Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (15 page)

Isis looked to Jason for confirmation. Everett tried not to feel offended by the gesture.

“He’s correct,” Jason agreed. “Your arms are balanced, the muscles equally proportioned. And you have demonstrated that you’re both agile and ambidextrous.”

“Like when you caught all those arrows the Avans were throwing at you inside Crag Pass,” Everett remembered.

“Or how you handled the trials at the Temple of Aurelia,” added Cameron.

It seemed the whole crew was in to check on him. How touching. Everett leaned forward—slowly—and waved at Cameron. Standing on the other side of Isis, Cameron grinned back.

“I have a set of twin Versatiles that should fit the role. Come with me when we leave here, and I’ll give them to you,” Jason told her.

“Role?” She looked perplexed. “Just what is your plan, Jason?”

“To rescue Terra.”

Isis let out an exasperated sigh. “More specifically.”

“To rescue Terra while looking as imposing as possible. Wherever we go, no matter how many portals we take, the Crescent Order is right there behind us. I don’t know how they’re tracking us, but I have the feeling that after we leave Eclipse, it won’t be long before they find us again. They’ve assumed the role of predators chasing their prey.” His words, slightly clipped, suggested he didn’t like the idea of being the prey. The assassin had obviously grown accustomed to always being the predator. “We need to make them rethink their foolish confidence. In short, we should dress the part.”

“Is their confidence so very foolish? They are twelve elite assassins, including some with rare Elition gifts, and we are but three. The odds are certainly in their favor,” Cameron pointed out.

“
You could always remain here,” Isis said.

Cameron shook his head vigorously and sealed his lips. So, Isis hadn’t given up on trying to leave him at home. Everett knew she was just worried about Cameron getting captured by the Selpes. After her own recent run-in with them, who could blame her? But the hurt was obvious in his eyes.

Isis tore her frustrated gaze from Cameron to look at Jason. “What is involved in ‘dressing the part’?”

“Skimpy bikinis?” Everett suggested, remembering the time outside Gemma when she’d distracted three thugs in order to steal a document from them.

Isis nearly smiled. “Whereas the assassins might be temporarily dumbfounded by the sight of us running barefoot through the woods in skimpy swimwear—”

“Especially the sight of Jason in skimpy swimwear,” Everett inserted with a chuckle.

Jason raised an eyebrow. Cameron snorted.

“—it’s too cold for such shenanigans. Where we’re going, there’s sure to be snow,” Isis finished.

“Where are you going?” Everett asked.

“You insisted on dragging your broken body out of your sickbed, and you didn’t even know where we’re going?” Jason asked.

Everett had gathered that they’d determined Terra’s location, though the Book of Prophecy had burned. Actually, he’d been the one to push it into the fire. As far as he knew, there was only one Book of Prophecy in existence, so hopefully the Elition people wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Sure, I figured it was somewhere Elitiony.”

“That’s not even a word,” Cameron protested.

“Is.”

“Is not.”

“Is.” Everett stuck out his tongue. “I just made it so.”

Cameron returned the gesture.

“And you wanted to bring Cameron along,” Isis said to Jason, shaking her head.

Jason allowed himself a sigh, a rare show of emotion from him. “Fitted coldsuits and lots of metal.”

“What?”

“The answer to your question. Dressing the part involves gearing up to an appropriately threatening level. That means formfitting coldsuits and lots of visible blades on all of us.”

“Like Silas?” Isis asked, finally smiling.

“The bodyguard
does
know how to dress the part,” agreed Jason, somewhat reluctantly.

Isis’s grin widened. “I’ll tell him you said so the next time I see him.”

“I would really rather that you didn’t,” Jason said. “He might think he can start another staring contest with me.”

Staring contests of dominance were an essential part of everyday Phantom life. It was quite perplexing actually. Even more so than all the magic.

“What’s a coldsuit?” Cameron asked.

“A Hellean innovation. It’s like a wetsuit but for the cold,” Everett explained. “For subzero temperatures actually.” He cranked his stiff neck toward Jason. “Where did you say you’re going?”

“I didn’t.”

Ok, then.

“To the Shroud,” Isis piped in.

Everett gave her a blank look.

“It’s an Elition asylum.” Cameron’s tone was glum. “I still don’t understand what she’s doing in such a horrid place.”

“Agreed. It’s an unwise choice for a hiding place.
They will drive her mad there.”

“Jason, she
is
mad,” declared Isis.

Jason crossed his arms against his chest and said nothing.

Isis sighed, then looked at Cameron. “Most people don’t know what the Shroud is, and it’s virtually inaccessible. That makes it one of Elitia’s better hiding spots.”

“Eclipse is better,” said Cameron, and Jason nodded.

“The Shroud’s common name is Winter’s Gate,” said Isis.

“The temple of Tundra, one of the three Elition kingdoms on the
Western Continent.” Cameron shivered. “It’s cold there. Really cold.”

“It’s nearly September.” Isis’s eyes drifted up in thought. “The blizzard season has already begun.”

Once again, Cameron shivered.

“Perhaps your seven years in the subtropical climate of Black Moss have made you lose all tolerance for the cold?” she posed.

“I’m
going
, Isis,” Cameron nearly snarled.

“Jason wants to set out in the next few hours. Our journey will take us
deep into the frozen tundra.”
She looked pointedly at Cameron, who seemed to be doing his best not to shiver again. “From Eclipse, we’ll take the portal to North Mist Veil. From there, we’ll hike north to a portal in the Frozen Forest. That will bring us to the Western Continent at the kingdom of Everlast, right on the cusp of the Tundra. Then we have a long, cold hike before we reach Winter’s Gate… Is there something wrong, Jason?”

Jason had drawn one of his knives. He slowly slid it back into its sheath, as though he hadn’t meant to draw it in the first place. It was clear he was agitated. They were fortunate he hadn’t thrown the knife at one of them. Jason tended not to miss his targets.

“Are you sure this path is the quickest?” he asked Isis.

“Well, no. It’s not,” she admitted. “There’s one portal that leads directly into Winter’s Gate, but you really don’t want to take it.”

“Why not?” inquired Cameron eagerly, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Just the thought of colder climates was making him shiver. The poor kid was doomed.

“Because,” she said. “Its origin is inside the Gateway.”

“The hall of portals at the Elition palace at Laelia?” Cameron asked.

She nodded once.

“You’re right. We don’t want to go anywhere near there,” Jason said. “The Gateway is under constant watch, and as I remember, there are always Selpe soldiers stationed at the palace.”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Then we’ll go with your route,” he decided. “We will discuss further arrangements at lunch.”

“I hear they’re serving pumpkin soup at the temple today.” Cameron smiled, drifting toward the door. “With crusty rolls.”

Everyone had that special thing that perked them up. For Everett it was rare knives. For Isis, pretty jewelry. He didn’t know what got Jason excited, though he had a sinking suspicion it involved copious helpings of bloodshed.

Cameron’s thing was food. The boy ate like a horse but had the metabolism of a hummingbird. He was always hungry.

Jason watched Cameron leave, then caught Isis’s hand before she followed. “It’s still half an hour until lunch. You should practice with your new swords if you are to wield them against the Crescent Order.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Nonetheless, meet me on the training field behind my house. We will train briefly before lunch so we’re ready to set out early this afternoon.”

Isis nodded and walked toward the door. Everett was impressed that she hadn’t cringed at the mention of training with Jason. He didn’t seem like the type to go easy on his dueling partners, no matter how cute they were.

“She’s hurting Cameron’s feelings,” Everett spoke up when Isis had left.

“She means well,” said Lana. “She doesn’t want to see him hurt.”

“
She had me promise to send Cameron away immediately at the first sign of danger,” Jason told them.

Lana’s eyes widened. “Someone got you to agree to something? You?”

“Spare me the sisterly teasing, Lana.”

Lana had a point. Jason was not easily swayed, nor did he make promises—except maybe to his dead parents. But he’d been a child back then. Everett was smart enough not to voice his commentary. Jason put up with it from Lana because she was his sister. He had no such association to guard him from Jason’s wrath.

“Isis is…persistent,” Jason said with agitation.

She was also one of the few people who could elicit an emotional response from him.

“She’s still jumpy from her time as a prisoner of the Selpes,” he continued. “I didn’t think it wise to upset her further.”

A smile broke out on Lana’s lips. Jason rolled his eyes at her, the normal response from a big brother. Not normal for Jason, though. His facade was starting to crack.

“The point is moot,” he said when Lana’s smile refused to fade. “
Isis is, of course, making the giant assumption that Cameron will actually cooperate. Which he won’t. As evidenced by his fifty-two escapes from Black Moss, he will do whatever he wants, no matter what anyone says. I have never seen anyone with so little regard for his own life, except—”

“Except you?” Lana cut in.

“
Except
I can take care of myself,” said Jason. “Now, I should be going if I’m to train with Isis before lunch.”

As Everett watched him walk outside, he hoped Jason wouldn’t choose that training session to take out his annoyance on her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

~
Lake Portal ~

526AX August 21, Eclipse

AFTER CAMERON HAD eaten three bowls of pumpkin soup and five crusty rolls, he and Isis headed over to Jason’s house and knocked on his door. He had the coldsuits waiting for them. And that’s when the fun part came. They had to actually squeeze into the skintight suits. Personally, Cameron felt they were a bit
too
tight. The fabric hugged the wearer’s body, leaving no curve of anatomy to the imagination. Whichever Hellean designer had come up with the idea had an odd sense of humor. Thankfully black was every assassin’s default color of choice. Skintight suits in white would have been a million times worse.

While Jason usually didn’t ornament himself with so many weapons, this morning he seemed to have taken a page out of Silas Thorn’s book. The various blades were all black, blending into his suit, but their near invisibility didn’t make them weightless. Isis helped him secure the knife-bearing straps across his chest. She closed the final buckle, but her hand lingered there. Biting her lip, she backed up, ostensibly to check her handiwork, but it was clear she just wanted to gawk at Jason. The suit emphasized the musculature of his torso, the rise and dip of every muscle stenciled out in crisp detail. Cameron had known Jason was fit, but in that outfit he looked nearly as ripped as the massive Silas Thorn. He looked like an agent of death—which, come to think of it, he actually was.

Though she’d been jittery of late, Isis’s eyes betrayed no fear as she gazed at Jason now. Instead, they sparkled with a sort of womanly appreciation. Could this be what people referred to as ‘bedroom eyes’? No woman had ever looked at Cameron in that way. Maybe because he had only marginally more muscle than Isis. Who was a
girl
. But no matter how much Cameron ate, he couldn’t seem to keep any weight on. Not with his metabolism. Everett swore by the muscle building ‘magic’ of pushups. Maybe he would try that out.

Jason had met Isis’s stare, his obsidian eyes smoldering as they followed the curves of her coldsuit. Cameron had pointedly forced his eyes to glaze right over her. Isis was his friend. It just felt wrong to ogle at her. Clearly, Jason didn’t share this reservation. Everyone—Jason included—claimed he was a stone cold assassin, but Cameron wasn’t buying it. Not for a minute. Not when he could look at Isis like
that
.

Cameron squirmed in his second skin. If he didn’t do something, they’d never get out of Eclipse that day. The two of them would just stand there all afternoon, staring at each other until the sun went down. Not that they would ever dare to do something as crazy as closing the twenty-centimeter gap between their bodies to finally kiss. No, they’d rather make eyes at each other all day, making everyone around them uncomfortable.

Cameron cleared his throat loudly.

That snapped them out of it. Isis bent over to pull on her fur-trimmed snow boots, and Jason swung his bag onto his back. Isis didn’t have to wear a pack. Instead, she’d strapped the twin swords from Jason onto her back. The blades were long and straight, the handles each tipped with a pommel, and from each pommel hung tassels. Isis had told him an accomplished sword master could use these tassels to keep a hold on the swords amidst any number of complex and very cool-sounding movements during combat. She’d also barked at him to watch his fingers because the blades were double-edged and damn sharp.

“Ready?” Isis asked, purposefully diverting her eyes from Jason.

She didn’t even wait for them to answer. She just opened the door and walked out. Cameron looked at Jason, who for once had no insightful commentary to share. They followed her through Eclipse and down the trail to the lake, where they would take the portal to North Mist Veil. The air was heavy with silence, as though the cold had frozen not just their breath, but their words as well.