He raised an eyebrow. “When the situation calls for it.”
I couldn’t tell if he teased me or not. His expression was utterly deadpan.
“My apologies, Elizabeth,” Farlance said. “This is Sorcerer-Agent John Tully.”
I didn’t recognize the name. “I don’t know you,” I said.
“I’ve read your file,” Tully replied. I couldn’t tell if he were joking or being serious, and that was even more irritating.
“You will know him,” Farlance said drily.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“He’s your new partner.”
5
“New partner?” I blinked.
“R.U.N.E. field sorcerer-agents always work in pairs,” Farlance replied, his face threatening to break into a grin.
I knew that, I just hadn’t expected my new partner to be a chiseled giant of a man. Someone more like Nancy, who I could easily outrun if I needed.
I shot Tully a look. He crossed his arms, leaned against the van wall. Of course, he knew. The thing was, I could smell a new guy from a mile away. Call it experience. Call it intuition. Didn’t matter that they were a confident, seemingly-relaxed-type like this giant in a leather duster. Tully had all the hallmarks of a rookie. Exuding relaxed confidence typically hid a lack of experience in my book. Sure, he wasn’t the classic nervous rookie, but R.U.N.E. didn’t have nervous rookies. We had cocky-as-they-come rookies.
Farlance’s lips trembled, but he managed to keep a straight face. “You will be helping us track down the cause of tonight’s gremlin outbreak.”
I shook my head. “I have to shepherd the newbie, is that it?”
Tully’s eyes narrowed for a second, then the professional mask slipped back over his handsome features.
“Sorcerer-Agent Tully is fully trained, and already has experience in the field with the arcane.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so this isn’t your first rodeo, after all?” I asked. I had guessed wrong. My muscles relaxed. I didn’t know the situation yet, and had jumped to conclusions. Besides, Farlance and his team would no doubt take the lead on this. If nothing else, this would be an easier assignment than tracking down Burt the Ogre.
“I’ve been confronted by the arcane before,” Tully said.
His reply made me suspicious.
“Where?” I demanded.
Farlance didn’t miss a beat jumping in. “Prior to joining our organization.”
That was just great. I tilted my head at Tully. “So, you were a spark. Me, too. That doesn’t count.” A lot of us in R.U.N.E. had been sparks, people who’d experienced the arcane up close and personal before being recruited. My sister and I had been sparks. That had changed both of our worlds forever. That went with the territory. In fact, it was a practically a requirement. I’d had worse than just being a spark, like a mother who knew my sister Clara and I had sorcery, because she possessed sorcery, and that she kept that secret from us when we were growing up. And even worse, what had happened to my sister. But, I couldn’t think about that now.
So, Tully being a spark? No big deal. Okay, so I was being a jerk in my own right. I didn’t want to babysit a new guy.
Farlance caught my eye. He arched an eyebrow, and looked at me with a prompting gaze. He had long eyelashes, long eyelashes shielding achingly blue eyes. He smiled faintly. Even for a faint smile, it made him even more stunning. My stomach fluttered.
Down, girl, I told myself. Just because the man was GQ handsome was no reason to get all hot-and-bothered.
“Don’t you have something for me?” Farlance inquired.
I nearly bit my tongue. Was my internal swooning over his looks that obvious?
“Not anymore,” I said. I locked up all the indecent thoughts his long eyelashes had inspired.
The faint smile vanished. “What happened to the fly-by-night?”
“I had to use it when the teleportal put me two hundred feet above the pavement.”
Surprise shot across Tully’s face, his eyes widening.
“It did?” Farlance asked, his voice sharp with concern.
I explained what had happened.
This would normally be the time after a pear-shaped incident like this where the new guy would look astonished and start asking all sorts of questions. But Tully just listened as I explained having to use the fly-by-night, and then the chaos that followed.
Farlance clenched his walking stick, then relaxed his grip and leaned in close. “I’m relieved you survived, Elizabeth,” he said. The way my name sounded when he said it made my toes want to curl. Hey, I’d been away from handsome men for far too long, so sue me.
“Thanks, me, too,” I stuttered. Tully watched the whole thing in silence.
I tapped my foot. His silence was beginning to really bug me.
“What do you think about this, rookie?” I asked him.
“I think you acted quickly, as a R.U.N.E. agent needs to when their life, or someone else’s, is on the line.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to sound sincere. His quiet confidence was definitely turning me into a jerk. He had just agreed that I’d acted correctly, after all.
I turned to Farlance. “I’d never heard of a teleportal malfunctioning like that before,” I said.
“How many gremlins were nearby?” Farlance asked.
“Just the one.” That little pointy-headed irritation by the traffic light.
“That shouldn’t nearly be enough to disrupt the teleportal,” Farlance said.
He was right. The teleportal was an embodied manifestation, in other words, an artifact. In simple terms, it was alive, just like a resident manifestation. It just didn’t walk around. So, when I stepped through the teleportal in the Brooklyn castle, and came out two hundred feet in the air above Portland, I had traveled via a manifestation that existed in two places at the same time.
“Can gremlins affect a dragon-forged artifact?” Tully asked.
It was a good question.
“Not normally,” Farlance said. “It would take a large concentration of them and a tremendous amount of mana to boot, as well, in order to boost their chaos-generating magic to the point where it could affect a teleportal.” He didn’t say impossible.
I’d have thought it would have been. But Farlance was a wizard, able to work multiple sorceries with the truckload
