“Where are we headed?” I asked as we walked toward the apple orchard.
“Oh, I thought we’d visit the house,” Dad said nonchalantly.
“The Raven Compound?” Max and I said in unison. Max continued, “You do realize that the house is being watched by armed guards ordered to kill us on sight?”
“It will not be monitored for the next sixty-seven minutes,” Dad said after consulting his wristwatch. We reached the edge of the orchard, and Dad pulled out what looked like a cosmetic mirror from inside his sleeve. One of Dad’s signature moves was that he never went anywhere without a steady supply of portals—I still remembered him toiling away in the old basement, conjuring up the shiny discs. Most Elementals didn’t bother creating their own portals, opting to purchase them from learned magicians instead. However, Dad had once had a bad incident with a portal that had come with a tracking spell. From that day forward, it was homemade or bust.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of these homemade portals was how simple they were to make. Really, one only needed a roundish piece of a shiny material—glass worked best, being that it was an amorphous solid and therefore a bit more malleable, but anything shiny would do—the careful application of herbs and oil, and a quick dip in a furnace while an incantation was muttered over the flames. I could never remember the correct order of the words when Dad first taught them to me, but then I hadn’t needed portals when I was seven. Then the war happened, and portals were the last thing on my mind.
“My contacts tell me that the guards are changing today,” Dad continued. “By now, the prior company will have cleared out, and the new guards won’t be in place for over an hour.”
“That’s sloppy,” Max said. “Peacekeepers are better than that.”
“Peacekeepers are being stretched thin,” Dad corrected. “Finally, all this guerilla warfare is going somewhere.”
There was a bitter edge to Dad’s voice, but I would be the last person to call him out on it. The years since the magic wars ended had been tough on all of us, and if anyone deserved to express a little bitterness, it was Dad.
Dad balanced the portal in the air, and the reflective surface stretched and lengthened until it was about the size of a closet door. Dad beckoned Max through, then looked expectantly at me. I grabbed my father’s hand, and we stepped out of the Otherworld into the Mundane realm, right into the backyard of the Raven Compound.
Which was buzzing with drones.
“Cover,” Max said, pulling us into the protective shadow of a tree. The fairy tree, I noticed a moment later. “So much for no military coverage.”
“It’s pretty light,” I said, peeking through the branches. “I only see three—no, wait, four drones and no human guards.”
Dad was silent, but I felt his eyes on me—after a moment I glanced over my shoulder, and saw him scrutinizing my left wrist. More specifically, the silver mark that coiled around it like a ribbon. Self-consciously, I dropped my hand and rubbed the silver.
“How did that happen?” Dad asked. “Did Micah do that to you?”
“No.” Could an Elemental even mark another like that? I made a mental note to ask Micah. “Micah used all the silver in his body to protect me, and he had to be covered in his metal in order to heal. I stayed with him, and I ended up with this.” I stroked it for a moment, my bit of Micah that was always with me. “Micah has a copper mark on his wrist.”
“He must have made quite an impression on you for you to marry him so quickly,” Dad commented. “The Lord of Silver must have made all your other suitors look like bumbling children.”
“Other suitors?” Max said with a snort. “Sara married the first boy she kissed!”
“As if you’ve ever had a first anything,” I sneered. “Date much at the Institute?”
“Children,” Dad said. He made an admirable attempt at parental disapproval, though it had little effect on Max and me. I mean, we’d grown up with Mom. Our bickering silenced, he glanced toward the Raven Compound. “The drones are gone. Let’s go.”
“Uh, what exactly are we looking for?” I asked.
“The old basement,” he said.
“Oh, it’s not here,” I said. Dad stared at me, dumbfounded. “Mom and Sadie activated the wards, and pushed it into the Otherworld.”
“The Otherworld?” Dad repeated, and Max and I nodded. “Where is it in the Otherworld?”
“The Raven will tell you how to get there,” I said. “All that’s left in the house is some dusty old furniture. The Peacekeepers scrubbed it pretty well after Max was arrested.”