Chapter 5

N ariel conveniently has a fake passport—in fact, apparently he has several, but we use his US one so we can stay together through customs and catch the first plane to London out of Seattle. I wonder why he has so many, since the entire process of going through an airport clearly bemuses him—I mean, he can fly, right? Are long trips too much exercise? Why can he even drive?—but he just gives me an amused look and doesn't answer. Or let me see all his stamps.

In retrospect, probably it's just the amount of magic he has access to. Like everything else.

But the whole process of boarding an airplane is rendered deeply weird doing it alongside Nariel. I'm used to traveling alone, but I have taken my sister places and it's not like this.

Now that I know he's a hundreds of years-old demon—at least; I know he was alive during the fall of Rome, since Dark Earth being choked off from magic predates Low Earth's choking, but I don't know if he has multiple thousands because I don't know how old he was then—it's bizarre to watch him manage normal interactions with humans. Like, I guess he has practice, and I understand why he seems so amused at whatever arbitrary security theater humans have come up with now, but it's just so effortless for him.

I had the benefit of feeling his magic to know from the get-go he was something other than normal, but no one else does.

Then again, it's effortless for me, a person who spent my formative years in another universe, to blend in here too.

Normally, anyway.

It's different, to know there's another person waiting for me as I pick up some over-priced toiletries, since we came straight to the airport without any luggage.

It's different, to wonder what a demon thinks about the assorted gadgets on display as I acquire a cellphone charger, and how much technology he has seen change over more than a thousand years.

It's different, to pick out a change of clothes—my jeans will make it, but I definitely want new underwear and a less sweaty shirt after my exertions—with someone smirking at me. Is it the choice of extremely basic underwear? My new shirt even has color, if only a sort of foresty green to go with Seattle's outdoorsy vibe. It's a local airport store, my options are limited.

I shove a matching ballcap on his head to interrupt his smirking, and then it looks so stupid good on him and he's clearly so amused that I have to actually buy it.

Would anything not look good on him? Maybe I can talk him into some festive pajamas, too, just to see.

(Not on the first try, it turns out, but we have a ways to go together yet. I can be patient.)

And that's the thing, isn't it? It's not really that he's a demon. It's that he's part of my world. It's that I'm doing something, and something that matters to me, with another person, when I've been the only one really looking out for me since I was seven years old.

He's not here to look out for me, but. He's sort of here to look out for me, inasmuch as our goals currently overlap.

He's an ally. This isn't a foreign concept for me; I've had temporary allies before. In the end we always go our separate ways.

I'm not totally sure that's possible in this instance though, assuming we manage to succeed at this frankly mad plan.

That's really what it is. I've never been able to bare just how ambitious I truly am before anyone and have them take me seriously, and I don't know what to do with it now.

Hopefully, I can do what he's doing: Ignore it. Act like everything is normal, like I challenge the entire magical structure of the universe all the time and am blithely unconcerned about it, and if I act it hard enough I can keep moving through this insane plan as smoothly as he's rolling with it.

So after takeoff, I take a deep breath, trying to focus on the task ahead and not my anxiety, and bust out my cellphone and get to work.

Nariel manages to contain himself until we've been served our first round of drinks and I've gone back to my phone before asking, "Are you really planning to ignore me for the entire flight?"

I glance up at him. Was he not planning to ignore me? "Didn't we already share our life stories?"

He quirks his lips. "Merely our origin stories, surely. But let's start a little smaller: I have questions about the practical aspects of our... operation."

Operation. Aren't we fancy?

But honestly, that's fair. He knows the broad strokes, but not how anything's going to look on the ground.

I also have some questions about that, which I was beginning to resolve, but I say, "Ask away."

"Why aren't you worried that High Earth will be able to track you through your digital presence?"

I blink. That's not what I expected him to ask, but I guess that's why he needs to. I have no idea what he knows.

I look around furtively to see if any surrounding passengers have twigged on his question. He's speaking quietly, and we have one side of the cabin to ourselves in business class. Safe enough to speak freely.

Nariel waits patiently until I've satisfied myself and then continues, "People on the run typically divest themselves of their customary phones and credit cards, do they not?"

I lift my eyebrows. So Nariel knows a fair amount about Low Earth, then, but not High Earth. "Personal experience with that here, or do you watch a lot of movies?"

"Neither," Nariel says, amusement plain in his voice.

"Do you spend a lot of time here?"

"I'll answer yours if you answer mine."

Will he really? That's a suspiciously good deal for me, since this isn't exactly proprietary information. "High Earth doesn't have any understanding of how Low Earth technology works, so unless they use magic to compel people who do—which would involve knowing who to compel and for what purpose—that's not something we need to worry about. High Earth doesn't keep any of its own operatives here, since they haven't needed to worry about Low Earth in generations." An oversight that, if I succeed, they will probably correct. Future problems. "And I need the phone to make arrangements for when we land, so we don't waste any time."

His eyes narrow. Ah, that is what he wanted to know after all then, he was just leading up to it. "What sort of arrangements?"

"Well, normally to visit Stonehenge, I would take a bus, but since we're going in off-hours to avoid being seen and will need to get away quickly, we need a car. Can you drive on the other side of the road?"

Nariel rolls his eyes. "Yes."

I don't know why that surprises me, especially since he can drive at all. He's had long enough to learn, I guess, but why bother? Rather than giving him an opportunity to look at me superiorly—thus far that hasn't really been his thing, it occurs to me, but I am so used to it from High Earth that old habits are hard to break—I say, "Yes yes, you're so much older and more knowledgeable than me, la di dah. Can you drive and cloak us at the same time?"

He cocks his head, considering that.

Then as he lifts up his cup to take a sip, I feel magic ripple out of him. I reach for my wand while I look around. We're in a bubble with shadowy edges.

Cloaked.

My turn to roll my eyes. He's showing off that he can work magic and do everyday tasks at the same time.

Two can play that game.

I use a small trace of magic to lift one side of his cup, tipping it a higher angle.

Nariel rapidly catches the cup with his other hand before it upends on his face and casts me a look .

I raise my eyebrows in response.

He dips his head, acknowledging the point. "Perhaps not as easily while under fire."

I nod. "I'm seeing if a local wizard can help."

Saying that out loud somehow makes it more real, and in turn makes my chest tighten. I have not been able to rely on wizards in Low Earth for help before. The one person I wanted to connect with when I returned wanted nothing to do with me in no uncertain terms, and while that feels like rubbing salt in an open wound every time I remember, I've respected that. But this time I have something tangible that other wizards can do against High Earth, and for themselves.

I hope it's enough to matter.

"You're in touch with other wizards, then?" Nariel asks.

"A few. Aren't you in touch with other spirits?"

"I rule one of the largest territories in Dark Earth," he informs me dryly. "So yes."

Oh.

Well, so much for acting like this is all old-hat to me, I guess.

"So, do you spend a lot of time here, with all the kinging you have to do down below?"

"It depends what you mean by a lot." Nariel relaxes back in his seat, adjusting the angle of his cap so he can see me better, which somehow looks even better, damn it. "But perhaps more than you'd expect. My subjects also must, necessarily, spend time in Low Earth if they are to survive."

Because Dark Earth doesn't have enough magic. "You could make them come to you, though."

"And so I do. It is simply not all that I do, as a matter of practicalities, which I'm sure you understand."

"Oh yeah, totally."

I mean, I sort of do, on account of having apprenticed with a powerful grand magus who did make people come to him as a power play—and who would also sometimes drop in unannounced as a different kind of power play.

But honestly.

Nariel shoots me another amused look. "I take it your wizards do not come to you with information?"

Darn. Probably should have pressed that point instead of making a joke.

But calling them "my wizards" is a laughable conceit.

"Most wizards don't want anything to do with me," I say matter-of-factly, as if this wasn't devastating to me when I returned or a point of anxiety now. "But there's another wizard who—well, there's a spell High Earth does when they take people for training that causes their families to think that they had an offer for a prestigious boarding school abroad. But when they come back, schools these days expect to see actual paperwork, right? Which High Earth doesn't care about. So there's a wizard who has taken it upon herself to track us all down when we reappear, to connect us with fake school paperwork and give people a rundown of some basic life things they missed and will need to know about. She pretends to be a school administrator for any references, so she's connected with all of us."

Which is why I don't tell Nariel Leticia Jones' full name, just in case, because if High Earth ever learns this, it'll be much easier for them to stop me. Letty is a middle-aged Black woman who takes no shit and knows all about organizing. And she knows where I live, and also where every other wizard in Low Earth lives and how to reach them.

Fortunately, although she'll think I'm nuts, she's the one wizard in Low Earth I can count on. "She's the only wizard I'm sure will help me," I tell Nariel.

"Why?"

As he asks, I feel the lightest touch of his magic, and my own cup of ginger ale on the seat tray begins to slide.

Ha. Now he's testing my ability to multitask.

Or maybe he sensed me having an emotion and is trying to distract me.

I am happy—nay, delighted—to operate as if it's only the former, which is a safer assumption anyway.

I gently levitate my ginger ale just an inch before picking it up and taking a sip, looking at him in amusement over the rim.

Nariel's lips quirk. "You were saying about your administrative wizard?"

My cellphone begins to slide out of my other hand, and I almost laugh.

He wants to play? I can play.

Can I ever .

I answer him while making my phone suddenly gain weight and drop back into my hand. "When I came back, I needed a lot more than the usual. Like, fake transcripts going back a decade and a fake school website that looked legit, but especially basic computer literacy. I couldn't even type, right?"

Nariel whistles quietly. "When I first visited Low Earth after my exile, I had no basis for understanding this world. As fast as technology and social expressions move now, and how little grounding you'd have had it in before you left..."

Impossibly bizarre, for the person who can best imagine what that was like to be a centuries-old demon.

I'd say my life has become strange, but that has been true for a long-ass time.

"You can imagine then that transitioning back to high school for one final year was a nightmare for all kinds of reasons," I say wryly, and Nariel ironically doffs his hat. I snort. "Anyway, she loaned me money to take some courses in programming and business management, to get me some skills applicable to Low Earth. To pay her back, I revamped her systems and then built my own fake records to falsify a high school diploma. So I know next to nothing about the English literature canon or how chemistry works even compared to an average American student, but it turns out programming shares a lot of the same skills as mage—wizardry. I still do pro bono work for her from time to time as thanks, so we're on good terms."

In the time it took me to get that explanation out, we have gently fought over the positions of the bags in the overhead compartment, swiveled his cap all the way around, and switched beverages twice. I'm trying not to laugh, but I feel almost giddy.

I haven't been able to use magic for so long, that to use it for fun , so casually —I feel almost drunk.

"Ah," Nariel says, "so programming is why you have the resources to pay for two last-minute international business class tickets?"

The smile erupts out of me. "No, actually. Most of my money now is from my travel blog."

Nariel blinks. "How does that work?"

I'd wondered if he was going to ask what a travel blog was. "Ad revenue, basically. At first I took remote programming contracts periodically to fund my travel, but then I was going to all these places I couldn't find much information about."

He looks at me sharply. "You were looking for magic."

Once again, he sees me instantly. Even most wizards I met up with didn't understand what I was doing with all my travel around the world, or why.

I take a breath. Be chill, Sierra.

"Yes. I haven't been to all the power spots in the world by a longshot, but at this point I know the biggest ones. I doubt any human in this world or another knows as many."

"Another advantage over High Earth, then." Nariel smiles, and it has an edge to it. "Well-played, Sierra Walker."

The way he says my name makes it feel almost like a title, and one I can be proud of. Not like how High Earthers wielded it to remind me that my name was unlike theirs, that I had no place there.

"Thank you," I murmur, and I meant that to come out playfully but it's soft enough that his gaze turns oddly intent as he glances at me under his cap.

I'm so used to no one understanding why I even bother that this demon can get under my skin without even trying.

I magically lift up his tray in retaliation, as if to tip his glass over, trying to lighten the mood again.

I think it works when he asks me another question, but then it's, "Where do you live, then?"

I look at him suspiciously, and he rolls his eyes. "Are we not going to be spending all our time together for the immediate future regardless? If I wanted access to you for nefarious purposes, surely I have that already."

That's fair. Maybe that's the real reason he started this conversation—to work through the awkwardness of new partnership before we're tested in the field.

And anyway, given the truth, the answer to where I live doesn't matter. "Nowhere really. I travel too much for it to make sense to pay for an apartment anywhere. I just get set up wherever I go. Where do you live?"

I lean his seat back with magic, and he leans mine forward.

It's a good thing we're cloaked, or the next few minutes of our seats moving constantly would attract someone's attention.

"A realm called Makora," Nariel finally tells me. "It's filled with spires of obsidian that, once upon a time, spirits there used magic to shape and hollow into living spaces. Now that so little magic is available, we live in what spirits generations ago made. At least," he adds sardonically, "overpopulation is not a concern."

Because there's too little magic in Dark Earth to support expansion. Oof.

I add more lightly, "So am I to assume you have the tallest spire in all of Makora, then?"

He smirks, this time lifting me in my seat and bouncing me. Motherfucker. I automatically reach for too big of a spell and have to scramble for something smaller, poking at him a thousand times with little pricks of magic gradually increasing in intensity before he drops me back down with a plop.

I can't wait for the limitation about not doing large magic so High Earth can't track me to be rendered moot. Practicing reaching for small spells is probably especially important for me, given how much of my training was not that, which by now Nariel no doubt understands.

So we get to play and train—and get a sense for each other's style—at the same time.

Nariel is a sneaky motherfucker, and I'd do well to remember that. His slipperiness isn't just magical.

"Naturally," Nariel says blandly, and it takes me a second to remember what I asked. That he occupies the tallest spire in a whole realm of Dark Earth, right.

"How did you get set up in spirit world?" I ask.

He smirks lazily, but this time it doesn't look like real amusement to me—this is a fa?ade. "Why, I killed my way to the top, of course. That's how things are done in Dark Earth, and no one takes other forms of strength seriously without that foundation."

Aha. Right. "Yes, yes, you're one dangerous dude, message received." I pat his arm placatingly.

There's an instant where he's totally frozen, staring at me in disbelief, and it occurs to me only belatedly that we have not previously touched, and I have no idea how he feels about that and should not have assumed casual contact is unproblematic for him.

Then in the next instant Nariel snorts, magically brushing my arm off him. And we go back and forth moving my own arm about a few times until I'm struggling to respond because I'm laughing too hard and he's barely containing himself too.

When we resolve that, the silence that settles between us is—not uncomfortable, exactly, but expectant. We broke off a conversation we weren't finished with.

I backtrack to safer waters and say, "Anyway, there's a wizard who can get to Heathrow pretty quickly that I think will help me. But I need to get his contact info and, you know, contact him."

"And that's why we're going to such an obvious place as Stonehenge, when there are other power spots?"

We need three power spots, and I'm spreading them out around the world. I'll set up one for Europe and Africa, one for the Americas, and one for Asia and Australia. All of those places have multiple options for power spots, but they're not all equal for what I need from them.

"The UK government is a disaster right now, but Stonehenge is still very well protected and that's unlikely to change," I explain. "It will make it harder for High Earth mages to get to the nexus once I've set it up, them lacking a stealth demon of their own." High Earth has its own stealth spells, of course, but they would require setup, and someone on-site would notice.

"You will need a deterrent against them acquiring a stealth demon of their own, then," Nariel points out.

I nod. "Good point. Thanks, I'll work that in." A block against the magic of a bound spirit is something I've done before, and I can add that easily.

I can't really block against all unbound spirits' magic, but that's a much lower risk since it would be counter to their interests. Blackmail obviously exists, but High Earth isn't directly connected to Dark Earth, so that would be much harder for them to set up.

Nariel cocks his head. "You're not going to ask me to handle it? A demon prince at your behest?"

My surprise is genuine. "Of course not. I don't need to bring either of us any more trouble in the form of angels. I said you were here for stealth only. Did you think I didn't mean it?"

His gaze searches mine, so clearly the answer to that is yes .

I have to remember that whatever my history, he has hundreds more years of being hunted by people he once considered comrades, and by people trying to survive the same oppression he faces.

He's here to help me— us —and despite the stakes I need to be very careful to make sure I never tip that balance into using him.

Seriously this time: Do not ever tell him to fetch.

Not only because our alliance would no doubt end very quickly, but because I am resolved not to be as shitty to others as Evram modeled for me.

This time it's Nariel who turns the conversation away from this abruptly fraught path, asking, "Why not the fjords? They're one of the most powerful spots in Europe and well-protected."

"Too difficult to access—the most powerful spots are underwater, and I need to be right by the source," I explain.

"Then why not a place more central?"

"Central to where? The strongest ‘centrally' located power spot on a continental landmass I've found is in Tibet, but China's treatment of Tibetan sacrality makes that spot's protection too risky for what I need. Tibet's not the easiest place to get to, anyway."

As I wait for responses to my messages, we go back and forth like this for a while—not talking about our deepest ambitions this time, or even about magic theory. But somehow it's still the closest I've felt to someone in ages.

Nariel prods me with magic, and I get to just enjoy it again. He challenges me, but doesn't demand miracles. And even though I'm in theory the one in charge of this operation and am only asking him to contribute stealth, I realize he's figured out how to support me and work for our success beyond that— by helping me get ready.

It's both a disappointment and a relief when my phone vibrates with a response.

I'd felt exhilarated when I stole magic, and when I fought a magus adept with it for the first time in years. But even back on High Earth, I was so driven with magic that I'd almost forgotten to appreciate these smaller moments. Poking Nariel feels like home in a way I hadn't even realized I'd been missing, and that's a completely absurd position for me to be in with a demon I barely know and whom I'm not certain I can trust.

The complication of dealing with wizards I can expect not to stick their necks out for me—that's something I know what to do with, and I let the old anger sharpen in me as I respond, moving things in place for the next step.

Even if everything goes smoothly, I can't imagine we're not about to have a fight on our hands.