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I haven’t felt the scourge sorcerers calling for me since Ivy’s kidnapping. It seems likely that the one she killed to save herself was the same one who tried to steal me back more than once.
With each of my counterparts we send to what should be a meeting with our Black Talons associates, my own sense of freedom expands. The ground might as well be softening beneath my feet, leaving me floating as much as walking.
It still amazes me how many physical sensations have nothing to do with the concrete world at all. The way emotions shape these bodies of matter into something more than flesh.
A man marches into the square out of a side-street. He doesn’t have an official uniform on, but my senses give another twinge.
I hold out my hand to Ivy, and she passes me another butterfly.
After my murmured instructions, it weaves through the air toward the man. It circles over his head once and descends to cling to the cuff of his sleeve.
The man stares down at it with a tighter expression than any of the other daimon we’ve approached. Before my pulse can do more than stutter once, he gives a sharp yell of alarm. His head jerks around, searching the crowd for the source of the intrusion.
My heart outright lurches—and then Ivy is shoving the mesh cage into my hands while yanking off her own charm.
She grips my forearm. “I’ll divert him like we planned. Get back to the wagon and go to the next square.”
With that, she’s off and running, pushing through the crowd much more clumsily than I know she’s capable of.
Because she wants the guard to notice her. She wants him to notice her before he notices me.
In that first instant as I see him spin toward the disturbance, a flood of panic rushes through me. A cry of my own jolts to the back of my throat.
We did talk about this strategy. Ivy’s better at sneaking away from people—I’m the one the willing daimon are most likely to trust. It makes sense.
But if that guard or the other Order members catch her—if Lothar gets his hands on her again?—
I could yell. I could bring the guard’s attention back to me, and she wouldn’t have to put herself in that danger.
I wouldn’t have to risk losing her. Only myself.
My pulse is pounding frantically, but somehow that hasty rhythm is what grounds me. It reminds me of the way my heart skipped the first time Ivy kissed me, the first time our bodies melded together. The first time she told me she loved me, not that long ago.
I love her too. I love her. I love her.
That’s all the frenetic beat is telling me. Not that I’m doing something wrong or that she won’t escape this danger.
I want her to come back. I want her to be okay.
It will hurt so much if she doesn’t.
But she’ll be hurt if I break from the plan. If I act as if she can’t look after herself and ruin everything we’ve been fighting for out of my fear of pain.
And how good will it feel when she comes back to me, grinning at her success and wanting to hear of mine?
A girl near me is gaping at the mesh cube I’m clutching. I shake myself out of my frozen daze and hustle back to the wagon.
As I go, I grab my charm from my pocket. I duck behind the vehicle, slip the chain back over my neck to vanish, and dive inside.
“It’s time to go to Finnacle Square,” I call to the driver. “Ivy will meet us there.”
She will. I know she will. She always makes it back.
That fact doesn’t stop me from fidgeting as the wagon rocks its way to the second square we picked out about a half a mile across the sprawling city from the first. When the wheels halt, I hesitate and force myself to inhale deeply, settling my nerves.
I have my own work to do here. A real partner would focus on that, not on worrying about the part that’s not his.
Easing out of the wagon, I spot the first daimon right away. There’s a slim, sinewy man in an Order uniform patrolling around the edge of the square.
