If this were any normal case, this was the point where I’d have backed off. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t have a death wish. But this wasn’t a normal case. My friend and liege was crying alone in his hollow hill over a woman I’d known and respected my entire life, and a little girl who braided dandelions in her hair was missing. There was no way I could walk away, not when this might be my only shot at finding them.

I backed into the shadows of the bushes, kneeling to run my fingers through the damp grass. My own magic rose around me, the taste of copper and cut grass hanging in the air until the spell caught hold with an almost audible click. A bolt of pain shot through my temples. Changeling magic has limits, and those limits make themselves clear when you try to go too far. I’d mixed a marsh water charm, spun a human disguise, and now I was casting a don’t-look-here on myself. Put it all together, and it spelled “too far.”

The pain was worth it for the safety of going unseen. I reminded myself of that as I straightened, wincing, wiped my fingers on the leg of my jeans, and followed Simon into the Tea Gardens.

The spell worked well enough that the girl at the fare booth looked right through me as I passed. The tourists aiming cameras at the bonsai and traditional Japanese sculpture did the same. I suppressed a shiver. I had stepped out of the human world entirely, and unless I took the spell down, they’d never know I’d been there.

The paths inside the Tea Gardens were narrow enough that keeping Simon in sight meant following more closely. I shortened the gap between us, trusting my elementary illusions to hide me. The more powerful someone is, the less time they spend looking for small magic. Changeling games are the most primitive of all. I was betting Simon would overlook me completely, because my illusions were too small to be a threat.