Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(15)

“That’s fascinating.” I crouched down to get a better look at the pigeon. It turned its head to look at me in that strange, stilted way birds have about them, and I could swear I saw it ruffle its feathers. But when I reached out to touch it, my finger simply passed through it, though a magical tingle skipped up my nerves. “So how does it work? And can it travel very long distances?”

“Not more than a few hundred miles, unfortunately,” Elnos admitted. “And imbuing it with the message you want to transmit is a tricky business. You certainly can’t send more than a few sentences. Thankfully, from what we’ve been able to determine, Noria is still in Canalo for now, so we should be able to use these.”

“But won’t somebody notice a glowing blue pigeon flying through the air?” I asked. “If someone catches you at the camp, you’ll be outed for sure.”

Elnos shook his head. “When the pigeons are launched into the air, they turn into a blue mist that blends in with the atmosphere, and they don’t regain their shape again until they arrive at their destination. Once they deliver their message, the spell is finished, and the pigeon will disappear. I’ll have to be careful I’m not seen when I send messages, and I won’t be able to receive them, but otherwise, this should work.”

“Well, it’s very brave of you to be willing to do that, and I hope you’re extra careful,” I told him. Should I warn him not to underestimate the Resistance? But no, Annia already knew how dangerous they could be. Between an experienced, wily enforcer and a resourceful mage, surely they would be all right. Besides, someone needed to go knock some sense into Noria, and I couldn’t go. Annia was the best person for the job, and who was I to stop her from going after her little sister?

“Here you are.” Elania brought me a steaming mug of faintly purple liquid. It tasted like lavender, mint, and something so bitter that I nearly gagged at the first sip. “Drink up.” She winked at me.

I downed the entire thing in one go, then sat back in my chair and waited.

“Well?” Elania arched an eyebrow. “Anything?”

I smiled apologetically. “It’s helped a little,” I said, and that was true. The ache had eased off slightly, and I didn’t feel quite so hot. “But not that much. I’m afraid my shifter metabolism is working against me in this case.”

Elania pouted. “Well, that’s unfortunate. I’ll see if I can work on an alternate version that can stand up to your stronger system. It should be ready the next time you come by.”

I shook my head, standing. “I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be necessary. I don’t think I’ll be coming by again until the danger has passed and I can be sure the Resistance no longer has me marked for death.”

“But Sunaya,” Comenius protested.

“No.” I turned to face him. “I can’t risk putting you and Elania in danger by association. The Resistance has already proven on more than one occasion that they’re not overly concerned with killing bystanders, and I’m pretty sure they consider anyone who aids me to be their enemy as well. They won’t hesitate to harm any one of you to get to me.”

Comenius sighed, raking a hand through his ash-blond hair. “I can’t argue with that,” he said ruefully. “But promise you’ll keep up your teenage-boy disguise when you’re out and about.”

“Yeah,” Annia agreed. “Nobody would dream of mistaking that disguise for the great and powerful Sunaya Baine. You looked even nerdier than Elnos.”

“Hey!” Elnos complained, and we all laughed, the tension broken.

“I think ‘infamous’ might be a better adjective than ‘great and powerful’,” I told her, coming over for a hug. “But I’ll keep it in mind. Good luck on your trip, both of you. And if you need anything from me at all, let me know.”

I gave everybody goodbye hugs, promising I would see them again once this was all over. Elania pressed a flask of the anti-aphrodisiac into my hand, and I tucked it into one of my pouches before donning my teenage-boy disguise and heading out.

Director Chen had said I was free to join the enforcers if I wanted to make myself useful. So that was exactly what I was going to do.





6





I kept the teenage-boy disguise long enough to make it past the two shopkeepers who guarded the entrance to Witches End, then ducked into the first available alley and changed my illusion to that of Riley Tansom, an enforcer who had retired earlier this year. I hoped that the real Riley hadn’t decided to get back into action, because he’d been well known enough that people would definitely notice if two of us showed up at the Enforcer’s Guild. But since he was getting old and wanted to be with his family, he probably would have gotten them out of the city at the first sign of disaster rather than stay and fight.

I got back onto the bicycle, then headed down to the Enforcer’s Guild in Rowanville. Thankfully, the trip was mostly downhill this time, and the legs pumping the pedals were still my own even if they looked like Tansom’s. Before too long, the tall, dingy grey building that represented Solantha’s law enforcement system came into view, an ugly but necessary eyesore that stood at the edge of Rowanville, and the center of the city. It was rectangular, four stories high, and there were cracks and miniature craters blown out of the stone exterior that hadn’t been there before. All the windows had been boarded up except for one at the very top.