“I said let go. You don’t know where you’re going.”
He released her hand and she ran, zigzagging between the shelves, Kaldar a step behind. They passed the pedestal with the book still on it. It was still open to Magdalene Moonflower’s portrait. If they survived this, she would be their next stop, and the Hand didn’t need to know that. Audrey lunged for the book, nearly colliding with Kaldar.
“The page,” he barked, bumping into her.
“I know!”
Audrey grabbed the book and ripped a handful of pages free. Kaldar ran his fingers along the seam, pulling little clumps of paper out, until no evidence of the pages remained, and shoved the pedestal. The giant volume crashed to the floor, closing. Audrey dashed to the back of the house, through a side room, and to the small door. Kaldar grabbed the handle and strained.
“Locked.”
No dead bolt, only a keyhole. “Let me.” Audrey pressed her palm against the keyhole and let her magic seep into the lock. Three, two . . .
The lock clicked. She pushed the handle and ran out into the open air. Ling sprinted into the forest, passing her.
Kaldar drew even. “Keep moving,” the agent murmured. “Keep moving.”
They scurried into the trees.
“Which way is the cliff?” he whispered.
What? Had he lost his mind? “Straight on.”
“Lead the way.”
She broke into a run.
Behind them, something clanged with a heavy metal thud. Audrey glanced over her shoulder. The metal shutters on the house were snapping closed one by one, locking it down. Anxiety squeezed her chest. She remembered when Gnome first showed her his “defense system.” He was trapped within the house, like a sardine in a can.
She looked back again. People in green and brown converged from the grass and trees, climbing onto the house, one from the left, the other two from the right. A man crawled over the roof, moving on all fours. He raised his head. His eyes bored straight into her.
For a second she stopped in her tracks, frozen by the sudden fear. A strange, revolting feeling flooded Audrey, grasping her stomach and throat and crushing both. Nausea writhed through her. The tiny hairs on the backs of her arms rose.
The man opened his mouth. A long black tongue flailed among a forest of long, needle-thin fangs.
Magic washed over Audrey in a sickening miasma, clinging to her skin. Tiny jaws nibbled on her flesh, trying to worm their way inside. Audrey spun and dashed through the woods. Tree trunks flashed by. She ran like she had never run before in her life, all but flying over the forest floor, trying to get away from the awful magic. Her feet crushed undergrowth. The magic chased her. She could feel it flooding the woods behind her.
A shotgun barked, its fire like thunder: Boom! Boom!
A high-pitched shriek tore through the forest, spurring her on. Something had caught the full blast of Gnome’s fire.
Boom!
Glass shattered. Something thumped.
Boom!
A hoarse howl lashed her ears, and she knew it was Gnome screaming his life out.
The trees ended, and she skidded to a stop on a carpet of brown pine needles. Ahead, the ground stopped, as if cut by a giant’s knife. A vast blue-green valley stretched far below.
Kaldar shot out of the woods, and she caught him and spun him around.
“What now? They’re coming.”
Kaldar pulled his bag open and took out a small bronze sphere the size of a tennis ball. He squeezed its sides, lifted it to his mouth, and exhaled. The sphere buzzed like an angry beehive and unrolled into a metal wasp.
“Gaston,” Kaldar said.
The wasp shivered. Thin golden membranes of twin wings rose from its back. With a faint whir, the insect took to the air and streaked away, behind the mountain.
Kaldar pulled a coin from his pocket. “Do you trust me?”
“No!”
“Well, you’re going to have to.” He gripped her hand. “Whatever you see, hold still. If you move, it’s over. Not a sound.”
The coin in his hand turned white. A transparent shiver spread from the coin, sliding over his hand, his elbow, his shoulder, and rolling over her. She thrust her left hand into her pocket. The reassuring cold of Grandma’s cross slid against her fingers.
The coin’s magic swallowed them. Colors slid over the outer surface of the spell bubble and snapped together, mimicking the fallen log and the trees around them. They blended into the forest, invisible.
She’d heard about this. The mirror spell, the one that gave the Mirror its name. So Kaldar hadn’t lied after all.
Tiny needles pricked her skin. Fear slid down her back like an ice cube melting along her spine. Audrey froze.
The foul magic caught up with them. It seeped through the mirror barrier and dug at her skin, trying to pry her open.
Kaldar squeezed her hand.
The bushes rustled.
A man stepped out into the clearing. He moved hunched forward, neck stretched out, as if he were a hunting dog who had somehow learned to walk upright and was tracking its prey. Green-and-gray camo paint swirled on his face. His long brown hair fell on his back in dozens of tiny braids. He was so close that if she took three steps, she could have touched him.
Heat streaked along her skin, and Audrey had the absurd feeling that she was about to burn alive. She could almost feel the tiny hairs on the backs of her arms curl from the heat. Kaldar’s fingers pressed into her hand gently.
It’s just like a regular job. You’re just standing there, waiting for the security guard to pass before you open the door.
Breathe easy. Breathe easy. You don’t want to get busted, do you?
The man pulled back his cloak, letting it slip off his shoulders. Muscle corded his nude upper body. His frame had no fat at all, and his tan skin hugged his bones, too tight, like a latex glove.