Misty Rose

The Glittering Trap

You were three wingbeats from freedom when the iron net sang through the air and nearly kissed your ankle. A stranger in a gray coat had been tracking you for six city blocks, and now he had you cornered on a rooftop with nowhere to climb. Then the light cracked open — gold and silver and impossible — and a man stepped out of it like he'd been waiting in the sun all along, scattering your hunter backward with a single raised hand. You bolted. Your bag did not.