Once, as a child, Lenya had fallen through the thin ice of a lake in winter time. It had been fortunate that her sisters were with her and able to get her out and warm before permanent damage was done. The same icy finger clawed at her now. She pulled her coat tightly around herself following Max as he worked to clear the snow.
 
The whole area seemed to hum with a faint magical energy. There had been a working here certainly. Irritably, she brushed at the snowflakes sticking to her long eyelashes. It wasn’t wise to use magic if they were sneaking up on a mage. Her eyes fell on Coal who seemed hardly dressed for the weather and thrummed with magic of his own. It was possible he had already ruined any attempt at stealth. Seph should really have assigned him to team cannon fodder.
 
Reluctantly she closed her eyes and began to chant softly to herself. It was a subtle effort, hardly noticeable as magic at all. A faint alteration in wind patterns left them in a gulf, the gusts shifting slightly away as she tweaked the probabilities. Next she seized on the ambient magical energy and the disruption caused by Coal and her own workings, bringing the vibrations into synchrony so they cancelled each other out. Abruptly the magical charge she felt in the air dropped, hopefully masking their approach.
 
Max was nearly to the door now. She wondered if she should take out her gun or something. Instead she followed along behind max with her own shovel, carefully digging out the snow that fell behind him as the drifts slumped so he could focus on going forwards.
 
“Careful,” she breathed, “Whatever happened here wasn’t pleasant.”