“That’s not supposed to be there.”
Instead of answering, I just shifted my gaze between the large wooden house and the metal gate that blocked the bridge next to it.
“Yeah,” Callan replied to Henry’s comment. “If I remember correctly, this used to be just a bridge. When the hell did they build a guard station in front of it?”
“And more importantly,” I began, “how do we get through it?”
Silence fell over our small group. The gentle afternoon breeze brought with it the scent of warm grass. Two guards were standing on the other side of the barred gate, which meant that they had to open it from the inside for someone to get through from this direction. Sun beat down on the sturdy house next to it.
From our vantage point, we could only see the two guards, but for a structure of that size, there had to be more people somewhere inside. Holding up my hand, I shielded my eyes from the sun while squinting towards the front door. It looked as though we would be able to just walk right up to it and knock. Then we might be able to persuade whoever was in charge to let us through.
“Can we go around it?” Paige asked from next to me. “There has to be other bridges over this gorge.”
“No,” I replied. “Or, I mean, there are. And we could. But it would add something like a week to our trip, and we simply don’t have that much time to lose.”
Lance chuckled.
All four of us slowly turned towards him where he stood on Henry’s other side. Hope, and a bit of smugness, shone in his eyes as he met our gazes.
“Is there something you would like to say?” I asked in a voice full of sweet poison.
He shrugged. “I was just thinking that my friends would’ve had no problem getting across here, which means that they are already days ahead of you.”
A jolt of surprise shot through me. When had he found out that his friends were the ones going after the Enhancer? He must have overheard us talking when we thought he was too far away to hear. Narrowing my eyes, I studied the expression on his face again. My magic was supposed to have broken his spirit, but at least this explained why it was still alive and kicking. Explained why he had become bold and arrogant again as soon as we set out on this mission.
“You’d better hope they’re far behind us,” Callan said, and flashed Lance a malicious grin. “Because if we run into them, I’m going to make you watch as I torture them.”
Lance jutted out his chin. “You assume that you would win a fight against the three of them.”
“Of course I would.”
“Their magic is at the height of its power.” Lance huffed dismissively. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Callan just chuckled and then turned back to me. “Any ideas on how to get across?”
I slid my gaze towards the Binder while saying in a nonchalant voice, “We could always just kill them all.”
“No!” The arrogance that had returned to Lance’s face drained in a flash as fear and outrage took its place. “You can’t kill them! They’re civilians.”
“So was that waiter who led you to the library during the ball.” Holding his gaze, I let him see the true depths of how far my sense of morality and decency had fallen since the day I became a dark mage. “But I killed him anyway.”
Horror washed over his features. “But… but they’re just doing their job.”
“They’re in my way.”
“But you can’t. You can’t kill them!”
“I know.”
“I… What?”
“It would draw too much attention to leave an entire building full of people dead, and this mission is supposed to be secret.” I let out a mocking laugh and gave Lance a quick rise and fall of my eyebrows to let him know that I had been baiting him on purpose before I turned to the others. “So what other ideas do we have?”
When I looked at Callan, I swore I could see amusement tugging at the corner of his lips. The sight of it made satisfaction swirl up inside me. Which immediately made me feel pathetic, so I smothered it and tore my gaze from him.
Paige’s surprised blue eyes looked back at me.
Too late did I realize what I had just said.
Back at the academy, we had both done things that were very much illegal. But I hadn’t been an outright murderer with practically no conscience left back then. I was now. And now, she knew it too. Shit.
“I could forge a certificate or whatever it is they use to get across,” she said.
It was so far from what I had expected her to say that I just blinked at her in stunned silence. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks.
“I mean,” she began and cleared her throat. “I would need to know what one of those looks like first. So if we wait here for someone else to come by, we could borrow or steal theirs.”
“No,” Henry said. “There are only farms on the other side, and people don’t cross often enough for that to happen in the time frame we need it to.”
“How do you know?” I asked, having finally snapped out of my surprise.
He just lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug.
“They probably have some in the house,” Paige said. “Usually when I have to… acquire originals, I go straight to the source. Or, well, I pay people to go straight to the source. My point is, it almost always pans out.”
“So, we go in and steal one,” I said.
“Who—”
The front door banged open. We all whipped our heads towards the sound to find four men wearing leather armor, and with swords swinging at their hips, striding across the threshold.
“What’s the hold-up?” one of them called across the grass. “We’ve been watching you from our break room for the past ten minutes and you’ve just been standing there. If you want to cross, you need to show us your permit.”
We were standing a decent distance from the house and the gate, and we had positioned ourselves so that it looked like we were getting our things and our horses ready to cross, but this was apparently a suspicious bunch.
“Audrey, you and Paige watch Lance,” Callan said while jerking his chin. “Henry, with me.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked while tracking the approaching guards.
“We’re going to get us a permit.”
“You are going to steal it? The two of you are the least stealthy people here.”
“No, we’re not going to steal it,” he replied before raising his voice to call to the guards. “We’d like to meet with your boss.”
“Then what?” I said while Callan and Henry started forwards.
The guards looked surprised by the request, and the four of them exchanged a glance. Callan and Henry just continued walking towards them. Their shoulders were rolled back and every step pulsed with casual confidence.
Just when I thought that Callan wasn’t going to answer, he looked back and gave me a quick grin.
“We’re going to bribe him.”
