Page 73 of Crossroads Magic
“Try picking it up.”
I glanced at him. He was smiling.
“Go on,” he coaxed.
That warned me. Cautiously, I bent and reached out toward the rock. Within a few inches of it, I could feel something resisting my reach. Like magnets repelling each other.
“It’s fighting me off.”
“That is the power of the warding spell. You can push past it, though, if you try.”
I reached again, and this time fought against the sensation of resistance. My hand slid closer, until my fingers touched the rock itself. It felt warm, not cold, as I expected it to. I put my fingers around it to lift it.
It refused to break contact with the ground.
I stood up, and rubbed my fingertips.
“That force, holding it to the ground, is not one you can break, nor any mortal man, once the warding spell has been invoked,” Trevalyan said.
“But you come to check on them, anyway?”
Trevalyan’s smile brightened. “It’s something to do.”
I laughed. Then we turned around and headed back toward the town, this town that apparently guarded and took care of people.
So why did I feel so uneasy?
?
When we reached the edge of the town where the houses began, I saw Juda on the north side of the road, heading toward the crossroad. He walked with his arms around himself.
“He looks cold,” I observed.
“Juda is always cold,” Trevalyan said.
The son of jinns. Did his middle eastern ancestry have something to do with that?
Juda walked at an uneven pace, sometimes stopping for a moment.
“Is he alright?” I asked, watching him weave from side to side across the sidewalk.
“I suspect not,” Trevalyan said. “He’s overdue.”
“For one of his…turns?” Did Ghaliya know of this about Juda? I badly wanted to ask her.
“That’s probably putting it too dramatically,” Trevalyan said. “Juda hears things we cannot. You see things we cannot. Should we judge him negatively for his ability, while praising yours?”
“I hadn’t looked at it that way,” I admitted.
We came up on either side of Juda, and he glanced from side to side, taking us in.
“Heading for the fireplace, Juda?” Trevalyan said, his tone sympathetic.
“The temperature has dropped in the last two hours,” Juda observed. “There is no cloud cover to keep in the warmth.”
“If only Hirom served mulled wine. Now, that would warm your toes for you,” Trevalyan said.
“I’ve never tried it,” I confessed. “I read about it all the time.”
