“A show?” She tried and failed to keep the outrage from her voice.

“Remember fear and desperation trigger magic. Come on.” Jayden strode away, heading for a large dune.

She followed. They climbed to the top.

Jayden faced her. “When I disappear, look over the side.” He pointed. Then he pulled his hood down. A cloud of grains spiraled into the air. It wasn’t thick enough to block the sight of Jayden sinking into the sand.

Even though she’d seen it before, it still startled her and she had to stifle the desire to rush over and grab his arms. When any other person sank, it meant the poor soul had stumbled into a patch of unstable sluff sand, which, if he was alone, meant he would soon suffocate and die.

Once Jayden vanished, the cloud settled and the sand rushed to fill the hole, leaving behind no sign he’d been there at all. Shyla hurried to the dune’s edge and peered over. After a couple heart-pounding moments, sand poured from the side as if the dune was bleeding. Then a man-sized slit opened and Jayden sauntered out. The grains reversed direction, plugging the gap.

He turned toward her and held his arms out wide. “Ta da!”

Show-off. But she had to admit it was impressive. She slid down the side of the dune until she reached him. “Why did the sand run out of the dune before you exited?”

“My body took up space inside the dune. The sand will compress to a certain point, but the rest has to go somewhere. When I sank, the sand moved to give me room. Some of it went into the air so I could cover my passage, and the rest went out the side.”

“So, after the ambush, I was taken through the dune?”

“Yes. Payatt took you with him, then he erased your memories of the trip to the testing chamber.”

A nice name for what it really was—a prison—but she kept quiet. Instead she focused on the fact Payatt had erased her memories. It was strange to think she had an experience that she no longer remembered. Unease grew, knotting her stomach. “Was that the only time my memory was altered?”

He hesitated and a longing to read his soul gripped her. She studied him, searching for any indication he was about to lie.

“I think so,” he finally said.

“Think?”

“I wasn’t with you the entire time. Plus you moped in your room those three sun jumps after we rescued Banqui. Someone could have visited you to find out how much you knew about our organization.”

Shyla recalled the events after Banqui’s rescue, but something nagged at her. A detail that…didn’t quite fit. It clicked.

“Why didn’t you erase my memories?” she asked him. “You can do manipulation as well as the other two skills. But you told me it wasn’t your specialty.”