Old Dog, New Tricks by Hailey Edwards

me. “What do you sense?”
    With him ramping up my power, there was only one thing to feel. “Magic.”
    “Faerie is magic.” A hint of a smile. “What else?”
    I let my free hand hover over the splintered railing, and waves of subtle power caressed the underside of my palm. “There’s a complex enchantment on the bridge.” I squinted. “It’s like a bluish-green net rolled into a tube. This end of the tunnel is wide open, and it’s almost as tall as we are. The far end—and this might be part optical illusion because of our perspective—looks like it’s six inches around.”
    His grip sparked brighter. “Anything else?”
    “There’s also a faint compulsion inlayed into the wood to help camouflage the bridge’s magic.” My gaze cut left each time I focused. It made distinguishing between what my eyes saw versus what my magical oversight perceived that much harder. “To deter the wannabe tether jumpers, I assume.”
    “Go deeper,” he coaxed. “You’re almost there.”
    Shutting my eyes, I blocked out everything except the pulse of energy flowing through the tether into us. “I see a flare of some kind. It’s bright blue with pinpricks of white.” I opened my eyes, and I knew. “Two planks up on the right, at the base of the railing, there’s a compartment.” I pointed it out like Mac was the blind one though it was his magic coursing through me. “The control panel, right?”
    Seeming pleased, he nodded. “One step more.”
    I scrunched up my face. “The symbols...I see them in my head. I can read them.” Shock pinged through me. “I see the coordinates for where we are and where we came from. It recorded our trip.”
    “You did well.” He squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “Now, try it again.”
    The magic Mac lent me vanished the way it had come, leaving me off balance with a slight headache.
    “It’s gone.” I sagged, almost too weak to move my lips. “All of it.”
    “You have seen the path,” he said. “Remember it. Take it.”
    Blowing out a frustrated breath, I did as he asked. I shut my eyes and opened myself as fully as I knew how, so that each wisp of magic brushing my skin left its own faint impression. Even knowing where to search didn’t make it easier. I turned my attention to the magical net cast over the bridge. The imprint was faint now, transparent, instead of the shining beacon it had been while I drew from Mac. Once the tunneled structure coalesced, I latched on to the tether’s magical signature and followed the steady flow of energy through the complex enchantment to where it pooled above the second plank.
    “I see the board, the switch.” Eyes squeezed tight, I strained for more. “I see...” I growled under my breath, but the intricate runes failed to appear even as I trembled. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
    Knuckles rapped against the side of my head.
    “Ouch.” My eyes sprung open. “What did you do that for?”
    “Think,” Mac admonished. “Pull the knowledge from your memory.”
    Keeping my eyes open and on him this time, I reached inside my thoughts, to the place Mac’s power had kindled. Specks of green flared in my memory. Delicate runes matching my hand—our hands—danced before my eyes in translucent waves over the bridge. Slowly, slowly, their meaning returned.
    “Got it,” I breathed. “How is this possible?”
    “The mantle of the Black Dog is knowledge.” Mac gazed out at the tether with me. “In an instant I was lifted up, transformed, reborn as the man you see before you. All that I knew was ripped from me as the collective knowledge of the sidhe nobles responsible for my gift wedged all that they were into me.” His brow puckered. “My mind and body were broken to pieces before they were reforged.”
    I flinched. “That sounds painful.”
    A wry twist of his lips was his answer.
    I studied him from the corner of my eye in the dappled sunlight, comparing our features and our magic, awed by him