn’t tell her that. Workout hour was until five, but I needed to get Sage before they came in and gave her another dose of that medication. This was all going to hinge on me being able to actually break through this protection spell and into one of these windows.
Breathe, just breathe.
I reached into Sage’s pack and pulled out the sleek black phone she kept there. If anyone could tell me how to break through a fey magic protection, it would be my other bestie. I dialed Raven’s number by heart and prayed that her cell phone still worked. Technically, we were somewhere in Idaho hidden in the Magic Lands, and cell towers definitely worked in Idaho…
“Hello?” she answered tentatively.
“Thank God you still have a phone,” I told her.
“Holy shit, Demi,” Raven breathed. “I almost didn’t pick up. I’m surprised this thing is still connected after a year underground.”
I grinned. “It’s good to hear from you. I have a problem that needs a magical solution.”
“I’m here with Star. Putting you on speaker,” Raven announced.
That was good, I would need all hands on deck.
“The Magic City Prison is surrounded by some … bluish electrocuting protection spell. It smells fey in origin. I need to bring it down so I can get close enough to break a window to get the guys out.”
“Fey protections are very complex. What do you have to work with?” Star sounded skeptical and it made me nervous.
“Well we got a fey blade,” I told her.
“That’s great!” she and Raven said at the same time.
“And I have a dragon.”
The phone went silent and I pulled it back to make sure it hadn’t died. Nope, still running.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Did you say you have adragon?” Raven shrieked.
“Alive or dead?” Star whispered.
Wow.
“Alive, flying on her back at this moment. Can she help?”
“Can shehelp?” Star sounded offended by my suggestion. “Dragons are the mothers of magic. Holy shit. Can I meet her? Like once this is all over?” I could hear the excitement in Star’s voice.
