Page 85 (1/1)

"They didn’t come anywhere near her"

I turned to Owen "That’s weird If they h the spy, surely they’d have eventually tracked back to Perdita"

"Maybe their precautions weren’t about e’ve done here, but about e do back hoical cops, we foiled Sylvester’s last scheme, and Earl is a known rebel Perdita may have been under their radar"

"What happened to you two?" Earl asked

"When you didn’t coured Perdita would be a contact point," I said "How did things go for you?"

"They got to Brad, and I was able to snap hiured sundown in what passes for Central Park, at the spot just before it loops back to Riverside--it’s a lot like Cherry Hill, but not quite There has to be a lot of ic in that area to form that kind of boundary loop, so maybe our portal won’t be quite so obvious"

Owen checked his watch "We’ve got a fewus, we may as ait here until then"

We made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the floor behind some shelves, where eren’t visible fro off to sleep, but the next thing I was conscious of was feeling a little stiff fro desperately that this whole thing about living in an alternate reality straight out of a bad ro ently didn’t have to ruin things That could happen if I’d fallen asleep during a o"

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and had to accept that my predicament was very real Nearby noises told ht, I saen crawl to the hatch that led to the sidewalk He peered out, then said, "I don’t see any gray guys"

"We should probably split up, so if they catch one group of us, they won’t catch all of us," I suggested "Earl, you go with Perdita We’ll ed on the sidewalk It was the evening rush hour, so the sideas busy and crowded, and we didn’t stand out too badly We melted into the crowd and one a few blocks when I noticed one of the gray guys on the opposite side of the street I nudged Owen, but he didn’t seem to respond at all--until we reached the next intersection and he casually turned us down the side street heading toward the park, as though that here we’d been going all along I couldn’t tell if the gray guy had seen us, and looking back over iveaway

"What do we do?" I whispered to Owen

"Just keep going" In the middle of the block, he stopped and knelt to tie his shoe, then stood and reported, "He didn’t follow us"

"Then let’s go before another one shows up," I urged

We didn’t encounter any uys I felt a lot better once ere inside the park even though I knew that eren’t necessarily safer there I just felt a lot less exposed surrounded by trees The others soon joined us at the designated athered, Owen said, "This should work better on natural ground, say, over there under those trees" We trooped over to the place he’d pointed out, then he closed his eyes for awith satisfaction, he said, "Yeah, this place should work"

He found a stick and knelt to scratch souys to find me some small stones, preferably sround, picking up rocks Owen arranged the rocks in a circle around the sy in the dirt "I should probably set up wards to keep thisdetected," he said as he worked, "but I’m afraid we can’t spare the power We’ll just have to e out, then dash--and hope it works so they’ll send help in case we get caught" He gestured for the others to join hiuard I’d rather not draw on your power unless we have to Yell if you see anyone co, but I had to adic I’d never be able to do Before I turned away, I sariting a note Soon afterward, he started an incantation in a language I didn’t know It ht have been elvish, since the elves soon joined in