Page 105 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Kase looked over at her, lifting his eyebrow.

Her soft pink lips tugged down at the corners, cheeks flushed with annoyance.

It was a rather adorable scowl, made even more appealing by the fact he was the one who put it there.

He resisted the urge to forget all his plans and spend the time kissing her instead.

“Does my flirting displease you, my lady? Would you prefer I stop?” He pressed the button to warm up the engine. “My most sincere apologies if—”

The hover interrupted him with a spray of blue liquid from the dash.

“ Blech , you stars-ridiculous ship!” That was the second time the thing had doused him.

Hallie roared with laughter. “I guess Merlin doesn’t appreciate your sarcasm.”

He wiped his face with one of the blankets he’d tucked under his seat and laughed along with her. “Merlin?”

“All pets need a name, and this one needs a particularly noble one, seeing as it helped you save us all.”

“Merlin was a wizard, not some dog.”

“A wizard and companion to one of the most famous literary heroes of First Earth.” Hallie patted the dashboard in front of her. The hover hummed in response.

Of course the machine would like her better.

She flashed him a victorious grin. “And as Merlin here has some sort of magical technology, well, it simply makes sense.”

“So does that make me Arthur?”

Hallie thought for a moment. “Perhaps, but that would then make me Guinevere, and I’m not sure I’m okay with that.”

“Feels appropriate to me. You certainly order people around as well as any queen.”

“I feel like I should take offense to that.”

“Well, Merlin and myself would be so grateful if you’d hold off on that and buckle your safety straps, Your Highness,” Kase said, buckling his own.

“Technically, queens are addressed as Majesty .” She clicked herself into her seat and pulled out her sketchpad and pencil.

Kase flipped the switch to turn the machine on completely. The hover purred in response. Maybe it was more like a pet than Kase realized. “Well, Your Most Esteemed and Illustrious Royal Majesty , we’re about to take off, so hold on tight.”

She clutched her sketching supplies in her lap, her nose scrunched and her eyes shut.

“Ready?”

She opened one eye. “No.”

Smirking, Kase pressed lightly on the accelerator and pulled a lever to his left, turning on the hover ability.

Cold started in his toes, but he pulled the blanket out and settled it over his legs.

The cold stopped for the moment. He ignored his father’s words about his uncle, that the reason this hover was here at all was because of his deadly discovery.

Hallie didn’t say anything about it again either.

There was a chance she was being polite, though that wasn’t necessarily her style, but more than likely, she probably thought if she pushed too much, she wouldn’t get to study the machine.

He loved her curiosity and scholar’s heart and the way she always found a way to make him laugh.

“So you just pulled that lever.” Hallie leaned forward to look. “That’s not like your old hover at all.”

The night he’d taught Hallie how to fly his hover flashed in his mind.

How he wished he could go back to that. Almost. He kind of liked how their story had played out, and despite the hardships they’d encountered, his love ran deeper than he could have ever imagined, the bond between them fire-forged.

She must’ve been thinking along the same lines, because she said, “This one doesn’t have an electric gramophone hooked up to it, I assume?”

“Because I’ve had so much time to do so with my house arrest, of course.

” They rose higher at a steady rate, and Hallie’s free hand clenched the arm rest. Kase eased back.

“No, but a few of the bigger hovers we had used the same mechanism, so I’m familiar with it.

” His blanket slipped a little. “The lever usually releases a higher voltage of electricity to interact with the inner workings of the hover. I’m certain this does the same thing, except… ”

The frosty sensation spread from his toes to the middle of his foot.

He looked down to find the blanket had slid to the floor.

Couldn’t the Cerls have come up with a better way to keep it at bay?

Maybe he should just make a bracelet like Niels had.

Man was smarter than Kase gave him credit for.

Well, to be fair, Niels had said it was Petra’s idea.

So she really deserved the credit. Yes, he liked that better.

With one hand still on the steering control, he grabbed the blanket with the other and tried to throw it over his shoulder.

The cold only receded a little but came back once the blanket fell once again. He stabilized the craft midair.

“Here, let me help you. Just don’t crash.” Hallie unbuckled herself and reached across. She tugged the blanket up over his shoulders.

With its replacement, warmth immediately flushed his system. “Thanks.”

Buckling herself back in, she said, “What’s the significance of the blanket, again?”

She grabbed her sketching supplies and flipped to a blank page.

Kase eased the hover back into its ascent.

“Something’s woven into it that keeps me warm when I fly.

The Soul Tech makes me cold.” He nodded to her seat.

“Should be another one under there, but I don’t know if you’ll feel the effects of the hover. Your father didn’t.”

Hallie pulled out the other blanket and assessed it. “Looks to be woven with the same metal as the ship. It’s probably Zuprium, but why is it blue? I don’t quite understand that.”

Kase shrugged and slowed their climb further.

They were about a mile above the city now, which would be the perfect view.

“All I know is that it works, and that somehow this machine knows what I’m thinking.

Haven’t figured out how it can do that, but these days, I don’t question things like that. Seen too much not to believe.”

Hallie nodded and pulled something else out of her satchel. His old goggles. She clutched them in one hand, the pencil in the other.

Kase reached across and placed his hand over hers. “You’re doing great, Hals. Now take a look below.”

“But what if I fall?” She didn’t look up.

“Then I’ll catch you.”

She shot him a half smile. “You make it sound so easy.”

“Remember when we fell out of that tree? I could’ve made it to safety, but I grabbed you instead.” Kase pulled his hand back and pressed the button to stabilize them further. A wave of cold swept over his hand, but it was gone in a second.

“And you didn’t even like me then, did you?”

Kase cracked his neck. “I might’ve…had a small crush, but I was too stubborn to admit it.” He pointed out the window again. “Now take a look before we fly a little to the west.”

The smile didn’t leave her face as she peeked over the edge of the hover. She gazed for a minute before sketching something quickly in her sketchbook. “Never realized the pattern the roads make leading up to McKenzie Square just before the Jayde Center. Looks like a starburst.”

She sat back quickly before slowly edging toward the side again. He laughed. “Not so bad, isn’t it?”

She laid a hand against her stomach. “Still feel a little nauseated, but it’s pretty way up here.”

“You’re not so bad to look at either.”

She raised a single brow, a soft flush brushing the tip of her nose and cheeks. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Everything is always better up in the sky.” He pushed the craft forward at a slow pace. “Makes all the noise fall away.”

They flew around in silence for several minutes.

Hallie took notes or sketched in her book, and Kase took them in a wide circle above the capital city.

From this angle, it almost looked as if the city was sleeping rather than lying in ruins.

He could just make out a few specks below moving about.

Slowly but surely, things were heading toward normalcy.

He glanced over at Hallie. She was intent on her sketch, her head bowed and her hand holding the pencil a little awkwardly. He couldn’t really tell what she was drawing—being left-handed, she had to hold the book at a certain angle—but he noted the small smile on her face.

It might have been the calm before the storm, seeing as everything was certain to fall apart no matter what she decided. But it was still nice. He was here with her now, and he could simply take in the moment and enjoy it for what it was.

The ship beeped happily, and Hallie startled, her pencil shrieking over the paper. She cursed softly, and Kase grinned. “Told you it had a mind of its own.”

Hallie rubbed the eraser down the side of the page where she’d scrawled across it. “Well, please tell Merlin that I would appreciate being able to draw without worrying we’re about to drop out of the sky.”

Kase patted the dash affectionately. “He wouldn’t allow that. It’s almost like he reads my thoughts. If it’s really my Soul or something fueling him…well, it’s a little creepy, but it at least means you’re safe.”

It should have been terrifying, but the technology only fascinated him. What else could they do with it? Could it save someone? Had that been Ezekiel’s motivation after so much loss?

Had that been what his uncle had thought? Why had he told the Cerl Queen the secrets of Jaydian technology? Had she forced it out of him? Or had he told her in confidence only for her to betray him?

Maybe that was why he begged for death. Not because his soul had been damaged, but because losing just one more person he loved had been too much for him to take.

He looked over at Hallie again as she resumed her sketching. “Hals?”

She didn’t look up. “Hmm?”

Kase flew them over the Jayde Center ruins. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider your decision?”

He was impressed with how calm he sounded discussing something that drastic.

She paused, but she still didn’t meet his eyes. “Decision?”

“About the Gate.”

“We don’t need to talk about this now.”