Aureus and Xiomara had made it only a few blocks from their home before running into their first obstacle. In the time they had spent preparing to flee Alatyr, the city was already being affected by Aureus's new power.

"We do not have time for this," Xiomara said. "We must get to the embassy."

Ahead, a large crowd gathered around a wrecked ethercar. By the looks of it, it'd fallen from the sky and onto the broad footpath below. Two other ethercars—one belonging to a bystander and the other to a pair of watchmen—were parked near the downed vehicle. One watchman was attempting to handle the curious crowd while the other spoke to the driver of the crashed car.

Aureus felt a pang of guilt. "I did this..."

"Not on purpose," Xiomara reminded him. "Besides, it does not seem anyone was hurt, which is a lucky thing, but it is all the more reason to leave."

He took stock of their surroundings.

High-rise tenement buildings flanked them on both sides, enclosing the footpath leading deeper into the city and, subsequently, toward the embassy. Unfortunately, no nearby alleyways were available to circumvent the crowd, and backtracking to the nearest intersecting path would only lead them away from their destination. "Damn," he said. The whirring sound of a descending ethercar caught his attention. He turned and spotted the Arcanarium emblem. "Shit. Xio..."

"I see them," Xiomara replied. "The watchmen must have called in the accident. Your ability to absorb magic from your surroundings makes you easy to trace. We need to leave."

Four hexwardens exited the vehicle and made their way to the crash from the back of the crowd.

Xiomara pressed forward.

In contrast to her graceful navigation of the throng, Aureus bumbled along behind her in an attempt to keep up as they moved away from the approaching hexwardens. "Xio, what are you doing?"

"We cannot afford to linger. If we do, we will be arrested."

"That doesn't answer my question!"

"We are going to steal that ethercar," Xiomara replied, pointing at the bystander's vehicle. "It is still running, which means you have not yet drained it of magic. With luck, we can use it to get away."

He apologized for stepping on someone's toes as he struggled to keep up. "And what if it falls from the sky like that one did? Besides, we can't just steal someone's car. We'll be caught anyway—or worse, killed in the crash. We should find another way!"

"This is the best course of action."

"They'll just chase us when we take off!" Aureus protested.

Xiomara stopped and turned to face him, emergency lights flashing across her face. "That person will get back in their vehicle and may also die in a crash. We should take the risk for them and try to leave. If we die in our escape, we will have died in their place, and the scales will remain balanced. By lingering here, your power threatens to bring all of Alatyr to ruin. Many will die unnecessarily, and we will have been caught for nothing other than to satisfy your desire to avoid guilt and risk."

The logic reminded Aureus that he wasn't speaking to a human. Despite her pragmatic views, he found her forethought difficult to argue with. He adored her wisdom as much as it infuriated him.

He stole a glance back.

The hexwardens were advancing, closing the gap quickly.

When he turned back to face Xiomara, she was already making her way to the front of the crowd. No one seemed to notice her as she opened the unlocked door and casually slid into the driver's seat of the civilian ethercar. Aureus, however, hesitated too long at the rear of the vehicle—still hung up on the same moral dilemma Xiomara had no issue resolving for herself.

"Hey! You! Get away from there!" the nearest watchman shouted.

The owner of the ethercar traced Aureus's panicked gaze to Xiomara.

"Get in!" she shouted.

The watchman and the car's owner lurched forward, spurring Aureus into action.

In a few seconds, he was in the passenger seat with the door locked as the owner pounded on the window, shouting. The watchman was making similar demands of Xiomara on the driver's side.

There was more shouting, and Aureus glimpsed the second watchman signaling to the hexwardens, now running to the scene.

"Xio... They're onto us!"

She quickly calibrated the ethercar.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Aureus shouted.

The car thrummed to life and ascended rapidly into the air.

Their surroundings became a blur of motion as the car spun around to face the direction of the inner city. The force of the car's acceleration knocked him into his seat. "Oh shit! Holy shit! What did we just do? Did we just do that?"

Xiomara shifted gears. "You are panicking. Calm your breathing."

Another ethercar came straight for them.

"Look out!"

Xiomara veered left, barrel-rolling to miss the other car.

"Fuck! When did you learn to drive like this?" Aureus asked.

"Over a hundred years ago."

"What? These things have barely been around that long!"

The car rose above the flow of traffic. If they went much higher, the vertical thrusters would give out. Xiomara was putting almost all their reserves into the forward pulse drive. "I volunteered to test drive the prototypes," she said.

"What? Really?"

Despite hurtling through the air hundreds of feet above tenement buildings, the verbal exchange was enough to distract Aureus from thinking they could crash at any moment if he stole magic from the car. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked, chuckling nervously. "You're amazing at this!"

"I did not want you to focus on our age difference." She met his gaze, smirked, and slammed the steering wheel forward.

The ethercar went into an immediate nosedive as it swerved to avoid a giant airship that, until that moment, had escaped Aureus's notice. The maneuver nearly sent him toppling into the back seat.

It was Xiomara's turn to laugh as she leveled out. "Apologies, my love. Your smile distracted me. You should put on your seat belt."

"Seat belt—right," Aureus replied, strapping himself in. As he did, he noticed her fleeting glances into the rearview mirror.

"We have company," she said.

He peered into his side mirror, then turned to look through the back window for a better view.

A sleek Arcanarium ethercar was on their tail less than a hundred yards out, followed closely by another belonging to the city watch.

"Can this thing go any faster?" Aureus asked.

"Not without losing altitude."

"Xio... We need to go faster!"

She glanced at the console behind the steering wheel, then at their pursuers in the rearview. "I have an idea. Hold on."

Aureus braced himself as the ethercar tilted to the left and began descending toward the city.

The whole of Alatyr came into view.

"Even if we lose them, how will we get out of the city?" Aureus asked. "The embassy might be empty, but the capitol will be swarming with hexwardens and city watch. If they're really tracking me, we'll be overrun. And they're definitely going to see us coming in this thing. Besides, they've probably already called it in!"

"This is the best course of action."

"Yeah, you keep saying that, but what is our course of action?"

"If I tell you, I will remove an opportunity for you to hone your fear."

"Hone my—what? Gods, Xio! What does that even mean?"

Aureus craned his neck to get a view of their pursuers. He caught a glimpse of the city watch car directly behind them, but the other was nowhere to be seen. "The hexwardens—where'd they go?"

"They are above us." As if commenting on the weather, she said, "They will attempt to ground us as we descend."

The ethercar trembled.

Aureus looked concernedly at the flickering console."What was that?"

Xiomara dialed in a few commands. "It is happening."

"I can't feel it. Are you sure?"

She nodded and pointed at a dwindling gauge on the console. "We are expending energy at a rate inconsistent with our speed and the time we have been in flight."

The ethercar shook again, and Aureus's limbs went rigid. "Shit... Fuck! What're we going to do?"

"Master your fear and hold on." With that, she tilted the wheel forward, and they dove into a freefall.

Aureus groaned in protest.

The ethercar shuddered.

He felt his buttocks leave his seat despite being strapped in. He reached up to the ceiling to brace himself firmly into the chair. "Xio..." he said, fighting panic, racing heartbeat sounding like a drum in his ears. "Xio, pull up."

Xiomara was a blur of motion. She cut power to the vertical thrusters and diverted all remaining energy into the forward pulse drive, but left it inactive.

"Xio. Pull up!"

"Wrap your arms across your chest."

"What?"

The ethercar shook violently, and a moving train appeared below as the tallest buildings became more distinct.

"Xio!"

"Do it!"

Aureus folded both arms across his chest and glanced into his side mirror but couldn't glimpse their pursuers. "Xio!"

She ignored him—and pressed a button.

The roof of the ethercar tore off, jolting the vehicle. Seconds later, the shockwave of a percussive blast struck the back of the car as it careened toward the train below.

Aureus spotted a cluster of flaming debris descending toward them as Xiomara straightened out.

"One down, one to go," she said.

"Where's the second one?"

She gently pulled back on the wheel and gradually pressed her foot on the acceleration pedal. The forward pulse thrusters flared to life, knocking Aureus backward. By his estimate, they were moments away from colliding with the train.

A terrified scream escaped his throat.

The nose of the ethercar slowly began to tilt up and away from the ground while Xiomara's foot pressed the pedal closer to the floor. Wind, steam, and smoke whipped around the car as it wobbled on its axis. Just before the last light on the console flickered and died, she pulled the wheel sharply toward her chest and slammed the pedal against the floor.

The effect was spectacular.

A flash of yellow-orange light flared behind them, followed by an explosion as the second of their pursuers crashed into the tracks. Aureus didn't bother turning to look because he understood what was about to come next.

The ethercar was now traveling at the train's speed as it glided along rails suspended high above ground level, descending slowly as it soared.

Once their heads were below the bottom of the nearest train car, Xiomara directed the ethercar to drift to the right and beneath it. "Quick," she shouted over the din, releasing her seatbelt. "Help me with this."

Aureus freed himself from the chair and followed her lead. They both stood on their chairs, working quickly to open the train car's underside maintenance hatch.

They got it open just in time.

The ethercar's pulse thruster sputtered, died, and slowly dropped away, disappearing into the smog below just as Aureus pulled Xiomara into the train car with him.

"Let me guess," he said, peering into the gloom of the unlit cargo compartment as she sealed the hatch at their feet. "Next stop: the Unseelie embassy?"

She took him by the hand and led him to the nearby crate. Like other fae, she had little difficulty seeing in the dark. "It won't be that straightforward, but yes. This train will stop at a weigh station before reaching the warehouses near the capitol building. From there, we will not have far to walk to reach the embassy."

"How long until we arrive?"

"Long enough to calm your nerves before the next part of our journey."

It took a few minutes before he was able to calm his breathing. He held his hands together to keep them from shaking. "You still haven't told me exactly why we're heading to the embassy. What's there?"

Even when she wasn't trying to conceal them, Xiomara's movements were imperceptible—especially in the dark. The weight of her head resting on his shoulder made him jump.

"Nothing we can take with us, but there is a room that will mask you from the Arcanarium—at least in theory. As I said, you will find out more when we arrive."

The finality in her tone told Aureus all he needed to know, at least for the moment. He found her other hand in the dark and laced his fingers around hers. "I trust you," he said.

She kissed his shoulder.

He smiled and closed his eyes, realizing her touch was helping to soothe his shattered nerves.

In less than an hour, they would be running for the safety of the embassy. For now, however, he would pretend his day had only been a nightmare. He tried to dream of more pleasant things as the train raced toward the capitol.

⊱─━━━━⊱༻●༺⊰━━━━─⊰

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