Vica didn’t have time to decipher Bren’s cryptic gibberish. She had come here with nothing but the barest bones of a plan and the accompanying desperation to intervene before Constantine got himself killed. And on the other side of her wall of thorns and roots, a throng of mages wanted nothing more than to tear her down and drag her underfoot. The muffled shouting had died down as far as she could tell, but she wasn’t naive enough to think they had given up. She wouldn’t either, she thought, if she were in their position.
As if on cue, a strange sensation whispered between the crevices of the earthen barrier and then ghosted through her like a phantom breeze. Vica had already been facing the wall, but now her eyes narrowed in apprehensive suspicion as she peered ahead. Had she imagined th
