Though there was no one living here anymore, I occasionally stumbled across a patrol of pixies or Enforcers on their way to a more troubled—and more populated—part of the city. I was ready for them and could always duck inside a building or down an alley, but it meant I had to pay attention. I couldn’t let my thoughts wander, either to Oren and his arms around me and his pale eyes on mine, or to Kris and what might be happening to him at this moment inside the Institute’s marble halls. I scanned the streets with second sight now and then, but so far I could sense nothing. Certainly not the concentration of magic that would tell of a closely guarded food warehouse, or even a stockpile of war machines, my secondary goal. I kept walking around the perimeter of the Institute, watching for a change in the currents of magic, anything to signify a greater-than-usual tangle of the Resource. I was nearly at the northern gate—I should have found something by now, according to Caesar’s intelligence.
