Kida didn’t sleep for long. From where Destiny sat on the rock, she could hear her tossing and turning. The excitement of the past hour had left Destiny wired, and she knew it must have had the same effect on Kida. After about an hour and a half of restless shifting on the part of Kida, Destiny finally heard the tent flap open and Kida step out onto the sand.
“Can’t sleep?” she called down. There was the noise of wingbeats as Kida flew up to sit next to her, her wings stirring up a miniature cyclone of sand.
“No. Can’t make my mind shut up. Why would Midas send ninjas after us?” She stared off into towards the horizon. Destiny smiled inwardly - she knew Kida would come to the same conclusion as she had. Their mysterious attackers had to be ninjas, to be able to vanish so easily like that. Destiny herself had that skill, although she was not entirely proficient at it yet. Kida continued. “I mean, obviously to warn us, but why? Is the mercenary girl really that dangerous?”
Destiny noticed she didn’t even mention the hunter. Then again, he hadn’t exactly seemed like much of a threat, unlike the girl, Kiri. “It sounds to me,” she began slowly. “Like he just doesn’t want to be found. Maybe he’s hiding from someone, or something? And if we speak with Kiri and Tomlyn again, maybe we will unwittedly reveal some information that would be dangerous to him. Kiri has been hired to find him, after all.”
Kida was nodding slowly as Destiny spoke, and replied. “Yes, that would make sense. It would also mean that he knows we talked to them, which means he knows they’re here, which means he’s probably not here anymore. So we should leave as well.”
“But… do we really want to find him? If he’s that determined to hide, maybe we should just let him,” Destiny said. Kida actually pondered her words for a long moment, answering slowly.
“Perhaps. But, at the same time… I am still not entirely satisfied with the answer he gave us regarding the house. I understand his motivation, but he did not give us a full explanation. How did the man betray him?” She lay back on the rock and stared up at the stars. Destiny joined her, absentmindedly picking out familiar constellations, although she could not find many. “Either way, staying in Blowin will not help us further. I say we catch the morning ferry.”
“Agreed,” Destiny answered. Almost in sync, they sat up and jumped down from the rock. With the ease of long practice, they packed up the tent and the rest of their gear, reducing their camp to two easily manageable bundles in less than ten minutes. They strapped those bundles into place on top of their packs, lifted them on to their shoulders, and set off down the beach. The docks were another ten minutes away, and by the time they reached them the bare beginnings of dawn were just showing above the horizon way off in front of them, down the beach, to the the right of the docks. The regular ferry did not leave until eight, but there was a fisherman who agreed to ferry them over when he left at six. That still left them an hour to kill, so they found a comfortable place to sit on one of the many benches on the docks to wait.
As they waited, Destiny actually began to doze off, the adrenaline from earlier finally wearing off. She was brought back to alertness suddenly by Kida’s hand on her arm. “Look, over there!” her friend hissed in her ear. Destiny blinked to clear her eyes, and looked in the direction Kida was pointing. Two black-clad figures, dressed like ninjas, were carrying a third who appeared unconscious, and who was clearly not dressed the same as the others. A fourth followed behind, limping. They headed for a small rowboat drawn up on the sand and clambered in, laying the unconscious one in the bottom, the injured one sitting next to him while the other two took up the oars.
Destiny looked at Kida, her eyes wide. “Do you think…?”
“Yes! Let’s follow them!” Kida whispered excitedly. They had both come to the same conclusion. Those were most likely the same ninjas from earlier that night - after all, how many could there be in Blowin? It appeared they had captured someone, and were taking them away from Blowin.
They ran down the beach, not bothering to be secretive, but by the time they reached the water’s edge, the boat was already a good distance from shore. Kida spread her wings and looked at Destiny, who gritted her teeth and nodded. Time to try it again.
Kida got a good grip under Destiny’s arms and they started running. At Kida’s shout, they both kicked off, and were flying. Their experience before helped immensely, and they could tell from the beginning this time would be different. Kida’s wings fell into a steady rhythm, and they found a comfortable way to hang on to each other, each wrapping their arms around the other. It was a bit awkward still, and not extremely practical, but it worked. Despite the early morning fog that hung low over the water, Destiny managed to catch the occasional glimpse of the rowboat, which they managed to keep pace with. She occasionally shouted directions up to Kida if they veered off course, but for the most part they found themselves making a straight line towards Lumo Bay.
After the initial excitement of following the ninjas, the flight grew extremely, mind-numbingly monotonous. There was nothing to keep their attention except watching for the boat, nothing to distract them from the growing ache in their over-stressed muscles as they held on to each other. The wind of their passage was too loud to talk over, except by shouting. Destiny felt like her arms were being pulled out of their sockets - slowly and painfully. She had never realized that adventures could be so insufferably boring. But they had no choice, so they just kept going.
After three long, excruciating hours of flying, they finally sighted Lumo Bay off in the distance. It took another hour to reach it, by which time they were both ready to collapse in exhaustion. Kida obviously had the worst of it, but Destiny felt like her arms would never be the same again. When they touched down on the beach, though, they had no time to rest. The ninjas had a bit of a head start on them - they were just disappearing over the sand dune in front of them as they landed. Taking just a bare moment to stretch their muscles and catch their breath, they started jogging after them. Running was entirely out of the question, but Destiny found she could manage a jog - after all, her legs weren’t tired at all.
They followed the ninjas into town. Since it was now midmorning, the main streets were becoming crowded. Not that Destiny saw much of the main streets, as the ninjas kept to the alleys and side ways. It was unclear as to whether they knew they were being followed, but they could not possibly have moved faster. Somehow, even with the burden of an injured, unconscious man to carry, they still managed to slowly but surely put distance between them and the two girls.
Just as they were about to lose sight of them, Destiny saw them duck through an open door into a building that looked like a warehouse. The door closed behind them with a slam and a click, and by the time she skidded to a halt in front of it, it was securely locked. It was a sturdy door, too, built of thick, heavy-duty wood. Not something they could break down.
“Damn it! We were so close!” Destiny let herself yell. Kida put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, a sly grin on her face that told Destiny she had something in mind. She didn’t say anything, though, just beckoned for Destiny to follow her as she walked around to the far side of the building. Now that Destiny could look closer at it, she could tell it was definitely a warehouse. Which, unfortunately, meant no other doors beside the main one. She had no idea how Kida intended to get them inside.
Kida stopped at a point almost exactly opposite from the front door. If they could somehow walk through walls, this would be the perfect place to enter - where the ninjas would least expect it. Kida dropped to her knees and placed her hands on the ground, closing her eyes in concentration. Destiny felt the telltale shiver of magic in the air, then the earth directly under the wall seemed to move. A wide circle shuddered, then abruptly dropped straight down about five feet, leaving a hole directly under the wall with just enough room for them to wriggle under.
“Handy little spell, learned it from Zadkiel. It’s usually used to make a pillar of earth come up, but I figured it could be used in reverse as well. Turns out I was right. You coming?” she asked, then ducked down into the hole and was gone. Destiny quickly dropped down as well and followed her. The hole was tight fit, even for her slim body, but she managed to wriggle through on the heels of her friend. She came up on the other side into darkness. Well, almost darkness. Across the large, empty room was a ring of glowing, pure blue flame. In front of it stood the three ninjas, in the process of lifting the injured man to toss him through the ring. Instead of falling out the other side, as soon as he crossed the flame, he disappeared entirely. Destiny couldn’t contain a gasp of shock. One of the ninjas glanced back at her, his face hidden in the shadows. She half expected him to come at her, but instead he leaped straight into the ring of fire as well, followed quickly by the other two.
Without thinking, Destiny started to run. Kida followed her, both moving as fast as they could towards the now rapidly shrinking ring. It got smaller and smaller, until, seconds before they reached it, it was gone. Destiny cursed vividly in language she would never even think of using otherwise. Kida circled the area where the flames had been, apparently looking for any hint of where they had gone. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No sign that anyone had even been there, save for a few scuffed footprints and a drag mark in the dust.
Destiny sank to the ground, flopping backwards to lay on the dirt floor. “Great. Just great. We missed them,” she sighed. Kida sat next to her cross-legged, resting her chin on her hand.
“Yeah. We did. So, what now?” she grumbled.
Destiny pulled herself up into a sitting position, turning over Kida’s question in her mind. What were they going to do? Their lead had run dry - as dry as a lead can get. Once magic got involved, things always got complicated. Neither she nor Kida knew enough about magic to hope to track the spell that had created the ring of fire. She realized they only had one choice.
“We need to go back to Anaxagoras. Zadkiel knows Midas, maybe he can help us. Besides, we have a message to deliver.”
Kida’s head perked up, a new light in her eyes at the prospect of having a new lead. “Yes, that’s right! Midas wanted us to say hello for him. We should certainly carry that out, shouldn’t we?” She was grinning now, as was Destiny. They both leapt to their feet. Although still tired, they now had a purpose. With that in mind, they left the warehouse they same way the came, Kida closing the hole in the ground behind them. They agreed to catch a few hours sleep on the beach before leaving, but by that evening they were ready. They headed to the outskirts of town on foot then, with a shared grin, Kida lifted Destiny up once again and they took off flying.
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