Page 54 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“I didn’t sense any of your magick when I was close to her, especially when I picked her up.” And took her on that whirlwind tour for this test. “Did you?”

Martar exhaled slowly and shook his head.

“It’s her, then,” murmured Rocharde. “She’s somehow shielded you.”

Condorr’s thoughts boomed again: Poor bastard. But then he said aloud, “Doesn’t this break the Accords? A mortal seeing through the cloaking. And I know Gellar’s got Bellus filling out the paperwork on bending the Accords, because—”

“She is a strategic vulnerability. If Katarra identifies her, she becomes leverage.” And Zarek would not let Katarra do that to her.

“But you’ve just taken a mortal into Paradox.” Rocharde raised an eyebrow at how big a deal it was.

“You know I’d never break the Accords. Remember, our commander has exercised our Sworn Exarch authority; we’re just following orders.”

“She’s going to kill you, you know.” Condorr rubbed his cheek in the same place where Zarek had been slapped, fighting the grin.

“Yeah…” Zarek exhaled heavily.

Martar’s mouth twitched, also fighting a smirk. “You did kidnap her.”

“I removed her from danger.” Zarek scowled.

“And now you need to make peace with—”

“A wildcat. Who is probably tearing my chambers apart.”

Condorr shared a choked laugh, while Rocharde wiped his hand over his mouth, which did nothing to hide his low chuckle, as Martar’s cocky grin grew.

“It would’ve been easier if this had fallen to you, Martar. You know how to handle women.” Zarek raked his gloved fingers through his hair; it was a rare tell. He had faced battlefields, fire and death without hesitation, yet where did he begin with her?

Whatever this Claiming thing was, it felt like the beginning of something irreversible.

But he was a warrior trained to face any battle. So he headed home to Paradox.

TWENTY-THREE

“You absolute psycho!” Angela’s voice ricocheted off stone walls and olde-worlde furnishings that didn’t exist in any country she knew. One moment she’d been in the church parking lot, safe beneath ordinary sunny skies, car keys in hand and asphalt under her shoes. The next, she’d been slung over Zarek’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dragged across a blur of places: the closed bookshop; a bar where the air tasted different, like she’d been in another country; someone’s house that was part museum; then what looked like Singapore in the nighttime instead of daylight; and now this place.

Zarek had set her down as if she’d weighed nothing. Told her to stay like some pet, then vanished.

“I hate your disappearing act!” she shouted at the air where he’d been, as if the universe might cough him back up.

Humiliation blended with rage, along with a flare of fear she refused to let thicken, as she rushed towards the towering wooden door, gripped the brass handle and turned.

Locked.

She tried again, tugging at the handle, but there was no give.

She rushed to the other side of the room and wrenched at the windows. They didn’t budge either.

Yet what lay beyond the glass made her eyes widen. Rolling lush green open fields, without a fence anywhere, only a deep forest that blanketed the horizon. A silver river lazily carved its way through the landscape, where sunlight made it sparkle like silver coins. Horses, cattle, even sheep and goats, grazed in the distance. But that was it.

There were no roads that sliced through the land, no ugly power lines, streetlight poles, towering roadside signs, not even asphalt or sidewalks. There were no rooftops of any form, not even the hazy smoke as a hint of congested traffic.

There were no traffic noises of any kind.

No planes carved their way like white scars across the sky, which was such a clear, vivid cornflower blue; it was endless. No cars, sirens, car horns, motorbike screams, or music muffled by cars with engines that echoed for miles. All that was left was this middle-of-nowhere country kind of silence, when minutes ago, she was pretty much on the edge of a suburban sprawl, in a church parking lot, where even then she could hear the traffic not too far away.

“Where the hell am I?”