clothes.
Eclipse galloped at our side, her body long and lean as she ran wilder than the wind.
As we galloped, there was something silvery about the moment.
It was like the night mares were glowing from within. The bony, malnourished look blurred and faded, and between the tears from the wind and the weirdness of the moment, it was like a silvery shadow enveloped them, and I felt a beauty beyond words.
I blinked, and the feeling was gone, but the night mares pounded along, their hooves tossing clods of dirt and turf as we raced between the blue lakes, closing in on the end of the path.
Soon, we’d rejoin the other racers.
I only hoped we could scoot to safety before they started fighting.
Chapter Thirty
Rigel
“There goes Lord Umer into the park—he’s just used his cheat,” King Solis grunted. “He rides a sun stallion—I’m almost certain he uses a portal to jump from this park to the one farther east, but I don’t know how he does it with wards.”
“Look!” Lord Linus pointed to the queen.
Leila had gotten the night mares off the boardwalk, and they were now galloping down what appeared to be a small walking trail or bike path.
But galloping wasn’t a strong enough word—the night mares were moving so swiftly they were streaks of black rippling through reality.
The drone was struggling to keep them within sight, they were moving that fast.
Murmurs of surprise broke out through the crowd, and when I looked at the largest TV screen—which marked out where the participants were on the map—I joined them.
“By the holy—she’s in the front,” I said.
The night mares—moving at speeds no other mount could ever catch them at and using a path that cut off a great deal of the distance the other riders had traveled—were closing in on the finish line. Fast.
Their black dots skipped across the screen, visibly faster than all the other participants.
They’re going to win. Because the night mares love her—they’re going to win!
Chapter Thirty-One
Leila
The night mares slowed down to a trot when we crossed a wooden bridge and the walking/bike trail melded with the boardwalk, and then we crossed into one of the small, city run beaches, that was just off main street.
I exhaled, and glanced back at my night mares. “You guys are amazing!” I praised as we crossed the five parking spaces marked out in front of the beach and stepped into the main drag of downtown Magiford. “We just have to go due east, and we’re finished!”
The night mares started to adjust their strides—getting ready to rock into a canter—when the feeling of magic slammed into me, and I slumped over Blue Moon’s neck.
It was a confusing mix of sensations—the unforgiving hardness of metal, but the wild abandon of vines of ivy slowly taking over a garden. It was the edge of the sword, and the softness of feathers.
This wasn’t fae magic, or any kind of wizard or shifter magic. It was something I had never felt before. And whatever it was, it felt old and beyond my reckoning.
What is that?
“Hold up.” I held my arm out to stall the night mares as I twisted wildly in my saddle, trying to track down the sensation as I peered up and down the empty street.
I didn’t see anything, except for a spot of shadows that seemed weirdly placed. Or maybe it was that it didn’t sit quite right.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled my prism from the pocket of my breeches. What scared me was that the familiar flood of magic that flowed through the prism didn’t bring the usual reassurance.
Instead, it seemed to amplify the weird shadow.
As I watched, the shadow moved, crawling toward us.
It stopped, and I heard a sniffing noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Then, a creature popped out of the shadows, jumping into the human world.
Its torso was shadowy and incorporeal, as it swung short but thick arms tipped with hands that had too few fingers and ended in claws. Smoke seemed to swirl around it and trail behind the tips of its claws, leaving black gouges in the air. Its legs were long and spindly with too many toes, a gross contrast to its head—which seemed to flicker back and forth between the smooth head of a bird with a jagged beak, and the flat, smashed face of something uncomfortably humanoid but eerily alien.
It raised its head to the sky and roared—or, at least, I think it did. Rather than exhaling a