My phone vibrated in one of my belt compartments. I fished it out as we jogged past the perimeter magic and into the compound, prepared to ignore anyone in the world except for my mother, and only then if it was a text.

The spongy grass, wet from morning sprinklers, left moisture on the sides of my boots. The first building loomed large in front of us, and we crouched near the corner of a hedge. Emery’s fingers waved, and a spell emerged. I got a who’s there? vibe from it. He was going to let magic be our eyes. Clever.

I flipped the phone open and read the text.

Plant seeds for future harvest.

I touched Emery’s back as he pushed the spell into existence, then stuck the phone in front of him. He looked back, his gaze inquiring. I shrugged. I didn’t know what it meant, either.

How? I texted back. And don’t call. Need silenct. I didn’t correct my typo. That would drive her nuts. Talk about planting seeds.

Emery sat at the corner, watching ahead, intent. Silence descended around us, no birdsong drifting through the still and stagnant air. I tuned in as I waited for my mother’s response, and Emery waited for his results.

As we crouched in silence, it struck me that this place felt…dead. A world devoid. No electricity surged outside of our sphere, and the usual sweet, sour, or heavy sensations were absent from the air. The life in this place was pushed off to the sides, contained and stifled.

They’d largely cut nature out of their compound. They’d cut themselves off from the source of all life, and they’d done it on purpose.

“They are rotting,” I murmured, pulling at Emery. “They are rotting from within. They are skeletons propped up, waiting for the tide to wash them away.”

He studied my face. “How do we wash them away?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m new at this.”

His hand came up so quickly that I flinched. When I stilled, he rested it on my chin and stroked the bottom of my lip, back and forth. “Steadfast,” he said.

It felt like an odd sentiment right then, because I was just relaying what I knew, not giving up. “Okay.”

He nodded, like he’d imparted wisdom, and turned back.

Another text came in. Long game.

“What in hell’s lemonade are you talking about, Mother?” I muttered at the phone, shoving it in front of Emery’s face. “That doesn’t tell me about the seeds, you blasted woman.”

He studied it for a second, turned that imploring gaze at me, and startled when I stood and shoved the phone into its compartment. Urgency had overcome me. The third eye said, Move, and the logical part of me said, Run away quickly. Yes, they were pointing me in different directions, but the idea was the same. No good would come of sitting here.

Emery’s head jerked around and he burst up from his crouch. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back behind the suffering hedges, green with brown patches, and around another corner. He released me and then started jogging in front of me. I kept up easily, right at his side but a little behind. He seemed to know where he was going.

A moment later, he sped up, and so did I. Faster still. He’d been intentionally taking a slower speed because I ran like a girl.

If only he would, too, we could speed up and finally get somewhere.

He rounded another corner and then paused. Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I reached for him, but he was already flattening against the wall, snatching at my leather. I crashed against the stucco, my own momentum and his anxious intervention making my speed too fast to stop. My face bounced off and my body followed.

His hand curled around my mouth, muffling the oomph. He ducked down as I fell, not helping me stay on my feet, but quieting me until I hit the ground. He held a finger to his lips.

He’d finally had a premonition. How lucky for me, who hadn’t needed it, and would now have a bruise where the wall had sucker-punched me.

I climbed to my feet, and he rose with me, his hand hovering near my mouth. I slapped it away.

Footsteps stilled me. Emery gracefully plastered himself against the wall, between me and whoever was coming our way. His fingers worked quickly, creating the shadow spell. He stilled for long enough that the spell disintegrated. His head came around and he stared at me, his mouth closed but his eyes trying to impart a message.

I shook my head. Not computing.

He glanced down at his fingers. Then back to me. His eyes flicked down and to his left. Footsteps pressed against the concrete. The sole of a boot scuffed against a rock. They were close.

I couldn’t help closing my eyes, feeling the deadened life around us crying for help. Feeling the fresh and vibrant items in my compartments. The opal stone that begged to be held.

Acting without thinking, I dug it out quickly and pulled on the other ingredients, willing them to cover us and hide us from view. But we needed more than shadows. We needed a walking cloak, a soundless bubble that would merge seamlessly with the walls and cling to whatever natural things were willing to help us.

The opal warmed in my hand. The magic flew around Emery and me, outlining our sphere of energy, protecting it. It felt like the stone was holding my hand as I worked with it, not doing my bidding so much as rushing to my aid. A tear leaked out of my eye, the emotion part of the recipe, and the spell drifted into the world.

I blinked my eyes open, my lashes wet, and looked around wildly.

Wrinkles lined Emery’s forehead as he glanced at the bubble I’d made, a slight shimmer the only visible indication it was there. He didn’t have time to spare me a what kind of a weird magical worker cries when making spells glance, because at that moment, two forms wearing purple robes sauntered along the cracked concrete, their backs straight, their shoulders squared, and their chins held a fraction too high. They thought the world of themselves, walking around in this stripped and deadened compound.

Fire rose within me and my power stones pulsed. What little nature I could feel whispered to me, and I closed my eyes to listen to its calls. Emery’s fingers curled around my wrist, amping my power with his electric touch. The energy swirled around and between us, frenzied.

Listening to impulse, I slapped my hands against the wall, cupping the opal, and sank down until my fingertips could feel the dirt at its base. This was what my mother had meant. Plant seeds. Seeds of destruction, to be harvested later, once I knew how to sow them.

Emery wasn’t the only one who had yet to claim vengeance. I wanted to punish them for what they’d done to my father. And for what they’d done to everything and everyone inside of this compound. I wasn’t a hero, but I was done hiding in closets, pretending it wasn’t my business. They’d made it my business.

This time, there were no tears. Rage boiled up and slithered along my skin before meeting the threads of magic at my fingertips. It sank down into the ground before spreading out. I wanted to push. To pump in more magic. But Emery’s hand pulled, tearing me away.

I sucked in a breath. My heart hammered and sweat beaded on my forehead. I felt like I’d run two marathons back to back.

Emery’s lips met my ear. “Pull it back. You can’t expend all your energy in one place.”

The mages passed within five feet of us, their eyes scanning. Their hubris obvious.

The one closest to us pulled a fistful of powder from his pocket. He threw it, murmuring something with barely moving lips. The powder burst into color and texture. The murmured words kept coming, and the elements spun, weaving into a haphazard sort of spell. Still, it must’ve worked as intended, because it spread out and coated the wall.

Emery leaned back, as though about to be seen. I leaned forward, wishing I’d brought a knife.

The mage’s badly realized spell splattered against mine, then slipped off and pooled into a ball of colorful muck. The magic on the walls stuck, and I held my breath, wondering if the mages would notice part of their spell had failed. Surely they could feel it, even if they couldn’t see it.

The mage walked on, strutting like a peacock with burned tail feathers.

“You are magnificent when you’re riled up. We go this way.” Emery pointed across the way and started forward.

I followed without hesitation, the rage from a moment ago draining away, leaving me shaky and confused. I wasn’t sure where that had come from. Or what had come over me. Yet the throb around us was still present, and the bubble I’d created moved with us.

A grin spread across Emery’s face as we reached the next building and he paused, analyzing. “Very clever. Darius would pay you handsomely for that spell. I need to make friends with some stones. Maybe you can introduce me around.”

I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not.

He peeked around the corner before taking me by the wrist and pulling. Clearly it was easier than words. I had to agree.

The pressure above intensified and a warning crackled against my skin. Emery must’ve felt it, because he glanced back at me in confusion.

I pointed upward. He followed my finger with his eyes, his brow furrowing as he pulled us down to a crouch beneath a suffocated and dying tree hugging the wall of another building.

A young man in a green robe hurried along the path, holding a satchel at his side. He hunched like he didn’t want to be seen, something I understood pretty well. A woman dressed in red approached from the right, her straightforward stare denoting confidence. The air around her shimmered, wafting importance and authority.

“Sheriff,” Emery whispered, watching her. He held his hands out toward them, both sets of fingers moving, spinning magic between them. I’d never seen this method before, but it looked more intense than doing two spells at the same time.

“Where are you going, boy?” the Sheriff called out, stopping the young man in his tracks.

His back bowed deeply. “I am late for my meeting, Sheriff.”

“I see. How late?”

“I will make it if I run.”

“But then you won’t learn.” She pulled a couple of things from the satchel at her side, raised them to her mouth, and murmured words to form the weave.

“I need to learn that,” I muttered, watching the waves awkwardly twist together.

“You don’t have to speak magic, because you can will it,” he whispered, glancing around us, probably wondering if the spell would deaden our wards. “She aspires to do what you do, but doesn’t have the ability or discipline. Probably both. The power has gone to her head, like the rest of them.” Emery glanced down at his hands, but didn’t stop working, creating the most complex weave I’d ever seen. He was a loom of magic, and it was extraordinary.

“There.” The woman threw the power in the young man’s face. He flinched as the magic wrapped around him. “That’ll wear off in three minutes, give or take. Maybe next time you’ll watch the clock a little closer.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” the man said miserably.

Emery lowered his hands to the ground and then swooped them back up to the wall. The spell attached to both before soaking in and disappearing.

I gave him a questioning gaze, earning a grin. “I can’t let you plant all the seeds, now can I? I, too, like to create havoc.” He winked, and we were up again, running across the complex.

Vicious intent pulsed from the records facility, a medium-sized building on the back corner of the compound. We’d skirted by three more fools, strutting around, throwing dust and whispering words. I couldn’t tell if they were security, or if someone had assigned a few flunkies a made-up job to keep them out of sight.

Emery knew his stuff, though. He’d said most of the guild didn’t really get going until about noon or thereafter, their workdays, so to speak, reaching into the night—when the other magical creatures in the Brink were most active. Judging by the overall lack of activity, the place did seem like it was in its off hours, similar to an office facility at night.

Unlike the other buildings, the records building had a protective spell stretching over it like a spider web. It pulsed with power, and the various weaves intermingled expertly. A lot of time and effort had been expended on this spell.

Emery crouched at one end of the wall, staring down at the door, which was covered with both another pulsing spell and a camera. They weren’t just trusting magic with their secrets—they were using technology as well.

A grouping of benches formed a circle a ways in front of the door. Two other buildings helped surround them, making this area a little nook away from the rest of the compound.

“What do you feel?” Emery asked quietly, sparing a glance for a woman in an orange robe meandering through. She stopped near one of the benches and hesitated before sitting and bending to her phone.

“Spikes. Painful. This is an attack spell. A very good one.”

“Very good, yes. The natural helped. The power rivals mine.” He frowned as he looked it over, splaying his hand and waving it in front of the building as if feeling the various textures of the spell.

The woman straightened up and stretched, looking around. She wiggled her shoulders, as though something bothered the upper middle of her back.

“Crap-filled cupcakes…” I put my hand on Emery’s shoulder. “Work fast. We got a us a woman.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, following my gaze.

I slapped his shoulder. “Don’t look! She already feels our presence. She’s in tune with her magically enhanced intuition. Looking will just bring her around faster.”

“She’s only middle tier. She stands no chance.”

“Of fighting us? No. Of blowing our cover? She certainly does. Half a brain and she’ll know someone is crouching here.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I have half a brain. Haven’t you ever just felt someone lurking? Someone watching you? Someone keeping close?”

“Yes, but that’s because I’ve lived in the wild. She’s in relative safety here.”

“Women are never in relative safety, you moron. We train to watch out for danger from girlhood. Spoiler alert: the danger is menfolk. Dark streets and parking lots to us are like the wilds for you. Trust me, she knows when hidden eyes are on her. Look at her. She keeps looking around. I bet there are some power-tripping creeps with wandering hands in the Mages’ Guild.”

Emery spared one moment to meet my gaze, his way of gauging my severity, before nodding and turning back to the spell.

The woman in orange bent to her phone before lowering it again and tilting her head. Her shoulders tensed, and she looked back at the records facility pointedly, scanning the front door before looking up at the camera. She scanned the front again, her expression uneasy, before pausing, probably opening herself up to her surroundings.

Emery had been wrong. I wasn’t one in a million. I just knew better than to shrug off the first magic I’d ever learned for recipes and ingredients. I kept my temperamental third eye firmly in the mix, and so did this girl.

Her eyes flicked our way.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I bounced where I crouched. We had a long way to run back to the pickup point.