City of Spells (Into the Crooked Place #2) - Alexandra Christo Page 0,84

away from Wesley, before he could see the look on her face, but Karam was watching her too. Tavia cleared her throat and tried to focus anywhere but on Karam’s hardened stare.

Zekia will try to kill me whether I make eye contact with Karam or not, Tavia thought.

Many Gods, she wanted more than anything to tell Wesley. Now more than ever she needed to hear him say that things would be okay, but revealing that possible future would mean him turning his back on his new family for her. Tavia knew what it meant to lose family, and she wouldn’t be the reason that Wesley threw his away.

“So now we have an idea for a cure, we just need a way into Yejlath,” Tavia said.

“That’s the easy part,” Wesley said. “Yejlath is a central city, so it’s bordered on all sides.”

“Meaning we could access it on foot through Tisvgen,” Tavia said, with a slow nod. “Or—”

“Creije,” Wesley said. “We go at it from Creije.”

He had a look of determination in his eye that Tavia knew was never a good thing.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Saxony said. “Creije has been entirely conquered by Ashwood. It’ll be heavily guarded. He won’t want to lose that stronghold.”

Wesley did not budge. “That’s why we need to take it back. We can split our forces, so half go to Yejlath and the other half stay on in Creije to take the city back.”

“But Creije will be full of Ashwood’s soldiers.”

Wesley looked overly irritated by Saxony’s interruption. “Creije is our home,” he said. “So we have an advantage that Ashwood and his army will never have. I know every street in that city like the back of my hand. Every turn and nook and where every shadow falls. I could navigate my way through Creije blindfolded, with a million enemy soldiers, and still never be caught.”

Tavia didn’t doubt it and she knew in her heart of hearts that she could do the same. Creije was home to them all, in some way. Tavia’s family may not have come from there, but she was made in that city. She was shaped and she knew it just as well as it knew her.

“Okay,” Saxony said. “There’s still just one problem.”

“Of course you have a problem,” Wesley said.

Saxony turned to him, hands on her hips like a scolding parent. “You can get through Creije blindfolded. And, Many Gods, maybe the three of us could too. We could run through the shadows unseen. We could become shadows. But that’s four people, not an army.”

The three of them looked at each other in silence, their frowns a mirror, and the exasperation in the air like a wave of darkness dimming any light they saw in their plan.

Thankfully, Tavia wasn’t so easily swayed.

“Time,” she said. “We could use time to sneak everyone into the city.”

“Like bang, one moment we’re here and the next we’re in the future, on Ashwood’s doorstep?” Wesley asked.

Saxony shook her head. “Time doesn’t work that way. You can’t just skip over it like it’s not there.”

“But you can pause it.” Tavia’s smile was low. “Like we did with Wesley’s explosive barrels back on Ashwood’s hidden island.”

Saxony’s head whipped to face her and a wide grin spread across her lips.

Her grin mirrored Wesley’s so alarmingly that Tavia almost blinked. Many Gods, the similarities between them were so blinding that she felt a little ashamed not to have noticed before. How the lines of their faces curved in the same way and their eyes narrowed in equally frightening measure and when they were both at their most dastardly, their smiles set fire to the skies.

“We can pause everyone but us,” Saxony said. “Make our army immune just like we did before.”

“Do you think Schulze will go for it?” Tavia asked. “It’ll mean using Crafter magic, and we all know how much the Doyen hates that.”

“She’ll go for anything that keeps her in power,” Wesley said.

Good priorities, Tavia thought.

She’d be happy when it was over so she could keep clear of any future political battles and the arrogant little bastards who wanted to argue over who got to rule the world.

“Then the four of us can easily sneak into Creije and head for the bridge that divides the city,” Tavia said. “Detonate the time barrels from there, giving half our army the chance to cross into Yejlath unseen and the other half the upper hand when they attack Ashwood’s forces in Creije.”

“But we’d need something lighter than barrels,” Wesley