Free Calling On Fire (Book 1) by Stephanie Beavers

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    Nothing happened. Toman and Esset exchanged looks again. Esset sent the bat a little farther in, then banished it.
    "Okay, so the summons seem fine," Esset said. "I guess I'll go first, so you can haul me out if need be." Despite his words, he spent a few moments steeling himself. Thankfully, Toman didn't tease him about it. Finally, he urged his mount across the line.
    Esset had expected something to at least feel different when he crossed the border, but everything felt exactly the same. He looked down at his hands and his clothes, but they all retained their original color. Turning in the saddle, he looked at Toman and shrugged.
    "Your turn," Esset said.
    Toman crossed with less hesitation than Esset had shown and drew even with his brother's mount.
    "Your gloves!" Esset noticed immediately; normally Toman's gloves were brown and black, but the second they'd crossed the grey line, they'd gone grey.
    Toman kicked his mount and it pivoted and leapt back across the line. Instantly, Toman's gloves turned brown again. Toman breathed a sigh of relief and edged back up to the line. He stuck one gloved hand across it, and the glove turned grey—the other was still brown.
    "I think it's their camouflage thing," Toman said after moving his hand back and forth across the line and watching the glove consistently change colors. He rejoined Esset.
    "What?" Esset asked.
    "Remember that one time, when that lord insisted we get all dressed up for his celebration, and loaned us those ridiculous outfits?" Toman asked. "And my gloves changed color to match that ridiculous shade of blue? They were changing to fit in, I think, and I think that's what they're doing here."
    "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that," Esset said. "That had explained why the gloves in the picture of the First look slightly different too."
    "And they've changed size to fit my hands since I was a kid, so why not color?" Toman asked.
    "True," Esset said. He hoped that was all it was.
    "Why do you think nothing else has changed though? The rest of our clothes are still normal." Esset said. Toman just shrugged.
    "I don't know, but we have a village to get to," he said. Even had Esset wanted to object, he couldn't have, for Toman had urged his mount skyborne again.
    As he followed, Esset acknowledged that they had probably lost enough time already. He knew his reservations were well-known, so he resolved to hold his own council unless something new cropped up.
    Still, Esset kept a close eye below as they sped over the landscape. A distant smudge of smoke grew clearer, until it was distinguishable as multiple plumes from a few chimneys: a forge, a smokehouse, and a couple homes. The village was small, but necessarily self-sufficient. By the time they were close enough to make out individual people, they'd been spotted themselves, and all of the residents fled indoors and hid.
    Toman and Esset landed in what could have been a ghost town.
    "What do you think? Do we play hero, or pretend we're exotic hunters only, tracking a rare beast?" Esset asked, keeping his voice low so only Toman was near enough to hear.
    "My abilities are well-known to Moloch, thanks to my predecessor," Toman said. "Any deception on our part will only point to conspiracy if Moloch catches wind, and we want to keep Erizen clear if we can."
    Esset nodded; that made sense. It was just as well, since he preferred simply being who he was.
    "Think we can persuade them to help us help them?" Esset asked. Toman looked around the seemingly deserted village.
    "Tough to say. We can't tell them Erizen sent us, and they may fear his reprisal for speaking to outsiders," Toman replied. It was too complicated a situation for his taste.
    "I guess all we can do is try," Esset said.
    Since no one seemed to want to come greet them, they finally dismounted and approached the biggest house in the village—odds were good someone important lived or worked there.
    Toman knocked. Esset thought his knock was a little overly