“I know,” Jayna said.
Not just dangerous, but it was the kind of magic she didn’t really enjoy placing, the kind of magic she feared using, worried it might imply she’d turned toward dark magic. When she’d used it, though, she didn’t have sinister intentions. She had done it simply to try to prevent Matthew from getting more deeply involved in something he shouldn’t. She had done it as a way of protecting him.
“I know what it’s like to lose memories,” Eva said.
“This is different,” Jayna said.
“Is it?”
“I did it to protect him.”
“What if somebody did it to me to protect me?”
Jayna didn’t have an answer for that, though she wondered if that were really the case. She looked down at the enchantment that Matthew had and squeezed her hand around it.
She recognized it. A linking spell.
She could follow that power.
She used the linking spell to guide her into the distance, and she felt energy flowing, a surge of it that continued to roll through her. It was near—and she wasn’t surprised that the spell led her to the tavern where she had first met Matthew.
Why had he brought them there in the first place?
Eva frowned, smoke drifting around her slightly. “Something’s off,” she repeated.
“You mean other than the ongoing explosions around us?”
Eva looked in her direction. “Other than that.”
“You’re right,” Jayna said. “It’s this city. Something is very much off here.”
Unfortunately, she still didn’t know what it was or what it would take for them to deal with it, but the power occurring all around her in the city was prominent.
She stared at the tavern, watching it for a moment, when she realized something else. There was another trail of smoke coming from it. The Ashara was here.
She grabbed Eva’s wrist, motioning for her to step off to the side, and Jayna held her hand out, clutching the dragon stone, readying the bloodstone within the ring to call that smoke off.
“Look at the smoke,” Jayna said.
She could see the heaviness of it and feel the energy drifting toward her, but she didn’t know why it was so pronounced.
The linking spell had guided her though. This was where they needed to go.
This was where Matthew had intended to go.
Jayna looked around again and pushed open the door to the tavern.
Eva came with her, moving carefully, slowly, and as they looked around, Jayna searched for any sign of movement, anything to suggest they were going to be under attack, but the tavern appeared empty. The last time they been here, the booths had all been filled with people, though the city had changed since that time.
She stopped in the middle of the tavern, continuing to search, her gaze drifting everywhere. She still focused on the smoke that fluttered along the ground and the energy she could feel within the linking spell, the enchantment that drew her to whatever was going on here.
“They’re here,” she whispered, looking around her.
“Who?”
Jayna shook her head. “Whatever it is that Matthew was a part of.”
As before, the tavern was arranged as a series of booths with large wooden partitions dividing them, providing absolute privacy for those within each booth. Jayna wouldn’t even be surprised if there were enchantments placed into the partitions to mute sound. It made for a good place to have quiet conversations—dangerous conversations.
She still didn’t see any sign of anyone else. The tavern was empty.
She motioned for Eva to follow her.
They headed through the tavern as Jayna held on to the enchantment, using that power to guide her, but the linking spell had limits. She worried that if she wasn’t careful, she would reach one of its limits and be caught unawares.
Eva stopped, closing her eyes and squeezing her hands into tight fists. Droplets of blood trickled below. As they did, smoke began to swirl, then she sent it sweeping out.
She opened her eyes and pointed. “There. An opening.”
“What kind of opening?”
“A familiar one.”
They headed toward the opening, toward the back of the tavern, and there was a staircase leading to a door—and as Eva had suggested, it looked familiar, like what she had seen at Raollet’s shop and at the outpost.
“Why another one of these?” she whispered, not expecting Eva to respond. They started down the stairs, and Jayna began to pull the smoke into the ring, leading Eva to glance in her direction. “It’s not going to go well if they try to sever my connection to magic.”
“You reveal your presence by doing that.”
“I don’t think it matters anymore,” Jayna said as she hurried down the stairs.
The bottom of the staircase was no different from the one in Raollet’s shop or the one in the outpost. Another door.
Jayna held her hand up against it then pushed power through it.
The door came open with a crack.
Smoke billowed out at her.
Jayna reacted, calling on the smoke, pulling it into the dragon stone and the bloodstone, siphoning it off. Then she immediately squeezed it out, against the enchantments she knew would be there. She sent smoke streaking away, collapsing against the walls, then she charged forward.
Only to freeze.
The room was filled. A dozen people, maybe more. They all looked at her, watching her, all of them holding on to enchantments.
But none of that was what caught her attention in full.
It was the man standing across from her.
He had dark hair, pale skin, and smoke swirled around his feet.
“Asaran,” she whispered.
Jayna pulled the smoke off of him, sucking it into the bloodstone.
There were no fires here. No hearth. Nothing to regenerate him. She would call the smoke off, and she would prevent him from targeting her again. She was determined to keep him from striking her with his strange power.
Asaran called upon his magic and pushed out more smoke.
Jayna had to fight. She pulled on the smoke, drawing it back to her. There was considerable energy fighting against her, more power than she thought she could withstand, but she continued in her struggle to draw it off.
The energy continued to build, and she continued to fight.
Had she not pushed some of the smoke out against the walls to mute the enchantments, she might not have had enough strength to resist him, but despite that, she could still feel pressure against her, the way the magic attempted to constrict her access to her own sorcery and to the power within the dragon stone.
“Why are you here?” Jayna asked, striding forward.
She didn’t have a chance to get the answer.
Eva moved out into the open. Smoke pooled out from her, and she sent it toward Asaran, sweeping it around him.
Asaran attempted to shift his smoke, turning it toward Eva, but she focused on him, pulling the power of her own smoke connection around her, and it looped outward, forming a barrier around him. Somebody else in the room, an older man with graying hair, lunged forward, but Eva blocked him with solidified smoke—a technique Jayna hadn’t seen her use before—holding out her hand and preventing any additional movement.
“Why are you here?” It was Eva who demanded an answer this time.
Asaran stared at her, power swirling out from him, but he said nothing.