Then he kept going, turning a corner onto another side of the roof. Shan and I released a collective breath of relief, but a second later, a gunshot rang out.
FOURTEEN
Freya
Oswald and Caspian stayed on opposite sides of me at all times. It was kind of hilarious, and completely Caspian’s doing. He was anxious around Ozzy. Our team wasn’t quite functioning as it should be because of it, which I supposed was half the point of a dry run.
And dry, this run had been.
We didn’t even get the side of the building where we could watch out for Nolan’s group. All we got to do was sit at ground level under a veil of invisibility set up by me, watching for guards. We’d determined there were two on the streets, doing circles different distances from the apartment. A few minutes ago I’d spotted a flash of something jumping between buildings, so I was guessing there was someone doing the rounds up there, too. Shan and Em would have a better view of them.
I sent a text off to Nolan anyway, wanting an update. He had to have been rifling around for long enough by now. Time was inching by.
Freya: 2 on ground, 1 on roof tops. Almost done?
My fingers lazily stroked Caspian’s arm as I waited for a response. He hummed softly. His attention span wasn’t the best for this kind of work. I imagined when he and Shan had worked together, Shan had given him a task to keep him distracted and focused while he did all the watching.
Oswald, on the other hand, was amazing at this.
With all his time as a cat, he’d mastered standing still in the same spot. He’d barely twitched, leaning against the wall at the mouth of the alley. Every movement drew his attention, although most of them were normal Null activity. This wasn’t the busiest area, but it was residential. People were out and about at sunset on a warm summer’s day.
The screen of the cell phone lit up with an incoming text, not making a noise.
Nolan: Leaving after next patrol
Good.
There were way more guards here than I’d thought there would be at an empty fucking condo. It wasn’t boding well for any attempts to catch Kylan off guard when we caught up to him. I was glad we’d come, because we needed to rethink how the fuck we thought we were going to do this.
“They’re almost done,” I murmured, drawing a rune in the air to deafen our sound for a moment. “Leaving after the next patrol. I’m assuming Shan and Emmett are telling them when it’s good to go, because we can’t see that rooftop guard.”
“Thank the gods,” Cas said, pressing closer to me. “I’m bored as fuck.”
I laughed. Ozzy rolled his eyes. “Did they find anything?” Oswald asked.
“I didn’t ask. We’ll see them in twenty minutes when we get to the meetup point. I’ve got to portal us back to HQ.”
One of the upsides of Kylan knowing exactly where we set up camp was that I didn’t need to go about it in a roundabout way. There was no string of portals like when Ama had brought me there in the first place. I only needed one. The runes took me a minute to draw, so only needing one was beneficial. Her method of portal creation was a hell of a lot faster, but we’d discussed it and come to the conclusion my method used less magic because it relied more on the runes doing the work.
“Well, if they didn’t find anything we’re royally fucked,” Oswald said.
“Why do you say that?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Our teamwork needs work. You’re keeping Caspian behind you and not letting him do anything, Nolan and I are anxious to be apart, and I can imagine you and Emmett are the same. We’re focusing too much on each other. Oh, and Caspian won’t look me in the eyes.”
Cas let out a little squeak, like he’d thought he was being discreet about it.
“Sorry! I told you before, though. Familiars are evil creatures, and you have all the abilities of one,” Caspian said, trying in vain to defend himself.
I sighed. Oswald responded. “I’m not a familiar.”
“You have the mind link and can call upon familiar magic to protect her.”
Pushing off the wall, Ozzy strode closer to us. His fingers ran through his hair, tugging at the soft strands. For some reason, seeing him wear that choker necklace was sinfully sexy. The only thing that would make it better would be my mark, right above the chain.
“Do I look like a familiar to you?” Oswald asked, his voice low as he leaned close to Caspian.
Cas leaned back into me, and none of us were even pretending to be paying attention to the task at hand anymore. This was exactly what Ozzy had been talking about.
