Sora looked up at Prince Gin’s castle. It was a long way up the steep, winding road, and she wanted to make both her and Daemon invisible. But casting a spell on herself was one thing; doing it to someone else was another.

“What if I lose hold of the magic?” she asked. “Then they’ll see you.”

“Would it be easier if we moved as a single unit?” he asked.

“I don’t understand how that would help.”

“When I was a wolf and you were riding on my back, my magic was able to envelop all of us. What if that’s because we were all essentially one unit?”

The corner of Sora’s mouth quirked. “So you’re saying that if I rode piggyback on you, it would be easier to include you in my invisibility, instead of casting an entirely different spell for each of us. But it’s a lot of work for you.”

“Well, you could carry me, I suppose . . . ,” he said.

Sora sputtered.

Daemon laughed. “I’m just teasing. You need to focus all your energy on keeping us invisible, not hauling my deadweight up the mountain. Get on.”

She hit him for the joke, but as soon as she was on his back, all was forgiven. She wrapped herself around him and felt the strength of his muscles against her own. His hair brushed against her cheek, and she wanted to reach out and run her fingers through it. Sora swallowed a sigh that would give her away.

“Tell me when we’re invisible,” Daemon said.

She nodded into his shoulder.

Then Sora called to the ryuu magic. It was always there, everywhere, but it remained quietly in the background unless summoned. Now, at her beckoning, it appeared like emerald dust glimmering in the air, eagerly awaiting instructions.

Make us invisible.

The ryuu particles streamed into Sora’s body, the heat seeping through to her core, like a sponge greedily soaking in perfumed bathwater. She gave herself a second to revel in the feeling, despite the underlying guilt that the ryuu magic was a “gift” from her enemy.

But it was a gift she would use against him.

She looked down at Daemon. He was saturated with ryuu particles, too. “It worked,” she whispered into his ear. “You’re invisible, too.”

He didn’t move.

Gods, had something gone wrong with her spell? Sora tapped her hand on his chest. “Daemon? Are you all right? Answer me.”

His body trembled, and he shook his head as if waking. “I’m fine. That was just unexpected.”

“Did you feel it, too?”

“It’s like drinking a warm dose of joy. I didn’t feel it when you floated me over the Citadel walls earlier, but becoming invisible is . . . different.”

Sora smiled a little. There were plenty of reasons to hate ryuu magic, but the warmth that came with it wasn’t one of them.