went into the building, the more the air smelled like cinnamon and wine, sparking of magic at the edges of my mind. Chatter came from the offices we passed, and slowly the sound of keyboards and phones soothed me. My first impressions of the building began to shift as I began sensing stone walls behind the wallboard and oak floors under the carpet squares. I squinted at the ceiling, wondering if I could smell incense embedded in the thick, cracked paint. In my thoughts, the drone of prayers being offered up tickled the folds of my mind.
“Attic?” Trent said as we found an elevator alcove.
“Attic,” I agreed, hitting the call button and hoping that the plans that Ivy had e-mailed me were correct and that the elevator went all the way. The stairs didn’t, having been boarded up ages ago.
In a flash of sparkles, Jenks arrowed back, wings clattering a harsh warning. “Hide,” he said shortly, and Trent spun to look up and down the hall. Someone was coming. The elevator still wasn’t here, and Trent pointed to the stairs.
Pulse fast, I yanked the stairwell door open. “It’s just one flight,” someone complained as I darted in, sliding to the side as Trent surged in after me. Jenks shot up the stairwell, his dust drifting down in a slow cascade as Trent pulled the door shut but for a crack. “And the elevator takes forever,” the man added, his voice louder now that they were right in the hall before us.
I hunched closer, tucking under Trent so I could see. My painted glyph seemed to warm at our closeness, and I held my breath and energy balance both. Two thirtysomethings in office wear stood before the elevators. “Easy for you to say,” the woman said as she pushed the lit call button and rocked back. “You’re not in heels.”
But the man was angling to the stairwell, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. “I’m taking the stairs. I’ll save you a seat,” he promised, and the woman sighed.
“Fine,” she said as she gave the closed silver doors a last look and followed him.
“They’re coming in here,” I muttered. Dropping back, I found my splat gun. Trent shifted to the other side of the door, and Jenks dropped down, gold dust sifting as he hovered right before the stairs. Splat gun pointed, I exhaled, adrenaline bringing me gloriously awake as I grinned at Trent and the glowing mass of magic in his hand as the stairwell’s fire door swung open. The elves came in, jerking to a halt when they saw Jenks.
“Hi!” Jenks said as I took aim. “You’re both up on your insurance, right?”
“Wha-a-at?” the man said, and then the woman gasped as she saw me.
“Sorry,” I said, meaning it, and then she shrieked as I pulled the trigger and the puff of air shot through me.
“Voulden,” Trent whispered, and the mass of magic in his hand shifted, taking on his intent even as he threw it at the man.
“Too much!” I exclaimed as I felt his magic manifest as if it were my own. It was elven. I’d never seen it before, but through Hodin’s curse, it was as if I had been casting it my entire life. Trent was using way too much energy. It was going to burn the man’s synapses, not stun him.
Breath held, I tried to pull some of it back, but it slipped through my mental fingers like sand and I only managed a fraction of the excess. Trent’s gold-and-red-smeared spell hit the man in the chest and exploded in a blinding flash as the two dropped, crashing into each other as they went down. The man practically glowed under Trent’s overdone magic, and I thought I smelled burning hair as he lurched to catch them.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Tex!” Jenks said, his dust spilling brightly. “I think you got ’em!”
Trent straightened from easing them to the floor, his eyes wide as he looked at his hand before shaking the last of the glowing trails out. “I see what you mean about doubling the effect of your magic,” he muttered, giving me a scared look. “It feels like more than that to me, though. I was only trying to knock him unconscious, not put him in a coma. Thanks for pulling some of it back.”
“He’s in a coma?” Worried, I pushed myself up from the wall to look at him as Trent checked his pulse. Crap on toast, Hodin hadn’t been kidding. Mix this