Page 22 of Silver
“That could work,” Niam said, adding, “We could ask her to join us at a location in the direction we’re headed for Altair. She just needs to know we’re mages, though. A bit hard to keep it from her if she’s with us.”
“Are you done being secretive?” Julie sighed from the phone. “I do have work to get back to.”
Xarius unmuted the phone. “Yeah, just one second,” he responded, taking Niam’s hand in his. Niam took Silver’s hand and then Silver took mine, connecting us as we worked to ward the callbetween us and Julie. When we felt it had worked, we exhaled in relief. I gave a “go on” nod to Xarius, who then started explaining.
“Okay, Julie. Listen closely. We’ve secured the phone line so only we and you can hear whatever we say, but since we can’t really ward where you are, you need to only respond in yes or no answers, can you do that?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately.
“Good. Now, we fear you’ll be in danger there, as we believe they want us to come to you and rescue you or something. So, can you meet us at a location and join us? I promise we’ll keep you as safe as possible. None of us likes the thought of you being watched.”
“Um, it’s really not easy replying to that, Xar!” I got her point. She would be leaving her shop for an unknown amount of time and she couldn’t even ask us questions. She sighed, “But yes.”
“I’ll tell you the location. Don’t write it down, but you can put it into your phone GPS. I’ve added security to it.”
“Oh, okay,” she whispered. I could tell she needed more information and Xarius seemed so focused on getting her to us that he wasn’t thinking about other stuff.
I stepped closer to the phone once Xarius had given a location for us to meet her at. “Julie, we’ve secured your phone for tracking but if you send someone a text it won’t work since they can track theirs. Is there anyone you can text to help you out with your stuff? Someone they won’t think to look at? Don’t tell us their name, just yes or no.”
“Yes,” she replied, but sounded unsure of herself. I guessed she was thinking of someone she hadn’t spoken to for a while.
“You need to head on the road in one hour. Act as normal as possible and figure out how to deal with the shop. If something were to happen to the shop, we’ll pay for it ourselves.” We had the money from our gold making business. And since Silver’s ring finger would look perfect with a diamond on it, I’d already started making diamonds to practice for the future.
“Okay,” she said, sounding scared now. I could understand that. She was likely just realizing now how afraid she should be of the mages who were watching her. Not that she knew they were mages yet.
Xarius seemed to notice her voice change, too, and quickly added, “You can trust all of us. It’ll all be fine as soon as you’re awayfrom them, and if they follow you, we’ll be ready for them.” The meet up location was ten hours away from us and if she started driving in one hour, she would likely reach the destination at the same time as us, even with us sleeping here for the night and finding an RV dealer.
They hung up and the worry for his best friend was visible on Xarius’s face as he sat down on their bed, rubbing his hand down his face with a tired expression.
“She’s going to ask Declan for help,” he whispered. “She has no one else that they wouldn’t know to check.”
“And is this Declan a serial killer or something?” Niam asked for all of us.
Xarius shook his head. “He’s her ex-fiancé. And I doubt he’ll even want to help her out.”
“Why not? Did things end badly between them?” Silver asked.
He nodded. “He dumped her because his family didn’t approve of her. He’s from a wealthy family and they threatened to take his money from him.”
“Oh,” Silver and Niam said simultaneously.
“She’s doomed,” Xarius muttered. “Unless she can pack a bag and deal with the shop in under one hour.”
“Why is it so important that she only spends one hour?” I asked, confused.
He sighed. “Because if they somehow overheard her talking on the phone and just her end of it, they might suspect something and call in others to watch her, too. The sooner she’s out of there, the better. But theywillfollow her. Of course they will. So, we just need to be there and get ready for the fight.”
“I really hope they’ll leave her unscathed,” Niam whispered, almost as if he was afraid to jinx us by speaking the words out loud.
“She’ll be safer with us than alone. It’s only a matter of time before they take her and use her as living bait for us,” I reminded them. This was the better option, even if I’d preferred that she was kept out of this. And she would be, as soon as we left Sutiner.
Chapter 20
Silver
Our new destination luckily didn’t diverge too much from where Altair was, and even though we’d looked forward to an amazing breakfast in the morning, we were all up at six am and ready to hit the road.
Altair would sadly have to wait a little, and that hurt. He could be hunted, even if the others didn’t think that would be the case. It was us with magic they were after, and since Tino wasn’t being sent here, Altair wouldn’t be a danger to them.
