Page 41 of The Second Death of Locke
“Tether to Ola,” she instructed.
Brit looked away. “She’s not reaching, and I can’t initiate the tether myself at this range. I have to tether to you.”
Grey swore—shecouldn’ttether to Brit. She threw open the window and shouted Ola’s name. There was no response. She swore again.
“Swords,” she said. They both drew, and Grey grabbed a dagger for good measure—the room wasn’tthatbig, and swords weren’t always great in proximity. Brit armed themselves with some assortment of metal; Grey didn’t question it.
Someone knocked on the door. “Ma’am?” a voice said. Not the innkeeper.
Brit and Grey exchanged a long look. Brit, too, drew their knife.
Another knock. Someone tried the doorknob. “We’d like to compare routes, if you please. We think we’re going in the same direction.” Their tone was silk over glass, tension clear in every word as they tried to smooth out their accent, to sound Scaelan.
“No thank you,” Grey called back firmly.
“I’m reaching a tether,” Brit said, and Grey felt a strange sense of prodding, like her stomach was the closed door of the room Brit was knocking at. An odd expression flickered across Brit’s face.
Something rammed the door—it held. Muted voices conversed on the other side.
“Hand Captain?” Brit asked.
Grey’s terror was cold and even. “I… can’t,” she said.
“I won’t use—”
“No,” Grey said, facing the truth of it—the truth of what they’d done. “Brit, Kier and I are bound. Ican’tlend my power to another.”
Brit’s eyes were blank for a terrible time. “Well,fuck,” they murmured. “I had a thought when you wouldn’t let Ola…Fuck.”
Something hit the door again, and Grey heard the cracking of wood. She thought again of calling for Ola and dismissed it. “Hope you’re just as good with your sword,” she muttered, sinking into position. “We’ve got to get out of here without your magic.”
“When the captain gets back,” Brit seethed, “we are going to have a long discussion about trust.”
“If we’re still alive, I look forward to it.”
Grey didn’t need a tether to know Brit was furious. It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight—but mageslikedthe edge of magic, and they were taught to fight with it as another limb. It would be awkward and uncomfortable for Brit to go without it.
But there wasn’t time. Something else hit the door, cracking it fully. Brit jumped back as a boot kicked down the dresser, and managed to get in the first hit, stabbing out as someone tried to enter. There was a howl of pain in the hall.
“You have two minutes,” a voice called. “Surrender the girl or die.”
“What girl?” Grey shouted.
There was another murmur from the hall. Grey felt the swell of magic building, and before she could warn Brit, the door and wardrobe exploded in a shatter of wood. Grey threw a hand in front of her face to protect her eyes.
“Fuckingmaterialists,” Brit groaned—ironic, because Brit too was a fucking materialist.
Grey only had time to bring her hand down and duck out of the swing of a blade. The air was heavy with the sound of metal on metal and the ashy smell of magic—there were four of them, probably two mages and two wells, and she was so incandescently angry that she hadn’t forced Ola to stay inside, that she had been so preoccupied with being separated from Kier that she hadn’t kept the other pairingtogether, that she hadn’tthought. Just past her own fight, Brit dodged a hit, rolled over the bed, and took a lunging swing at one of their opponents that caught them in the shoulder.
Grey gritted her teeth, leaning into the blow she blocked, swinging forward with her off-hand. She caught the man in the ribs, a deep hit that made him suck a breath through his teeth. He withdrew, stumbling back. Grey lunged forward again, driving lower than he expected, getting him in the stomach—he fell to his knees, that flash of disaster clear in his eyes, and she felt the fizzle of a snapped tether.
“Flynn.”
She turned just in time to catch the slash on her arm instead of her back, which hurt like abitchbut wouldn’t kill her.
“This would be so much fucking easier,” Brit seethed, bleeding from their forehead, “withmagic.”
Grey blocked another blow and hazarded a glance at the mage, who’d been forced into a corner.
