Page 33 of The Sorcerer's Thief
“No, not Slinger.” Arguing with Cricket is fast becoming my favorite pastime. “But I’ll try it with you if you like.” We’ve been chatting about gating since lunch, which was hours ago. He has so many questions.
“Let me get this straight.” He quirks a brow. “You won’t risk the horse, but you’ll risk me?”
“I didn’t say that, but essentially yes, I’d risk you before Slinger. She’s innocent.”
Slinger snuffles as if agreeing with me. Why do we even have a horse? Neither of us is riding her. Instead, the three of us make slow progress southward, walking day in and day out. Light fluffy clouds dot the sky, the sort that brings occasional passing shade but not rain.
Cricket bats his pretty eyelashes at me. “And I’m not?”
“Not even close. You’re a menace.”
“I’m a pleasure.”
“You’re a thorn in my side.”
“You’re the one following me. Or did you forget?”
“I wouldn’t be if you’d hand over the coin.” And we’ve come full circle. Always back to the coin. I need it. The farther south I get without it, the more uneasy I feel. “Speaking of which, we should stop early tonight. I want to claim my winnings.”
“Tell me again why you want it so badly?” His tone is teasing. He isn’t expecting a real answer.
This has become a game for us and another excuse for me to make up stories. With any luck, one of them will work on him.
Eventually.
“Why, to throw into a wishing well, of course. So I can ask for my heart’s true desire.”
“Which is?”
“A man-eating snapping turtle to guard our camp.”
“Not your best work.” Cricket gives me a courtesy chuckle anyway. “But seriously, if you can gate holding an object in your hands, and the object makes the journey with you, wouldn’t you be able to take another person in the same fashion?”
“Is this your way of asking me to hold you? Because if you need a hug, you can just say so. We don’t have to gate anywhere for that.”
He huffs. “You’re not the hugging type. It’s obvious.”
“That so?”
“And no, I don’t want a hug. I was thinking you could spare us a lot of walking by simply gating us to Irondale.”
A cool sliver of dread grips my spine. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Explain.”
“Do not presume to order me around.”
“Sorry.” More lash fluttering. “Please explain?”
“You rile me.”
“Someone ought to,” he mutters under his breath.
I shouldn’t find his rude behavior so beguiling. “Gating somewhere I’ve never been is dangerous without help. Either Ineed to be familiar with the place, or I need an actual gate on the other end, and those are rare. Perhaps another mage who’s expecting me would work, but I’ve never tried that. A magical object—like the coin—calls out like a beacon, which is why I can gate to you, or it rather, but gating is a finite skill, too temperamental to experiment with.”
“You just said you’d try it with me but not Slinger. How is that not an experiment?”
“I meant from one hill to the next. A spot in plain sight, not halfway across Luminia, you lunatic. Who knows what would happen if we tried that? And aside from those caveats, the only place I know of in Irondale is a place I never want to see again.” To my utter embarrassment, my voice cracks, and he flashes his brown gaze in my direction. “If you knew, you’d never ask it of me.”
