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shoulders sagged. “We’ll have to go
further east, through the hills, and hope to avoid them. It’s going to add at
least another day to our travel time.”
    The inclination to apologize tickled my lips, but I held
back the words. The conditions of our present situation were not my fault, and
I wouldn’t apologize for inconveniencing him when I still didn’t know how we
had come to be in this position in the first place. “I have another suggestion.”
    “What’s that?” Gideon rose and went to his horse. He crammed
a piece of deer jerky in his mouth and chewed as he stuffed his wet things
away.
    I followed his lead, gathering my blanket and sliding it
back in its place. Then I swirled my cloak over my shoulders and pulled the
hood over my hair. The rain may have dissipated, but dampness lingered in the
air, and the hood held a layer of warm air close to my neck and ears. “We can face
them,” I said.
    Gideon’s eyes bulged and eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Are
you mad? You have no fighting ability, and I can’t protect you and attack three
well-trained men at the same time.”
    “Do you feel you could fight them if you didn’t have to
worry about me?”
    His brows slid into a glower. “What do you mean?”
    “This cloak might have a few more tricks woven into it.”
    He gave me an irritated look that suggested I should quit
wasting his time and get to the point.
    “I can’t make it work for both of us and the horses,” I
said. “The more it stretches, the thinner its effect, but as long as I’m the
only one beneath it, the cloak can make me virtually invisible.”
    “Invisible? But you’ve been wearing it for two days, and I’ve
had no trouble seeing you.”
    “There’s been no need for it before.”
    “What about last night? You could have used it to come to
the village with me.”
    I disliked giving away my secrets, but I hated arguing with
Gideon even more. “It doesn’t work at night—only in sunlight.”
    “How inconvenient.” He grumbled something else, but it was
unintelligible.
    “It’s not like my grandmother put restrictions on it on
purpose. It’s Magic for the gods’ sakes.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to
one leg. Huffing, he jutted his chin. “Show me how it works, then.”
    I glared at him, though I couldn’t hope to make my
expression as stern or as unpleasant as his—he’d had too many more years of
practice. The trick to the cloak was in the frog style clasp at the throat. I
slid the leather loop sewn to one side over the carved bone toggle attached at
the other side. Then I exhaled, twisted the clasp together, and spoke the magic
word—my grandfather’s name—on a soft breath only I could hear. “Trevelyan.”
    The invisibility wasn’t perfect. The fabric reflected light,
and quick motions made it shimmer. The affect changed me into something like a
semi-translucent ghost. Contrary to common sense, the cloak worked best in
bright, direct sunlight. As the daylight dimmed, the cloak’s original material would
darken into its usual, opaque state.
    “I can still make out your silhouette,” Gideon said.
    “Yes, but it will become less noticeable as the sun rises.
From a distance, you would never know I was here.” Even in the short time since
waking, the day showed promise of making up for the previous one. Most of the
clouds had burned away, and the sky promised a clear and glorious day. A
perfect day, I hoped, for the cloak’s use.
    I unfastened the cloak after my quick demonstration. The
downside to the cloak’s invisibility was the empty and loose feeling it gave the
wearer. It felt as though wind was whistling through my skin and between my rib
bones. If I kept the cloak fastened too long, dizziness and nausea would rob my
strength and energy.
    “Well, that takes care of you,” he said, “but I still have
to get past three men, one of whom is the captain of your father’s personal
guard.”
    “But you brought