Page 128 of Avalon Tower
Adrenaline courses through my veins. “I can try.” I concentrate, summoning my Sentinel powers. Focusing, I search for an image of the ward in my mind, but it’s hard to get a feel for its dimensions. There’s nothing to channel my powers at. I try sending them out, as if I’m feeling my way in a dark room. Searching for something, anything. But as far as my magic is concerned, there’s nothing there.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I don’t have a sense of it, the shape or the color, the sound. It’s blank.”
Raphael frowns at me, and I see the flicker of worry in his expression. If I can’t get through the wards, the other agents won’t fare any better. The veil mages are too protected, and our time is running out.
“Nia,” Raphael whispers sharply. He grabs my hand and pulls me behind a stone column. From the shadows, I peer out. Silver Fox stands before the gate, frowning in confusion. He’s noticed his missing friend.
“Wait here,” Raphael says softly in my ear. “I’ll handle him.”
I grab his arm and drag him back.
“What?” he whispers.
“Maybe he knows how to unlock the wards,” I say. “Let me check.”
He hesitates, then nods. I wait until the guard turns the other way, searching the street. Then I move through the shadows. With the thick smoke in the air and the chaos outside the gate, the guard doesn’t see or hear me as I draw closer.
I concentrate, tugging at my telepathy, letting the powers stretch through my body. I hide behind the wall, then carefully stretch out my arm. From the other side of the gate, I brush my fingertips over his back as lightly as I can, then dive into his mind.
His concern for his friend, Atel, is foremost in his thoughts. Did Atel go to help with the fire as well? But he said he would wait at the gate. What if the fire gets to the mansion? We might need to evacuate Caradoc. But where is Atel?
Gritting my teeth, I delve deeper, searching for anything I can find about the wards. How can we get through the wards?
The answer lies there, just under the surface of his worried thoughts. The wards are easy to get through as long as you’re permitted to enter the mansion. Then, you just touch the door and chant the incantation, and the door opens.
Which doesn’t help us at all. Raphael and I aren’t permitted.
He feels my finger on his back and starts to turn around. I yank my arm away, quickly retreating into the shadows. He opens the gate and takes a step inside. Time moves at a snail’s pace. If he peers to the right, he’ll see me.
A desperate idea blooms in my mind. Stepping forth, I touch him once again. But as I do, I summon both my powers, violet and red. They fuse together, Sentinel and telepathy twining and blending into a raspberry-hued, pulsing power. I force it into the guard’s mind, breaking down his mental defenses. He senses the intrusion, and while his body freezes, his psyche is trying to break free.
But I am everywhere. In his thoughts, his emotions, his memories.
His overwhelming emotion is fear because of the fire and the chaos, and his missing friend. I whisper a treacherous thought. Just open the mansion’s front door. Then you will be safe.
His eyes scan the garden, searching for the person who’s touching him, hurting his mind.
No. Don’t look around. Death will follow.
I can feel the thud of his terrified heart. Can sense his erratic breathing.
Walk up to the door of the mansion. Get inside, and then everything will be all right.
He totters forward. I keep close behind him, still touching, as he lumbers up to the front door. I never let him pull away, maintaining the telepathic channel between us. I whisper encouragement in his mind. Yes. Just a few more steps. Open the door, and then everything will be fine.
He touches the door and whispers an incantation. The thrum of the ward disappears.
Exhaling, I pull back from him. Before he can recover, Raphael smashes the pommel of his sword into Silver Fox’s skull.
I shiver with the Sentinel’s chill, feeling nauseous. My sight goes double with the effort I exerted. Raphael grips me by the waist, and I let him lead me inside to find Caradoc.
CHAPTER 44
The air outside is thick with acrid smoke, but inside, the mansion is somehow worse. Toxic, sickly. Out of nowhere, I think of Mom.
Now that the noises of the chaos in the street are muffled, I can hear the hum of Caradoc’s veil magic much more clearly.
We walk softly over an ornate rug in the foyer, and it mutes our steps. After a week of spying on him, we know that Caradoc spends the majority of his time on the second floor, in his library.