We just stand there.
Adraa huffs. “This is getting awkward.”
The wizard holding her presses his red knife into Adraa’s throat and she hisses in pain.
“Hey! Don’t—”
The knife cuts into me and I jerk. “I said, ‘Not a word.’ ”
“I think it’s protocol for you to give your demands, you know, eventually,” Adraa says.
The way Adraa is talking, these aren’t Vencrin.
“I was sent to bring you two in for questioning. So we—”
“That’s not going to happen,” Adraa says calmly.
And if not Vencrin, then that leaves only one other option.I just hope they are the good ones.
“It’s orders from Maharaja Belwar himself,” the man behind me says.
Adraa scoffs. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Then you are going to have to answer our questions here.”
“No.”
“Hey!” I yell.
“What?” our assailants both shout.
“Can I at least turn around during this conversation?” I ask.
“Uh, sure. Slowly.” The pressure of the knife releases.
I turn, hands still raised, to find a boy around my age, straight hair, strong jaw, an orange kurta with the Belwar crest that looks a tad too big for him. No wonder Adraa isn’t worried.
“First, you two are going to take off those masks,” the boy demands.
I glance at Adraa, who is gesturing with her eyes toward the knife in the guard’s hand. It’s a real knife, steel and all, which means—
Still too risky with the purple magic at her throat. I shake my head slightly.
She rolls her eyes and gestures again. As if yelling at me with her eyes will make me gamble her life.
“Hey. Masks. Off. Now.”
Movement breaks the stillness. The guard holding Adraa grunts. A loud thud echoes.Blood.
In one clean swipe, I smash the guard’s wrist and the glimmer of silver snaps into black smoke. An illusion. Gods, I hate black fortes. A whip of black smoke lashes forward and I call to the wind, blowing space between us and tearing at his purple magic. For a second he looks at me, then his arms blaze and darkness coats his skin.
Adraa steps forward and mirrors his stance, red flames and all. Lightning cracks the sky and the three of us glow. I shift, letting magic well up my arms to pull his attention toward me in the hope we can still talk our way out of this. “Listen, we are not your enemy. We’re trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” the guard says.
I sigh. “I think you do. There are guards working for the Vencrin.”
The guard tries to hide his surprise. He fails, his hurt visible. “That’s not…they wouldn’t. How do you know that?”