Page 82 of Truth's Blade

He walked over to join her, and she pointed.

“There’s the line.”

He saw it was a perfect semi-circle, and almost certainly something Marchant had done well before he’d ever kidnapped the children. This was part of his fail safe to keep his prisoners contained, and each stone sat on the very edge of the arch.

Melodie sat down, and then lay flat on her stomach, studying the rock at the apex of the curve. She extended her hand and tried to push it, but her hand bounced back as it encountered an invisible wall.

“Hmm.” She rolled a little on her side, and looked up at him. “Do you have a short knife?”

She looked better than she had a few minutes ago. Beautiful and determined. She could have asked him for anything and he would have given it to her if he could.

“A knife?” she asked again, and he fumbled for the one strapped to his thigh, drew it from its sheath and handed it to her.

She twisted her lips in a grimace. “I’m probably going to ruin it.”

He crouched beside her. “That’s fine.” He reached out and touched the smear of blood on her cheek.

“Thanks.” She began using it like a spade, digging into the ground just in front of the stone, making an angled hole.

“You’re going to try digging under the line?” he asked at last.

“I can see exactly where the spell begins and ends,” she said. “So if I can come at the stone from below, I think I can nudge it out of alignment.”

“But that won’t give us enough room to escape,” he guessed.

“No, but if Marchant was telling the truth about the energy leech, then we should see the strength of the barrier erode over time.” She took a break from digging and looked up at him again. “And if it dissipates quickly enough, we could escape before he comes back.”

“Let me take over for a bit,” he said, lying down beside her.

They took it in turns, watching Marchant’s house when they weren’t digging.

“He thinks he’s been spelled or cursed, you know.” Melodie propped herself up on an elbow as she watched him dig.

Theo stopped. “Wouldn’t he see it?”

She lifted her shoulder. “That’s what I asked him, but he said it was part of the spell that he couldn’t see it. He’s convinced.”

“And is he?”

She quirked her lips. “I don’t think so. But I haven’t told him that.”

He liked the idea of Marchant worrying about being spelled. “What does he think it’s doing to him?”

“Killing him slowly.” She turned onto her stomach and went back to watching his house. “I think he really is sick, but people get sick all the time and no magic is involved. I wonder if he isn’t looking for magical means because that’s his frame of reference.”

Theo didn’t care. Marchant wasn’t going to live long enough to die of illness or old age. He was going to make sure of it.

“I think I need to take over. We’re nearly there.” Melodie nudged him out the way and began angling the knife down and then upward, and Theo saw the stone move, just a little.

When it landed back in place, she set herself right over the hole, elbows holding her up as she scooped the knife down and then up a few more times, and finally the stone shifted just the tiniest bit.

She tried a few more times, but the small move had changed the angle, and she got no more traction.

“Hah.” She lifted up off her stomach, leaning back on her heels, her rapt gaze fixed on something he couldn’t see. “I’d like to have moved it a bit more, but the magic is wafting away. A golden spiral out and upward.”

Her gaze flicked suddenly to the house. “If he looks out, he’ll see it.”

“Then we have to hope he doesn’t look out.” Because there was nothing they could do about it.

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