Page 106 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

A little louder, little Magnolia repeated, “Nat?”

“Dammit, Magnolia, I said wait!” She jerked her hands from her temples, smacking them on the arms of her chair.

Little Magnolia startled, her gaze dropping to her feet as her lip wobbled. “I just⁠—”

“No, Mags! I have to do this for Ken—it’s important.”

“I think I found⁠—”

“Quiet,” Nat snapped. “Gods, Mags, why don’t you get it?”

I staggered forward a step as the world spun and swayed around me, Portia’s cry of outrage cutting through the words echoing in my mind. Somehow, I straddled the line between then and now, acutely aware of my companion’s distress while an old hollow ache opened in my stomach—the desperate need to show Nathara something I’d found to help Kenna, who’d been hexed by a jealous classmate at Saltwick.

Nat had apologized profusely for her outburst days later…

“But you lost your voice.” The words were soft, hesitant. I found little Mags beside me, her hand still in mine. Strobes of memory flashed—Zehra being recognized on the dais for a spellwork project we’d completed together. A project she’d left me to weave alone when a nomad called her up to go dancing. Then the confrontation. “She told you she had real hierarchy business to worry about and not to be a burden to Nathara.”

Tears burned in my eyes as they welled in hers, and I blinked them away, swallowing thickly. “She didn’t mean it,” I breathed. “She apologized later.”

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t hear her the first time,” little Mags observed. “We looked up to her so much that her dismissal hurt… didn’t it?”

Her earnest curiosity had me nodding. “Yeah, pumpkin, it did. But Zehra loved us—it was just a bad day.”

“We have bad days too.”

Nodding, I agreed, “We do.”

“Your friend’s demons might be winning,” she observed, looking pointedly toward Portia. Her blade now lay discarded in the sand as the last crescent of warmth vanished beyond the distant swell of dunes.

“Portia.” Her name came out like a prayer as I scrambled in her direction, steadier on my feet. “Portia!” Dark eyes snapped to mine, her lip curling as I closed the distance. “It’s not real,” I blurted, pointing frantically toward the sunset. “The shadows are coming!”

With movements too slow, too predatory to be natural, Portia turned her glare toward the horizon as a blanket of darkness settled over the valley.

But it was the steady beat behind us that had my blood running cold.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Wing beats.

Enormous wing beats.

“Hide,” I demanded, whirling. My eyes jerked skyward, scanning. An enormous smudge of black stood stark against the silver glow, growing closer by the second. My stomach jumped into my chest.

“Balorath.” The name whooshed out of me. I flexed my hands at my sides, inventorying my magic.

“What?” Portia snapped, still looking at me like she wasn’t entirely convinced I wasn’t her enemy.

“We have to hide.” I grabbed her hand and bolted back toward our bags, praying Ally had left me something useful.

“Where?” she barked, but followed clumsily. “There’s nothing out here.”

“Trust me when I tell you we cannot tackle this demon alone.”

“What kind?”