Shadow Magic by Chloe Garner

Author:Chloe Garner [Garner, Chloe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Horse Called Alpha
Published: 2021-05-02T22:00:00+00:00

Quality Time

Vesper, Wyoming was apparently located on a cluster of hot springs that fed life into a bunch of different little motels with hot-spring-themed names. Grant drove through the unlit town at two in the morning - he’d been substantially wrong on the drive time - and up into the nearby hills, where he pulled into the driveway of what looked like a private house and turned off the car engine.

“So let’s see how you did,” he said, taking the key out of the ignition and turning around onto his knees in the front seat to look at Ethan.

“I think I got it,” Valerie said. “Can you check it?”

“Ethan can,” Grant said. “No way for us to know if you’ve managed it, with the block on the return spell going. He’s gonna have to open the door and get out, and that’s how we’ll figure it out.”

“But you heard what I did,” Valerie said. “Does it make sense that it would work?”

“I was driving the car,” Grant said. “But you sounded like you were doing magic, and that that magic was intended to dislodge a physically-implanted spell.”

“You were listening harder than that,” Valerie accused, and Grant shrugged.

“I’m not going to give you false hope and say that I think it’s going to work,” he said. “I think it was a compelling piece of magic work, and I think that Ethan can either test it or he can sit here in the car and wait for Susan, and we’ll take another crack at it when she gets here.”

“She shouldn’t be that long, should she?” Valerie asked, and Grant shook his head. “Probably less than an hour or two. Though, as I think about it, she’s not going to be willing to cast on him until she knows if the hook is even still in there. It’d be dangerous to go fishing around and try to pull a bunch of other stuff out, instead. So the real question is does he want to test it now or does he want to sit for two hours?”

Ethan grabbed the door handle.

“Wait,” Valerie said. “You didn’t tell me that we only got one shot at it,” she said.

“I’m actually hoping you didn’t completely manage it,” Ethan said, and Valerie’s head jerked to look at him again.

“What?”

He nodded.

“I want to give my parents a new bearing for how to find me,” he said. “I don’t want them to look too hard at Mountainbrook. I want them to think we were just passing through.”

“It’s your move,” Grant said.

“Wait,” Valerie said. “If you open the door and get out, it might kill you.”

Ethan licked his lips.

“Tell me something. If they find the defensive cast you put up at Vee’s house, and they figured it out well enough, is it possible they could shut down the defenses at Shadow School?” he asked.

Valerie considered, knowing even as she admitted it what his next argument was going to be.

“Maybe.”

He nodded.

“Then we do it, because if my dad sends someone to Mountainbrook and kills Vee, they will figure out the most advantageous way to deal with the cast you put up.

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