Benjamin slowed, head tipping back toward the washed-out sky above the valley.
"Ah," he murmured, almost to himself. "There WAS a barrier hiding here."
Lines of force, woven together like threads, so fine and so deliberate that they had simply blended into the background of the world.
"I had better be careful now. If the rat really is here, they are competent enough to sniff me out the second I grow careless."
Erica glanced at him, then at the air above their heads as though she might see what he saw.
Her expression tightened. She had already noticed the change in him — the way the already-small aura he usually possessed had folded itself into deeper, quieter layers, vanishing almost completely beneath the surface of his skin.
