Having finished her first cigarette, she fished out another. “If I pass out, you’ll watch over me, right?”

He nodded, expression grim.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. A voice in the back of her head screamed for a dose of mordid as she stirred up a current that sent the ship racing away from the island, farther than the reach of the soldier’s bullets. Her shields held until Gideon managed to get the boat’s propeller working. He leaned on the throttle, and the boat rocketed across Isolas Bay.

“Where were you?” His voice was a bear’s growl. “You were supposed to show up if things started falling apart.”

She sneered. “Things were always going to fall apart. Taviano’s involvement guaranteed that. This plan was doomed from the start, and I made her no promises. It’s not my fault Evie has unreasonable expectations.”

Gideon’s face turned a deep shade of red. “I should throw you overboard and save her the trouble of dealing with you.”

“You could.” She chuckled and paddled her hands in the air. “But I know how to swim. And I can still be useful. I saved your mangy hide, didn’t I?”

The muscle in his jaw bulged, and she wondered if his teeth would crack from the strain. “I don’t care what happens to me,” he said. “If there’s ever a question, the answer is always: save Evie. Save her at all costs.”

“Funny.” Brigette rolled a shoulder. “She said the same thing about you.”

His fury fled, and he blinked dumbly at her. “She said what?”

“Her last request to me was that no matter what, I had to save you.”

“She shouldn’t have asked you to do that. She should never waste those kinds of resources on me.”

“That’s a subject you’ll have to take up with her when you see her again.”

He grumbled under his breath, his mood darkening as he changed the subject. “Have you sent the signal to Niffin and Malita yet? We’ve got to warn them. Let them know it’s time to move on to Plan B.”

“I have.” She tapped her nose. “It’s been done.” Sighing, she slumped against Gideon, thankful Evie had such good taste in her choice of guardians. Brigette had met plenty of powerful Magicians who’d come in all shapes and sizes, but something about the corporealness of Gideon’s big frame, his solid muscle beneath her cheek, comforted her. Made her feel safe.

She released her hold on the Magic and gave in to her exhaustion, letting consciousness slip away...

She awoke when Gideon lifted her from the boat. She blinked until her vision sharpened and awareness returned. He’d brought them to a grungy, narrow canal in what appeared to be an industrial area of factories and warehouses. Oil floated in globs on the murky water, and a foul, sour stench filled the air. “Where are we?”

“In a service canal. We needed to hide and get rid of the boat.” He set her on her feet on a narrow dock, holding her until she nodded, signaling she could stand on her own. “It was already taking on water from the bullet holes.” He shrugged. “I made the holes bigger.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You’ll sink it?”

“Tide’s coming in. Should make the canal deep enough to hide it until after we’re long gone.”

He had dressed, putting on his shirt and boots, but he’d left his black cloak and mask in the boat. She shrugged off her own cloak and tossed it in beside his. “Let’s get a taxi. Assuming Plan B goes right, Niffin and Malita should already be waiting for us.”

“How’s your pain?” he asked.

Her head felt like it had swollen to twice its usual size, and her brain weighed ten times as much as it should, but she could bear it. For now. “Don’t worry about me. How about you? Faercourt hit you hard back there.”

Gideon grimaced. “I’ve survived worse, believe me.”

They kept to the shadows until they reached a busier thoroughfare and hired the first empty taxi they came across. Huddling close, they kept their faces hidden, looking to the outside world like two young lovers on a sunrise cruise through the city. Halfway through their journey, Brigette asked the pilot to pull over. After paying their taxi fare, she and Gideon disembarked, hiked several more blocks on foot, and boarded another boat. If anyone tried to follow them, she hoped they’d sufficiently muddied their trail.

Their pilot rowed them to their next destination, and they exited quickly, blending in with the other early-morning pedestrians on their way to work. Several blocks later, they reached the shop where Brigette had taken Evie to buy her peacock mask. Three horses waited outside, and Niffin, wearing his shaded spectacles and a slouchy cap concealing his vibrant hair, sat astride a reddish-brown stallion loaded with saddlebags. He held the reins to two more horses, a grey mare and a big black stallion.

He smiled when he recognized the two figures approaching him. “I was not certain you would make it, but I am very relieved you have.”

“Where’s Malita?” Brigette asked.

“In the shop. She is, um... procuring disguises for us.”

“The shop’s open at this hour?”

Niffin flicked his eyebrow. Breaking into the mask-maker’s shop was the least of their indiscretions in Isolas. “Any damages or losses will be properly recompensed.”

This early in the morning, few people would be wearing Stagioni di Magia costumes, but Brigette hoped she and her friends look like tired revelers on their way home from an all-night party.

Gideon mounted his big black horse and stroked the beast’s neck. He caught Brigette’s skeptical gaze. “You want to take Evie’s horse, or do you want to ride Wallah with me?”

Adrenaline and survival instincts had kept her going long after she might have otherwise passed out, both from pain and exhaustion. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to manage a horse on her own. “Ride with you, I guess. I’ve never been much of an equestrian.”

Malita exited the store carrying a bundle of plain white masks designed to completely cover everyone’s faces. She also handed out colorful capes made of cheap, flimsy material. Put together, Brigette hoped their disguises looked convincingly festive.

Following a map Malita and Niffin had copied during their visit to the library, the troop hurried out of town, sticking to back roads and byways. If the Council searched for them on main roads, canals, or trains, they would come up empty-handed. Still, Brigette wouldn’t relax any time soon. Escaping Isolas had been the easy part.

The true test of her Magic was still to come.

Beyond the city’s borders, they found themselves traipsing over a rutted and worn trail winding between ancient olive groves. Huge trees lined the path like gnarled old men, casting shade, offering relief from the hot morning sun.

“Now that we are not in such a hurry, can you tell us what happened at the basilica?” Niffin had shed his mask and cape along with everyone else’s when they’d passed beyond Isolas’s borders, but he kept on his hat and spectacles. “When we got your signal, we feared the worst.”

“Pesce was a traitor, as we’d expected,” Gideon grumbled.

He summed up their raid on the basilica, and Brigette listened close to the parts she herself hadn’t witnessed. She waited for him to say something about her failure to participate, but he left those details out.

“Faercourt knocked me out and disappeared with Evie. If it weren’t for Brigette, I never would have made it out of the basilica or off that island.”

Heat rose in Brigette’s face. There was a bit of begrudged respect in Gideon’s voice, and she knew she deserved none of it.

“If Faercourt took Evie,” Niffin said, “they are surely headed for Inselgrau.”

“Not just Inselgrau but to Fallstaff,” Gideon said. “The literal seat of Evie’s kingdom. Her home. That’s where Le Poing Fermé has established its base.”

“Then that’s where we will reconnect with her.”

“What if Jackie takes Evie somewhere else first?” Malita asked. “Maybe he will hold her as a, um...” She glanced at Niffin. “Eru?”

“Captive?”

She nodded. “Maybe he will keep her as a captive somewhere else. He knows Evie has friends who will come for her.”

“I can track Evie if she still has the token I gave her,” Brigette said. She’d managed to hold her seat behind Gideon by sheer force of will, but she was fading fast. “But I’ll need a quiet place, a rather large and detailed atlas, and some food and rest. I won’t be much good to Evie, or to any of you, if we don’t take a break soon.”