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‘I was hoping destruction would be easier than construction,’ I grumbled. ‘Alright. Help me think this through again. The shield stops all movement – we can be sure of that, yes?’

He nodded, pursing his lips at the invisible barrier of magic.

‘So what we need is something that … doesn’t move. To make sure the shield doesn’t detect it. Except that if it doesn’t move’ – I glowered at the three motionless apples I’d created, which had taken root in the grass and could not be carried off or kicked aside no matter how hard we tried – ‘it can’t move through the shield, either.’

So we need something that’s both movable and immovable.

I let out a long groan. ‘It sounds like one of those terrible riddles from a fairy tale. Does it have three legs in the morning, too?’

Four, he corrected me with a grin.Three in the evening.

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve felt you wake up with three legs on regular occasions,’ I said, snorting.

He threw back his head, that damned soundless laugh bursting out of him.I’m trying to dutifully save the world here, Em.

‘Oh, fine.’ I fell down next to him and crossed my legs. ‘You’re better at riddles. How do we solve this one?’

Perhaps …He stared at Alyra with unseeing eyes as she pecked at the motionless apples.Perhaps you could attach the immovability to something that’s still capable of movement?

I blinked.

Like air to our planet, he added, looking sheepish.Do you remember what I told you about that fae researcher who flew some seven miles up and found he couldn’t breathe up there? Seems like the oxygen is clinging to our world’s surface, which means it’s motionless in that sense. But we’re still moving around the sun. So …

‘Moving,’ I finished numbly.

Yes.

‘So if we could create a … a shield of motionlessness around one of those apples – notonthe apple, butaroundit …’ I swallowed. ‘Good gods. Let me try.’

The hardest part was learning how to attach motion magic to a surface without affecting the surface itself. It wouldn’t stay stable no matter how carefully I wrapped it about the apple in my lap, unravelling the moment I took my left hand away from the soft velvet of my dress.

Just be quick, Creon suggested.Don’t wait to see if it’s taken hold.

So I tried once again, folded a firm layer of motionlessness around the cheerful red fruit before me, and hissed, ‘Now!’

Creon snatched the apple from my lap and swung it at the shield before I’d let the magic go.

There was a crackle.

A faint, sucking sound.

And then – a small blot of red against the sun-streaked grass of the unkept garden – the apple lay on the other side of the shield, blushing innocently at us from ten unreachable feet away.

We stared at it in silence for half a minute, as if the damn thing might change its mind and turn back on its own just to torment us. But even as I blinked and pinched myself and blinked again, there was no denying it – ithadcrossed the shield.

‘You’re a gods-damned genius,’ I breathed, eyes still clinging to the miracle.

For coming up with dozens of ideas, most of them terrible? His signs forced me to avert my eyes.You did the work here, cactus.

I swallowed as the heady triumph finally made its way into my chest, my throat. ‘I … I just need to find a way to sustain it for a moment longer.’

Yes.Now, for the very first time, the tension betrayed itself, just a small shudder in his deep inhale.And then we could cross.

The words lingered between us for a moment, temptation itself shaped in the signs of those scarred, nimble fingers.

‘Should we?’ I whispered. ‘Or should we … you know … warn the others first?’

He closed his eyes, jaw clenching at the mention of them. I felt the same tightening in my gut, a sensation somewhere between dread and nervousness – the others, who would look at us with those accusing eyes and turn every shared touch between us into something guilty and shameful. But not telling them meant putting ourselves in danger without any rear-guard in case things went awry. And accidentally locking myself behind the shield of the Cobalt Court was not a risk I was happy to take.