Page 33
His eyes stayed on her for a moment, the third expression again, the unnamed one. “Orange, probably.”
The residential boundary emerged through the trees, and the ward lines shifted underfoot — familiar, domestic, home. The Lantern stopped between them.
Not forward. Not back. Planted equidistantly in the middle of the path, committed to the middle of the path.
Subtle.
“It’ll find its way home.”
“Or it’s not ready to leave.” Her eyes went to the Lantern. The Lantern, she was certain, regarded Tor. “I’ve been thinking about the pattern. My creatures are calmer when I’m calmer. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been —” she chose the words “— consistently more stable in certain company. The Lantern is probably picking that up.” He held still. Not the reading-a-room still. The other kind, the one where he was receiving information he had no intention of setting aside. “I’m not saying it’s you. I’m saying Bexley would put it in orange.”
“What does orange mean?”
“Data that keeps producing more data the more you look at it. Or something like that.” The Lantern drifted to Mirelle’s side and gently bumped her hand. She didn’t lower her eyes.
Something in his face had decided something. “There’s a meadow half a mile east. Higher magical concentration — better ambient conditions for the technique.”
“You want to take me to a magic meadow.”
“I want to expand the training location options.”
“In a meadow.”
“With better ambient conditions.”
“Tor, you are inviting me on a walk to a meadow.”
“I’m suggesting a secondary training location with significantly better ambient conditions.”
“I know what you’re suggesting. I’m saying it out loud because one of us should.”
He held her gaze for a moment. The Lantern glowed steadily between them, like a creature that had engineered this exact situation and wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. “Thursday?”
“Thursday.” He headed back up the trail. Her eyes followed him: the way he moved, the back of his neck above his collar. Then she firmly redirected herself toward the residential street.
Orange. The whole thing. Orange.
The Lantern bumped her hand again, enormously pleased with itself. “I know,” she told it. “Don’t.”
The Lantern glowed.
TEN
TOR
The alert came in shortly before midnight, and Tor was dressed and out the door before it finished loading. Ward cliffs, northern approach. Four contacts, then a fifth behind them. All modified. Not heading for the ward line but for the paths behind it. The residential streets.
He backed out of the driveway and pulled up the patrol schedule: the extra coverage he’d added after the pillar fracture, the positions and timing he’d changed three days ago and sent to four people. The contacts were moving through the gaps.
They know where we’re not.
He called Drayce. “Cliffs. Now. Modified assault. They’ve timed it to the patrol rotation.”
“I’ll be there.” Drayce didn’t ask how Tor could tell. Drayce never asked. Tor called Maelin. Then Pike. Then he pulled up Mirelle’s readings, habit now or past it, and saw her area already elevated. The ward flagged it before anyone else. She would feel it. Last time, she did.
He drove faster.
He had been patrolling this coast long enough to tell the difference between the ward under stress and the ward under attack.
