Page 90 of The Shadow Wand

Yes. Get in.

Capitulating, I incline my head and trail the young soldier, hoping the shadows of the night will hide the bruise pulsating between my eyes. Glancing up, I notice the new carriage is not being driven by a civilian but by two additional soldiers, and it bears the crest of the Mage Guard.

As I’m ushered to the carriage door’s threshold, even more soldiers arrive on horseback. Panic builds as I worry that I’m teetering precariously on the line between guarded aristocracy and military prisoner.

Do these soldiers suspect what I am? Where are they going to take me? Is Lukas completely in control of this situation?

I climb in and sit on a velvet-cushioned seat, tensing at the sound of the door clicking shut as I clench and unclench my trembling hands in a futile effort to calm myself.

I flinch as the door abruptly reopens.

Lukas swings inside and sits down on the opposite seat. Then he shuts the door and levels his gaze at me.

My breath grows shallow. “Aren’t you going to ride out there?” I ask, gesturing toward the front of the carriage. “To guard us?”

“No,” he says, an edge of challenge in his expression. “We need to talk.”

The carriage lurches forward, and we’re quickly engulfed by soldiers on horseback. Thierren and the two black-cloaked Level Five Mages are among them, coming in and out of view through the carriage’s side windows.

“Are we still going back to your family’s estate?” I ask, my voice tight with nerves.

Lukas tilts his head and takes in my guarded demeanor. “We are.” He fixes me with a look that reads,Why? Should we be going somewhere else?Then he reaches over and jerks first one window curtain shut, then the other.

I swallow.

Lukas sits back, his stare coldly serious, one hand loosely fingering the hilt of his sheathed wand. “Your nose,” he says, pointing to the bridge of his own, “it has a bruise on it.”

I reach up to touch it. It’s sore, but not as sore as the rest of me.

“Tell me again why the Vu Trin’s most elite band of assassins want to kill you,” he presses.

I stare at him, my mind falling into a panicked whirl as my lips part, the world-altering truth readying itself. But I hesitate as I remember again Ni Vin’s stark warning.

Lukas seems to be an enemy of Marcus Vogel, that much is clear, and I believe him to be my friend and ally. But he also seems entrenched in the Gardnerian military.

Entrenched in being a Gardnerian.

And I won’t be drawn in as a weapon for a faction of the Gardnerian army with questionable motives.

I’ll fight for the Resistance and the Resistance alone.

Stalling, I let my head fall into my hands and rub my eyes and then the bruised side of my head, wanting a magicked portal of my own leading right to my brothers. “I hit my head really hard, Lukas,” I bemoan, heart racing, desperate to divert his attention until I can learn more about where he stands. I peek up to see if I’ve roused his sympathy.

Lukas seems unmoved, his eyes narrowed on me.

I fidget and drop my hands to clutch the edge of my seat, feeling like an ant caught under the point of a stick. My fingers instinctively find the wood along the edge of my seat, just under the black velvet cushion. I restlessly scratch at it.

Lacebark Pine.

Soft and flimsy. And cheap. The whole carriage is cheaply made, nothing at all like Lukas’s family’s fine carriage with its even finer wood. Little pieces of the friable pine find their way beneath my nails.

Delicious and porous.Airy as a spring breeze and full of tiny places to fill with magic.

Small sparks of invisible magic flare under my nails, up my arm, cutting through my fear and grief, the feel of it like sparkling sunlight on water, inviting the power into my hands, my fingers, and straight through my lines. My nervous trembling smooths out, the throbbing all over my body cut in half as fire and earth magic sizzle through me. I bite the side of my mouth and flex my fingers, attempting to hide the effect the wood is having on me, feeling as exposed as if I had ten wands sticking out from under my nails.

“You lied to the soldiers,” I say, fighting to ignore the sparks.

Lukas considers this, his brow tightening in thought. “If the Gardnerians find out the Kin Hoang have come for you, they’ll grow suspicious of the power they sense in you. They’d immediately bring you to Vogel.” He looks at my hands, and I self-consciously cease flexing them, realizing how odd the repetitive scratching must seem. And what conclusions he might draw from it.

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