smeared all over James’ clothing and face today. It was even caked into the left side of his hair.
The twins looked over at James, and quickly caught on to what had me so amused. They let out rough chuckles of their own, but James just had a sour look on his face. Through our bond, I sent James images of our past muddy escapades and followed it up with a mental picture of how he looked now.
James rolled his eyes, but I felt the undercurrent of amusement that he kept hidden from everyone else. “We should keep moving,” he growled in my direction.
My smile faded as I was tossed from fond memories to the cold reality of our current situation. I strode up to the barrier that had escaped my notice until we had crashed into it and tried to look like I knew what I was doing.
I placed my hand on the whisper-thin barrier of magic and marveled at how effective it was. A barely perceptible bit of magic had the power to repel us quickly and violently from whatever lay on the other side.
“We’re getting close,” I murmured. “This is magic that I haven’t seen from the fae before.”
James grunted, and the twins moved closer to me.
I took a deep breath and leaned forward to place both hands on the barrier at the same time. With my eyes closed, I extended my magical senses into the wall in front of me. Yes, I wanted to figure out a way through, but I was also curious as to how it was made. If I could replicate this around our pack territory, I’d be able to keep all of our wolves safe.
I followed the magic around the length of the barrier and was shocked at just how much ground it covered. It was more than a few square kilometers. I sent tiny threads of my magic through the fine mesh of woven magic that made the barrier. It was solid enough to prevent us from moving through, but fine enough to allow air and water. I followed the weave down to the ground, wondering if I could peel it up to allow us through. To my surprise, the barrier also allowed mud and plant matter to pass through, and it penetrated deep into the ground. I picked up a chunk of mud and tossed it at the wall of magic. The mud sailed across the barrier like there was nothing there and fell with a splat on the other side.
“You did it,” Jason said happily.
“Not yet,” I said with a frown as I held up my hand to stop him from trying to cross. “The barrier doesn’t keep everything from passing through, just us.”
“Huh,” Mason said with a curious tilt to his head. “Does it block animals? Could we get through in our wolf forms?”
All three of the guys stared at me, waiting for my answer. It was times like this that I cursed my lack of magical knowledge. I’d come so far from not even knowing that magic existed, but there was still so much that I was ignorant of. My pack relied on me to be a magic expert, and I was falling short.
“Our magical signatures don’t change when we shift,” I said slowly as I thought it through. “It’s only our physical shape that’s different.”
“Uh,” Jason said with a scratch of his head. “This might be kind of obvious, but why don’t you just make a gateway to the other side?”
My jaw dropped at his simplistic solution. “That’s a good point, Jase,” I said with a smile. “Making a gateway rips two separate holes in reality, and it wouldn’t require us to go through the barrier at all.”
“It can’t be that easy,” James grumbled. “Otherwise, the fae would have already been here.”
“Why would they bother?” Mason asked with a frown. “They’d risk waking a sleeping god and reigniting a war that they lost.”
I nodded slowly in agreement. “One thing that I learned from watching Drake try to win the throne of Winter is that the fae avoid direct confrontation when possible. They prefer sneaky attacks when they’re guaranteed to win, and they aren’t willing to risk their immortality.”
James looked at me skeptically.
“I’m doing this,” I said firmly.
“Pull from us if you need magic,” James said grudgingly. “And let us go through the gateway first.”
I gave him a wry look. Let him go first into a magical bubble protecting a sleeping god? No chance. I was the only