They traveled for the next few minutes in silence. Angel continued glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had followed them, but Bronze City was fading quickly into the distance without any signs of pursuit.

“I don’t suppose your fancy shoes turn off?” Angel asked. “The bright glowing light is kind of a beacon for anyone trying to follow us. Why do they even do that?”

“They don’t,” Vanessa said crossly. “And they glow because they’re the latest model. It helps you see where you’re going at night.”

“That’s stupid,” Angel said. “We’re going to have to remove that part. I’m not going to travel with walking Vyrg bait.”

Vanessa’s face paled at the name of the monster. “They’re not here… are they? I thought Vyrgs stayed in the center of the desert.”

“They’re everywhere,” Angel replied. “They just don’t bother with lone humans often. There’s no reason to entice them by dressing up like a fairy, though.”

“You act as if you’ve seen a Vyrg.”

“I have,” Angel said flatly. “Watched it crush an entire caravan. They had some great artifacts.”

Vanessa gaped in horror. “You robbed them?”

“They were dead. It’s not like they needed the artifacts anymore,” Angel replied.

Before Vanessa could reply, Cowl raised a hand. They slowed to a stop as the strange Hunter’s wings retracted back into his back and he touched down on the sand. He turned as Angel stepped off his board and Vanessa’s twinkly shoes turned off.

“What’s wrong?” Angel asked.

“We’re far enough away from the city to speak without worrying about getting caught. And the Seeker is right – your skates need to go. You’re giving away our position to the entire desert.”

“Fine,” Vanessa said, a worried frown crossing her face. “But how do we get rid of the lights? I don’t think there’s an off switch.”

“We can break the lights,” Cowl said.

“Break them? But… I don’t have any others!” Vanessa’s face fell, but the blank gaze of Cowl’s mask was too much to argue with. With a sad sigh, she started to take her boots off.

“I can turn them off without destroying the skates,” Angel said. “It won’t take me long. Do you think we can spare the time?”

“Five minutes,” Cowl said, cocking his head. “You know enough about skates to modify them? You don’t even have your own pair.”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Angel replied, taking the boots from Vanessa and turning them over. The bottom of each shoe had a thin strip of metal along with several tiny valves and a cannister. Miniscule lines ran out from the cannister, crisscrossing throughout the sole.

Angel’s mechanical arm let out a hiss of steam as needlelike points emerged from his fingertips. His eyepiece dropped down and magnified the lines. He traced them from the cannister, muttering to himself as his fingers fluttered over the shoes.

After a few moments, Angel nodded to himself. He reached into the bag at his side, digging around for a few moments before pulling out a thin metal tool with a pointed tip. He channeled magic in his left hand and a small spark of blue light flared at the tip and Angel pressed it against one of the lines. He repeated the process on the other shoe, then handed them back to Vanessa.

“I can fix that when we arrive,” Angel said. “I just interrupted the connection of the magic by breaking a small line. It won’t take more than a minute or two.”

“You figured out how skates worked enough to modify them within a few minutes?” Cowl asked doubtfully.

“Who would’ve thought,” Angel said dryly. “Spending all your time dismantling artifacts gives a slight advantage when examining other magical items.”

Cowl grunted. “I might have a few things for you to look at. Broke some tools on my last job.”

“I’ll give them a glance for the right amount of coin,” Angel said, a grin tugging at his lips. He got the feeling that Cowl was scowling at him.

The Hunter just shook his head and gestured for Vanessa to put her shoes back on. “Time’s ticking. There’s another reason that I had us stop for a moment.”

“What is it?” Vanessa asked, nervously looking into the desert from where they’d come.

“Somebody knew you’d try to escape the city today. That means it’s not unreasonable to assume that they know where we’re heading.”

“Hold on,” Angel said, a frown crossing his face. “How do you know that?”

Cowl turned to face Angel, giving him a better look at the short sword strapped to his waist. Traces of dark brownish-red blood had dried on the sword, but they didn’t look new. Angel drew in a sharp breath as he remembered Cowl flicking the blood off his weapon after they'd left the city.

“The guard,” he realized. “You killed him?”

“Right after he ran off to report to his superiors,” Cowl confirmed. “I didn’t have time to dispose of his body properly, so I left it in an alley.”

Vanessa put a hand over her mouth. “You killed someone?”

“I was just doing my job,” Cowl replied with a careless shrug. He nodded in Angel’s direction. “I got hired to protect you two starting yesterday. Having a bunch of guards hot on our tail would have made my job considerably more difficult.”

“You tailed me,” Angel said, thinking back over the day. “Either that or you waited outside my house until I left this morning.”

“Both, actually,” Cowl said. “You’re not bad, but I’ve tracked people many times more elusive than you’ll ever be. It wasn’t hard. When I knew where you lived, I showed up the following morning to see who our travel companion would be. I didn’t expect it to be the Magistrate’s daughter, but all that I care about in the end is the coin.”

Vanessa backed a step away from Cowl, but the Hunter didn’t seem to care. He snapped his fingers impatiently. “The reason I am mentioning this is that we’re likely going to have to hide the girl’s identity in any city we pass through. Word travels faster than men do.”

“The way you say that makes me think you’ve already taken care of the issue,” Angel said suspiciously.

The Hunter chuckled. He reached into a pack at his side and pulled out a heavy brown scarf which he tossed at Vanessa.

“Simple is best. We’ll need a cover story as well, and it’s best to get that established before we arrive. The two of you will be middle class siblings that hired me to escort you to the Molten Cliffs Academy. You both want to become Artificers.”

“But that’s almost already what we’re doing,” Vanessa said, frowning. She wrapped the scarf around her face, masking all the features below her nose in a way that made it clear that this wasn’t the first time she’d concealed her identity.

“The best lies are ninety percent truth,” Cowl replied. “Don’t take it off. Actually…”

He dug around in his pouch for a few moments before pulling out a bundle of straw. It expanded in his hands, turning into a conical straw hat. Cowl set it down on Vanessa’s head and pulled the strap around her chin.

“Keep this low over your eyes. That ruby red is a dead giveaway to your identity. Just pretend like your face was scarred.”

Vanessa bit her lip and nodded. Cowl’s wings sprung out of his back and he fluttered into the air. “Then we’ve taken care of the preliminary business. Let’s get moving. The closest city in the direction we’re going is Dune Valley, and that’s a little more than a day of travel. I want to put more distance between ourselves and Bronze City before we make camp for the night.”

“We’re going to be sleeping in the desert? I read that monsters often come out at night, is that true?”

“That’s largely a myth,” Angel said, hopping onto his board. It powered up and floated into the air. He and Cowl sent Vanessa an expectant glance. She frowned and activated her boots. The three of them set off back across the desert.

“Monsters roam the Barren at just about any time of day,” Angel called over the wind. “Most of them don’t care for humans, though. The really dangerous ones are usually in the center of the desert, and we’re in the outskirts.”

“So why did you need to hire a Hunter?”

“Well, I don’t like to bet my life on ‘usually’. It’s also safer to travel in groups. Monsters aren’t the only threats in the Barren,” Angel said grimly. “Of course, there are catacombs everywhere. If you go into any of those, the monsters are almost certain to attack you. They tend to be very aggressive. Nobody knows why, but I think it’s Old Magic.”

“I don’t think we can just stumble across a catacomb though, right? That shouldn’t be an issue,” Vanessa said. “The book Seeker's Travels said that they’re very hard to find; though my mom said you can fall into them on accident on rare occasions.”