CHAPTER THREE

I sat on the floor. It was just dawn, and sunlight would have filtered through the windows if they hadn’t been painted over to shield the magical goods inside from prying eyes. I still wore pajamas—a V-neck T-shirt and shorts. I hadn’t yet begun to pack for the trip.

I’d committed to going. And I was going. But in the meantime, I was having seriously cold feet.

I knew why Liam had left. Understood well the fear and doubts he’d have had about gaining magic. I’d had doubts, too, and I hadn’t had a sister who’d been killed by wraiths, by magic gone bad. Having gained magic, he would have to deal with those complicated feelings.

And it was probably worse for him, because he didn’t clearly fit on the human-Sensitive-Paranormal scale. Unlike me, he and Eleanor hadn’t just absorbed magic; they’d gotten it through strikes by magical weapons.

But five weeks still felt like a long time. A long time with no messages, no checking in, no making sure that I was all right. Maybe it was selfish of me, maybe not. But the silence hurt. Maybe, like Gavin had warned me, Liam’s feelings had changed.

If they had, what was I going to say to him? How was I going to face that down?

I shook my head. At least I’d find out one way or the other, I reminded myself, and ignored the hollowness in my chest. I wouldn’t have to wait, and I wouldn’t have to wonder. Plus, I’d get out of New Orleans for a little while. I’d spend time with Malachi and Gavin, who were usually entertaining, and I’d see parts of Louisiana I hadn’t seen before. If we found them, I’d see Eleanor again.

We hadn’t even left yet, and I was lining up the consolation prizes.

“Way to be brave, Connolly.” I muttered it to myself, but climbed to my feet, then took the small back staircase to the basement.

I walked to the far wall, grabbed one of the hanging backpacks that was already half full of emergency supplies my father had decided we’d needed, and began adding to it.

Today, I was going into the bayou. I’d see Liam. And the shape of my future would become clear.

•   •   •

The sky was gray with clouds and humidity, and even the breeze was heavy and wet and carried the scents of earth and water. The scents of New Orleans.

The temperature would continue to climb and the humidity probably wouldn’t diminish, but we’d also be facing bugs of every variety, and God only knew what other crawling and flying horrors rural Louisiana would have to offer, so I opted for long cargo pants and a short-sleeved shirt, and folded a thin waterproof jacket into my pack in case of deluge.

In Louisiana, there was always a chance of deluge.

My travel mates stood together in the alley behind Moses’s house—one human and two Paranormals. Moses, in a shirt of screaming red that made him look more like an impish devil than made me comfortable, Gavin in lived-in jeans and a technical shirt, and Malachi in a V-neck and jeans. Gavin had the strap of an army surplus pack in one hand, a double-barreled shotgun in the other.

He looked at me, smiled. There was so much Quinn in that smile. “Looks like we’re all here. Would y’all like the good news first or the bad news?”

“I’d prefer there not be any bad news,” I said, adjusting my pack. “Is that an option?”

“No,” Gavin said. “I talked to Gunnar this morning. He doesn’t think Liam’s guilty, but the theory’s got legs within Containment. There are folks who think Liam had too much leeway dealing with Paras and got special treatment because of his family.”

Eleanor was an Arsenault, an old and wealthy Creole family connected to very powerful people outside the Zone—the people we’d been contacting in our efforts to bring to light the truth about magic.

“They sound like allies of Broussard,” I said.

“Yeah. They have no trouble believing this is Liam’s doing. And they’ve increased the amount of the bounty.”

“It’s only been a day,” I said, concern for Liam tightening my gut. “They never increase that quickly.” I’d done a little bounty hunting with Liam; it had been good cover for keeping an eye on Containment. Increases in bounties were rare, and happened only when time had passed without a lead on the particular prey.

“And what’s the good news?” Malachi asked.

“It’s not raining. Yet.”

We just looked at him.

Shameless, Gavin lifted a shoulder. “As leader of this particular mission, I figured you needed the stick and the carrot. Except I didn’t have any carrots. So I went with the weather.”

Moses shook his head, lips pursed. “You this good on all your missions?”

“There’s a reason I usually work alone,” Gavin said, shouldering the pack.

“Where, exactly, are we going?” I asked. There was no one else around, but I dropped my voice anyway. This wasn’t the time to attract attention.

“Houma,” Malachi said. “Vicinity of Erida’s last location.”

Houma was about an hour’s drive from New Orleans.

“There,” he continued, “we’ll meet some friends, see if we can get a sense of where she went.”

“Friends?” I asked.

“Paranormals with passes.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “I was actually beginning to think that was a myth. Since Moses didn’t get one, I mean. Or you.”

“I won’t request freedom I already own,” Malachi said. “And Containment isn’t in a position to give us passes from Devil’s Isle, since we’re already out.”

I couldn’t really argue with that.

Gavin gestured to the beat-up jeep at the curb. “The wheels will take us to Houma. Then we’ll leave the vehicle, travel on foot.”

“If we get to the Gulf, we’ve gone too far?” I asked.

“Something like that.” Gavin looked me over, took in the pants, shirt, shoes, and gave a nod of approval. “What’s in the bag?”

“Water, poncho, knife, atomic bug spray.” I might not have been out of New Orleans in a while, but I’d been in it long enough. I had a pretty good idea how to survive in the wet and the heat.

“Good,” Gavin said with a smile.

“I’ll meet you at Houma,” Malachi said.

“Wait,” I said, sliding him a narrowed glance. “What do you mean you’ll ‘meet’ us? You aren’t going with us?”

He smiled. “I mean I don’t need a ride.” He unfolded his wings, and twelve feet of ivory stretched out behind him, feathers gleaming in the sun.

“You’re going to fly the whole way?”

“Boy, will his arms be tired!” Moses said, waving a fake cigar.

Gavin’s eyes narrowed at me. “I hear you let him have a joke book.”

“He found it in an abandoned house, which made it fair game. I couldn’t exactly stop him from taking it.”

He shook his head. “Let’s hit the road. Every mile toward Houma is another mile away from jokes that start with ‘Two Paranormals walked into a bar.’”

“I need a minute,” Moses said to me, then moved a few feet away.

“I believe you’re being beckoned,” Malachi said.

“Evidently,” I said, and joined Moses. “You rang?”

“I want you to remember something,” he said, pointing a stubby finger up at me. “You’ve worked hard for the last few weeks, done some good around here. Whatever happens, no one can take that away from you.”

I lifted my brows, surprised at the emotion in his eyes. “You under the impression I’m gonna have a breakdown in the bayou?”

“I’m just saying, whatever he says or does”—he paused, seemed to look for the right words—“there’s more to the world than dames.”

I looked at him for a minute, appreciating the thought but confused by the message. And then I figured it out. “You didn’t just take the joke books. You took the detective novels, too, didn’t you?”

“They’re good,” he said with an embarrassed shrug that I found almost absurdly endearing. “I like this Sam Spade character. Straight shooter. Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “You be careful out there.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “But I don’t like leaving you here alone.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself?” He pointed a thumb at his chest, which was puffed out a little. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of you—not the other way around.” But there was something soft and sweet in his eyes.

“You’re right. You’ll tell Lizzie why I’m gone?”

“That you’re taking a relaxing spa weekend? Sure thing.”

“Hilarious, as always.” I hugged him. “Be careful.”

“No need to get emotional,” he said, but his arms were steel bands around me. “You’re only gonna be gone a few days.”

Assuming we found him and managed to make it back alive.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, trying to assure both of us.

“Damn right you will. Now get in that jeep, start your hunt, and claim your bounty.”

•   •   •

The clouds had burned off by the time we reached the edge of New Orleans, and the sun beat down on Highway 90 like a drum, sending up shimmering waves of heat. It was much too early to be this warm, but magic hadn’t just affected electricity; it had made our weather less predictable.

We stayed on the highway as long as we could, then veered off to Old Spanish Trail when Gavin caught sight of a Containment convoy—jeeps and trucks heading into New Orleans with goods and sundries to be distributed to stores around the city.

Royal Mercantile would probably be getting some of the freight. Bottled water, soap, maybe a few sticks of butter packed in dry ice for the trip. But that was Tadji’s responsibility now. She was my beautiful and brilliant best friend, the woman I’d given the choice to run the store or let it sit until I came home again.

She’d decided to enter the exciting world of postwar retail and was doing a damn fine job of it, based on what I’d seen the couple of times I’d managed to sneak into the Quarter. She’d apparently gathered up every volunteer left in the neighborhood to fix glass broken in the battle, to reorganize overturned furniture and scattered stock. From what I could tell, business was booming. Tadji might have been trained as a linguist, but she was really, really good at merchandising. Even in the mostly deserted Quarter, people had milled around, looking at the goods and making purchases.

I wondered if the convoy had skipped this road to keep from destroying the vehicles and the cargo. I had to grab the jeep’s handle as we bounced over pitted asphalt.

“Are you hitting the potholes on purpose?”

“Man’s gotta have a hobby,” Gavin said.

The narrow highway ran between railroad tracks on one side and the remains of stores, small houses, and mobile homes on the other. Rural parts of the state hadn’t been hit by Para attacks as hard as the urban areas, but there were even fewer services out here, and a lot of people hadn’t stayed after the war. Plenty of solitude, if that’s what you preferred, but the living was hard.

We passed a store on stilts, a bait shop with “fresh” painted in rough black letters along one exterior wall. The windows were boarded up, and a rusting car sat on blocks in front. Once again, my mind tripped back to my store, to the Quarter.

I pulled out my water bottle, took a drink, trying to focus on something else.

“Tadji’s handling Royal Mercantile,” Gavin said.

I guess his mind had taken the same turn.

“Yeah,” I said, screwing the lid back on the bottle.

“Have you talked to her?”

I shook my head. “I check in on the store every once in a while. But I don’t want to put her in danger. The less she knows about me, the better.” As far as I was concerned, plausible deniability was my friend’s best option. “Have you talked to her?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been around.” The vehicle shuddered, and he slammed a hand on the dashboard, which seemed to settle the issue. “I left after the battle.”

My eyebrows lifted. Yesterday, he said he’d just gotten back into town, but I didn’t know he’d been gone the entire time. I’d assumed he’d been here but was doing his own thing—or he’d been avoiding me. That he’d been out of town made me feel a little better, and more curious.

“Where were you?”

“Reconnaissance contract,” Gavin said.

“For Containment?”

“For Containment. They were surprised by Reveillon. They don’t want to be surprised again.”

“Do they think there are more Reveillon members out there?”

Gavin made a sarcastic sound. “Nobody doubts there are more Reveillon members out there. Or at least sympathizers. Plenty of people hate magic, blame magic for what the Zone’s become. Containment’s looking for organizing, collective action. Any sign that people are clustering again, planning violence, posing a threat.”

“Find anything?”

“Lot of talk, no action to speak of.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Did you think I was in New Orleans and just avoiding you?”

He’d nailed it, which made my cheeks burn. “Kind of, yeah.”

He shook his head, looked back at the road. “We’re family, Claire. Granted, kind of a weird, dysfunctional family, but family all the same.”

“Yay,” I said, and spun an imaginary noisemaker. But family was family. And it wasn’t so bad to have this one.

•   •   •

Before we hit Houma, the rain started up, the kind of heavy and steady downpour that set in for the day.

Twenty minutes later, Gavin pulled the car off the highway and onto a long gravel drive.

At the end of it, stately as a queen, sat a plantation house. White, with two stories, both lined with porches, fluted columns, and floor-to-ceiling windows. The front yard featured a boxwood hedge in a pretty pattern, and the drive was marked by enormous oak trees whose branches bent in graceful arcs toward the ground, with Spanish moss draped like scarves across the boughs.

There weren’t many plantation houses left in Louisiana. There’d once been dozens along the Mississippi River outside New Orleans. The Civil War had knocked down some of them. Time and history had knocked down others. The war with Paras had done a number on the rest, especially after Paras targeted the petroleum facilities that shared the prime real estate along the river.

This house had survived, and it looked like it had been well cared for. It wasn’t the only thing that had gotten attention. Row after row of skinny green stalks filled the fields around the structure. It was sugarcane, acres and acres of it stretching across the delta to the horizon. A dozen Paras—or so I guessed, given the rainbow hues of their skin tones—were pulling weeds among the stalks.

Gavin moved slowly down the drive and came to a stop in the shade of an oak tree. A wooden sign swinging in the rain read VACHERIE PLANTATION.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, after we’d climbed out of the car.

“One, leaving the car, so grab your pack.”

I did as he suggested, shouldering it on. “And two?”

He met my gaze over the hood of the car. “Malachi’s friends work here. The Paranormals with passes.”

“Correct,” Malachi said.

This time I’d caught the soft flutter of wings.

“Back up,” I said. “Paranormals who have passes out of Devil’s Isle are working in sugarcane fields?”

Malachi looked at me, his golden eyes keen. “What did you think they’d be doing outside Devil’s Isle?”

“I’d assumed they were out there”—I made a vague gesture—“enjoying freedom.” Not pulling weeds at a plantation house.

“They are entitled to employment,” Malachi said. “And feeding the Zone is a big industry.”

“I’m not arguing they don’t have the right to work. But, I mean—working in sugarcane fields? Does that make anyone else uncomfortable?”

“You mean the overtones of indentured servitude?” Gavin asked.

“Yeah, let’s start there.” And jump right into slavery. “How is this freedom?”

“Because they’re paid,” Malachi said, and there was tension in his voice now. “Because they can be productive after seven years of feeling like victims. Because they can sleep outside Devil’s Isle for the first time in years. And because it was the only option given.”

So passes weren’t really the magnanimous gesture that Containment made them out to be.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s pretty conniving on Containment’s part. And it’s not really comfortable, given, well, U.S. history.”

Malachi nodded. “Paras have their own history and uncomfortable parallels. The landowners are allies, and the Paras want their wages and their freedom. They know this is their best route to that—at least for now.”

At least, he meant, until Containment proved it wasn’t willing to go further. Containment had acted in good faith by giving the passes, so the Paras would act in good faith, too. For now.

“Come on,” Malachi said.

Gavin and I followed him toward the house, then around it to several barns and outbuildings. The grass was short, the areas between buildings dotted with enormous copper kettles probably used for preparing cane syrup.

“They sleep in the main house,” Malachi said. “While they’re getting ready for the harvest, they’ll repair the barn and the house, work on the subsidiary crops. When the cane’s ready, they’ll trim it, cut it, process it.”

The detail made me smile. “You a farmer now?”

He looked down at me, a curl falling over one eye. “I take an interest in my friends’ interests.”

“Does that mean we’re friends?”

“Close enough.”

“Is it safe for you to be here?” I asked him.

“The humans here know me as a friend of the Paras.” He smiled a little. “They believe I’m connected with a charitable organization, and I haven’t bothered to correct them.”

“Is it safe for Claire to be here?” Gavin lifted his gaze to the magic monitors that dotted the grounds.

“The monitors are inoperable,” Malachi said. “Although Containment isn’t aware of it.”

A whistle split the air, high-pitched enough to break all wineglasses in a five-mile radius. I put my hands over my ears a little too late.

“Damn,” Gavin said, wincing. “Please destroy that whistle immediately.”

“Not a whistle,” Malachi said. “A skill.”

A man emerged from behind one of the outbuildings, his skin pale, his hair long and white and straight. He was on the short side, his body lean and compact beneath bright orange scrubs. The color, I guessed, was for visibility, should he or any of the other Paras attempt to escape.

“And the line between freedom and imprisonment gets thinner still,” I murmured.

“Uncomfortable,” Gavin quietly agreed.

“Djosa,” Malachi said. “This is Gavin and Claire, human and Sensitive.”

We nodded to one another.

“What brings you here, General?” Djosa asked, his voice deep, his diction precise.

Malachi had been a general in the Consularis military.

“We’re looking for Erida and two travelers with her,” he said. “Neither of them Sensitives. Both changed by power from others. One without sight. One with golden eyes.”

His brows lifted. “You don’t know where your subordinate is hiding?”

“We know where she was. We do not know where she is.”

Djosa gave us a suspicious look. “I imagine that’s for her security and yours.”

“It is,” Malachi agreed. “But circumstances require that we find her.”

“Because?”

“Because the humans are being hunted,” Malachi replied. “And we bring a warning.”

“Or you lead soldiers right to them.”

“We’re being careful,” Malachi said, impatience growing in his voice. “We acknowledge the risk, but there’s no helping it. They must be told.”

“We don’t know anything about where they are or might be.” He looked back at the fields. “And we need to get back to work.”

“Do you like the work?” I asked him.

“Would you?”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

He seemed to appreciate the honest answer. “This isn’t forever,” he said determinedly. “It’s for now, and it’s freedom. Maybe not the freedom we want forever, but the freedom we can get now.”

He held up his hands, his skin marbled with dirt and stained green from weeds. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had earth beneath my fingers? Since I’ve felt her heart beating? Felt her stirring beneath me?”

Given the lust in his voice, he might as well have been talking about a woman. That created some uncomfortable mental imagery.

“Too long,” Djosa answered, saving me from filling the silence. “This is a chance for us. It may not be the best chance, but it’s the one we’ve been given. And when you’ve been in our skin for seven years, you take freedom as it comes.”

Good enough for me. It was his life, not mine, and we all had to find our path.

Screaming pulled our attention away from Djosa. A woman who looked to be human—slender, with tan skin, straight dark hair, and dark eyes full of concern—ran out of the barn.

“Djosa!” she screamed, waving him toward her. “Help!”

Djosa didn’t waste any time, but took off at a sprint toward her. We let Malachi take the lead, then followed him.

The barn was enormous, a tall wooden rectangle with a sharply pitched tin roof. The double doors stood open. We were about to follow Djosa inside when three men emerged from the door and jumped into our path.

They had tan skin, hooded eyes, hair dark as ravens, and a cascade of dark feathers that appeared to run from the crest of their heads to the bottom of their feet. “Appeared to,” because they were wearing the same bright orange scrubs as Djosa.

The trio split apart and moved around us, the shifting light illuminating purple and black tones in their gleaming feathers.

The feathers along their spines lifted like the hackles of an angry dog, and the men made low, snipping noises as they circled, raising hands that revealed gleaming talons nestled among finer feathers.

They prepared for attack, so I did, too. I reached out a hand, felt for the magic in the air, just in case I needed it.

“These are the Tengu,” Malachi said, spreading his hands out as if to shield me and Gavin from an attack—or to keep us from drawing first. “They don’t know us. Give them a moment to settle.”

They didn’t seem interested in settling. Ominous magic colored the air, staining it black. I could feel the magic circling around us now, spinning like a hurricane and bending the cane around us, as we stood in the eye of the storm. The Tengu screamed, the sound sharp as fingernails on a blackboard.

“I don’t think they’re settling,” Gavin murmured, blading his body for a counterattack.

“Kahsut.”

The simple word, spoken by Malachi, apparently in a language from the Beyond, echoed around us. It was more than a word; it was a bone-deep order, full of power.

I wasn’t sure if the Tengu recognized the word or understood the demand, but they stopped moving and lowered their arms. Then each of them knelt in front of Malachi and gave another whistling cry.

“Are they your . . . subjects?” Gavin quietly asked, clearly groping for the right word.

“Not precisely,” Malachi said, then repeated the word. The Tengu rose and shifted away from us, giving us room to walk.

Subjects or not, he got results.

The path now cleared, we walked into the barn. A dirt floor, with hay in piles and rusting implements leaning against the walls. A piece of bright green farm machinery was parked near the opposite end, streaked by shafts of sunlight.

In the middle of the space, a woman lay on the floor, her skin and hair the same pale shades as Djosa’s, her legs folded like she’d simply fallen in place. Even from a dozen feet away, it was clear to see her skin was sallow, her body shaking with chills, or fever, or both. There were red dots on her arms, and her breath wheezed in and out.

Djosa knelt at her left side and took her hand in his.

“Anh,” Malachi said to the woman who’d yelled for us and who now stood behind Djosa, looking worriedly at the woman on the floor. “What’s happened?”

“She was ill,” Anh said. I hadn’t realized how petite she was—barely over five feet, and delicately boned. “But she refused to stop working. She’d had chills, collapsed suddenly. Now she’s burning up, and her breathing is shallow. Her heart is beating so fast.”

I could have imagined it was just a difference in biology, except for everyone’s obvious concern. “What’s her name?” I asked.

“Cinda,” Djosa said, without looking up. “Her name is Cinda.”

One of the Tengu moved closer, began chattering at Malachi in what I assumed was the same language Malachi had used to calm them.

“They believe she was exposed to something out here,” Malachi translated, then paused while the Tengu spoke again. “Something she wasn’t exposed to in Devil’s Isle.”

Another pause, and Malachi’s brows lifted as he listened. “Containment warned them this might happen, gave them immunity boosters before they left Devil’s Isle . . . to strengthen them against the enemies here.”

“The enemies?” I asked as more people came into the barn, humans and Paras who smelled of earth and sweat, who’d probably left their work to investigate.

“Wildlife,” Gavin said. “Animals and bugs, humans from outside Devil’s Isle. New vectors.”

“Freedom made her ill,” I quietly said.

“Yeah.” There was regret in Gavin’s voice.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” Malachi said. “I assume the closest one’s in New Orleans?”

Djosa shook his head. “They won’t treat her. They’ll send her back to Devil’s Isle. Our passes last one week,” he explained. “We sleep here, in the big house, because they don’t want to transport us back and forth every day. That’s too much trouble if the power goes out. And if Containment decides she’s hurt,” he continued, anger rising in his words, “they won’t let her out again.”

Anger burned in my chest, but it was useless against the tide of Containment’s power.

“We can’t just leave her like this,” Anh said. “That can’t be the only option.”

“Are you sure she’d trade her freedom for her life?” Malachi asked Djosa, his voice calm and composed even in the midst of panic.

“Yes,” Djosa said, his gaze clear. “She would. But this is just an illness. She’ll get rest, and she’ll be fine. She’d want to take the chance.”

“Then we treat her,” Malachi said, and looked at Anh. “Prepare a bed inside the house, away from the others. Only she will sleep there. You have ice?”

Anh nodded.

“Get ice, a fan if you have a generator. You need to get her temperature down. She’ll need liquids, salt. Go,” he said. Anh dashed off.

I wished I’d brought the salt I’d found yesterday; it hadn’t even occurred to me that it might be useful.

“I cannot heal her,” Malachi said, crouching beside Djosa. “But I can perhaps soothe her. That may help.”

“Do it,” Djosa said, wiping his brow. The barn was in the shade, but there was no breeze in it, and the air was stifling.

“Maybe we should move people back,” I said, since we had no other way to help. Gavin nodded, turned to the crowd.

“All right, everyone,” he said, “let’s give them some room to help her.”

The Paras and humans, united by hard work and concern for their colleague, shuffled around and backed up as Malachi pushed the damp hair from Cinda’s face. He closed his eyes, his lashes crescents against his golden skin, and placed his hands, palm down, above her heart.

She whimpered, and he smiled down at her with warm and confident kindness. Exactly the kind of expression you’d expect to see on an angel. If you hadn’t seen them fight in the war.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” Malachi said. “Consularis are strong. Djosa is strong, and you’ve inherited your strength from him.”

So Djosa was Cinda’s father, I guessed.

“Illness is part of life,” Malachi said, “just as pain is part of healing. It is a natural reaction. I cannot interrupt that process, but I can make you more comfortable while your body heals.”

Malachi didn’t touch Cinda, but moved his hands above her body, back and forth, as if manipulating air—or maybe energy.

I’d felt Malachi’s magic before, when we’d snuck Moses out of Devil’s Isle and when he’d begun to train me to better use my magic. We’d managed a few more lessons in the last few weeks, and I’d sensed it then, too.

Here in this hot and dusty barn, as his magic unfurled around us, I realized that those had been mere glimpses of the breadth of it. Like looking into a greenhouse and seeing shapes and petals through a filter of fogged glass.

This was like standing in a field of brilliant crimson poppies.

Malachi was a master of control, and he often seemed distant because of it. But his magic was wild the way wolves were, untamed like the staggering peak of a snowy and rugged mountain. And it was strong—the strongest magic I’d ever felt from a Paranormal. It was like the torrent of a raging river. This was real magic, not the pale frost that I could access.

After a few minutes of steady movement, Cinda appeared to relax, and her breathing calmed again. Malachi slowly lifted his hands, then stepped away as Anh rushed back in.

“We’re ready,” she said.

At Malachi’s nod, Djosa picked Cinda up, limp in his arms, and carried her out of the barn.

We waited for a moment in the humming silence, while the other workers went back to their tasks.

Malachi led me and Gavin outside, then pointed toward a stand of trees about a hundred yards away. “The trail begins there, and it’s blazed. Follow it to the woods.”

“You want us to leave?” I asked.

“I want to be sure she’s comfortable, and she doesn’t need an audience for that. We also don’t want to wear out our welcome, as we’ve yet to get information about Liam and the others.

“Get started,” he continued. “The trail forks a quarter mile into the woods. Go left when you reach the fork. You’ll find a creek about twenty yards down. The water’s potable, and there’s shade. You can fill your bottles and wait there. I’ll meet you when I’m done.”

“All right,” Gavin said, glanced at me, and I nodded.

“Be careful,” Malachi said, then turned and strode toward the house.

“Are you okay?” Gavin asked when we were alone. “Your pupils are still dilated.”

My cheeks warmed. “He’s got powerful magic.”

“I bet,” Gavin murmured. “Let’s get moving.”