Page 131 of The Shadow Wand

“I insist,” Vogel counters. “For your protection. They’ll escort you to your chambers and to the Sealing breakfast tomorrow morning.” He looks to me. “And then, to your wandtesting. We can’t be too safe now, can we?”

Lukas stares at Vogel for a beat, then stiffly bows. “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

Vogel’s steady smile is the smile of someone ten steps ahead of us all. “Sanguin’in,” he says, looking straight at me.

My pulse kicks up to a violent rhythm as Lukas tightens his grip on my wand hand and leads me away, a stream of his fire shuddering through my lines. My own fire lashes out toward Lukas in response as I match his long, determined stride with ten Level Five Mage soldiers tight on our heels.

CHAPTER SIX

SEALING NIGHT

ELLOREN GREY

Sixth Month

Valgard, Gardneria

When we get to his bedroom chambers, Lukas escorts me inside the heavy Ironwood door, motions with his finger to his lips for me to remain quiet, all the while keeping his hand tight around mine. Then he locks the door and bolts it against the ten Level Five Mage soldiers on guard outside.

It doesn’t keep the unyielding press of their magic out.

Magic aimed at me.

The aura of their combined magery has my affinity lines in an unsettled uproar and tangling around each other, and I can feel the edges of my shield beginning to degrade once more from the ceaseless assault of so much power.

My body sings with tension as Lukas holds tight to my wand hand and guides me down an Ironwood tree–lined hallway, through another door and into his bedroom. He bolts and locks this door too. Then he unsheathes his wand and uses it to unlock a black-lacquered box set on a shelf built into the tree-embedded walls, the trees’ dark gleaming limbs branching out over our heads. He opens the box to reveal a sizable number of black Noi rune stones, the hazy sapphire glow of the runes illuminating the air above them in a puff of blue.

Lukas pulls out four of the rune stones and places them on the shelf, then sheathes his wand, reaches under the hem of his pant leg, and pulls out a hidden wand—a wand marked with Noi runes. He taps this wand’s tip to each rune stone in turn, murmuring spells, and the glow of the runes intensifies. I follow beside him, our hands still clasped to maintain my shield, as he places one of the stones at the base of the room’s door and the others at the bottom of each of the room’s remaining walls.

We move to the center of the room and Lukas raises his arm, points his wand at the rune at the base of the door, and murmurs another spell.

Static sizzles over our clasped hands as a thread of white lightning flashes from Lukas’s wand toward the rune. The moment it hits the rune, faint, luminous blue lines, like a spider’s web, fly up from all three stones and cobweb over the surface of the door and the walls and the room’s ceiling, then appear to melt into the surfaces.

I blink at the vanishing lines, stunned by Lukas’s display of yet more cross-magic as the prickles coursing over our hands recede. The press of the magic coursing in from outside the room abruptly vanishes, only my sense of Lukas’s magic remaining, both his magic and mine able to traverse my internal shield since it’s woven from our combined magic.

Lukas lets go of my hand, and apprehension leaps inside me as I prepare myself for our guards’ affinity power to flood back into me, but...nothing.

“We can speak freely now.” Lukas turns and focuses on me.

“I can’t sense the magic of our guards anymore,” I marvel.

“That’s because I set up a runic barrier.”

I stare at him, amazed. “You’re pretty adept in the use of forbidden Noi magic,” I note with a touch of wry challenge.

Lukas’s lips lift as he gives me a smoky look. “Are you disappointed in my lack of magical purity?”

The rakish gleam in his eyes sends a shot of unsettled warmth through my lines. I give him an arch look. “You continue to be a very bad Gardnerian.”

A laugh erupts from him. “True.” He looks me over. “But then, so do you.”

Our eyes catch and hold, a spark of tension lighting between us that has me remembering just how closely allied we’re about to be.

Cheeks heating, I look around and let out a shuddering sigh, nervous about crossing so many lines with him but deeply relieved to be away from Vogel and the rest of the Mages.

“One night here,” I think out loud, turning to look at him, this man I’m about to give myself to.

“Yes, Elloren,” Lukas says as he moves to take another rune stone from the box and sets it against the base of the wall before him. “One night until all hell breaks loose. Enjoy the very brief respite.” He touches his rune wand to the stone and murmurs another spell. The walls around us briefly shimmer with a gauzy, wavering blue film.

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