“You absolutely did,” he said through his teeth, pointing. “You missed by about five feet.”
“But he’s down, he’s—”
Hell on earth, was she blind? He should have stayed with Nico. “What are you talking about? You might have broken a lamp, fine, but it’s only Edwardian—”
“I didn’t—” Libby broke off, blinking. “You’re saying there’s nothing there?”
“Of course there’s nothing there,” he growled in frustration, “it’s—”
Bloody Christ; was he stupid?
“It’s an illusion,” Tristan realized aloud, scowling at his own failure to see the obvious, and then, without any further wasted time, he took hold of Libby’s shoulders and aimed her, pointing.
“Right there, see it? Straight ahead.”
She fired again, this time setting off a round of bullets by stopping their progression mid-air and instigating mass combustion. The gunman was blown backwards, the air littered with shrapnel, and the force of the explosion set off a momentary fog of smoke. Libby was frightfully incendiary, which Tristan suspected was something to conserve as much as it was a timely relief. It was probably going to cost her the same amount of energy as whatever Nico had been doing downstairs, so best not to fire incautiously while they didn’t know how many others they would still face.
“What does the room look like to you?” he asked in her ear, trying to concentrate as the smoke cleared. All he could make out were flares, torrents of magic.
“I don’t know… dozens of them, at least,” she said, grimacing. He could see she was battling frustration; for someone with her obvious control problems, the presence of illusions must have been particularly nightmarish. “The room’s crawling with them.”
“There’s only three left,” Tristan told her, “but don’t waste energy. Let me see if I can find the medeian who’s casting the illusions.”
Libby gritted her teeth. “Hurry up!”
Fair enough. He lifted his head to glance around, trying to determine who, if anyone, was doing the casting. He couldn’t see any indication of magic being produced, though he did spot a bullet—a real one; Libby must have not been able to tell it from the illusioned ones—just in time to throw up a fairly primitive shield, which dissolved on impact as Libby jumped, alarmed.
“The medeian’s not here,” Tristan said, which was possibly the most troubling conclusion he could have reached. “Let’s get rid of these three and move.”
“Aim me,” she said without hesitation. “I can take out three.”
Tristan didn’t doubt it.
He took hold of her left arm, guiding her just as one of the gunmen fired another round of bullets. As with before, Libby’s explosion ricocheted backwards into the assailant, though Tristan didn’t wait to see if he’d achieved his intended results. The others were moving, and quickly, so he pulled her into his chest, aiming first for the one coming towards them and then, with a little added difficulty, at the one who was slipping from the room.
“They’re headed that way,” he said, pulling Libby up and racing after the escaping gunman. “Must be where the medeian is. Can you—”
A thin bubble of atmospheric change warped around them, sealing itself with a little slurp of vacuumed pressure.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem,” she panted, as Tristan caught traces of magic and followed its trail to land them in one of the sitting rooms.
The illusionist was easy to find, even before they had fully entered from the corridor; the cloaking enchantment was obviously expensive, covering most of the room and reaching into the nearby access points. Tristan held Libby back, watching the medeian first to see if he was working with someone else.
It looked like he was, though it wasn’t clear if whoever the illusionist was working with was a remote partner or someone else in the house; he was typing rapidly into a laptop that didn’t seem to be magical at all. Probably programming security cameras to be able to see, if Tristan had to guess, which meant they had seconds to spare. If not for having to control the illusions at the same time, the illusionist would have known they were there already.
“Go,” Tristan said to Libby, “while he’s not looking.”
She hesitated, which was the one thing he’d hoped she wouldn’t do.
“Do I shoot to kill, or—？”
In that exact moment, the medeian’s eyes snapped up from the laptop screen, meeting Tristan’s.