Rootbound

Bella laughed. “Why don’t you tell her how you really feel, Peta?”

Peta shrugged. “You aren’t ready. I can’t even describe how I know, only that I know.”

The wind whipped around us, an errant current that tugged at our hair and pulled us to one side of Shazer’s back. He grunted and angled with the wind to correct it. I twisted in my seat to scan the sky around us. No Sylph waited behind or below us.

“Sometimes an element is just an element, Lark,” Peta said.

It was my turn to laugh. “But when it’s not, it’s damn deadly.”

Peta smiled up at me. “True. Back to your question. I don’t think I can tell you all the things he did. They didn’t have names to me, he didn’t explain himself. He didn’t tell me anything, really.”

“You’ve helped me before,” I pointed out.

“And you would have my help now if I could do anything!” She curled against me. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s that I don’t think I can.”

Bella’s eyes met mine, and in them I saw the confusion I felt. Peta was not like this. I held a hand out to my familiar. “Give me your paw.”

“No.”

I grabbed her by the scruff before she could worm away from me and took one of her paws in my hand. Her tiny claws dug into me, but the skin of her pad brushed against mine.

I felt the shattering of Spirit’s hold on her as our skin touched.

She stared up at me, horror in her eyes. “I couldn’t help myself. I was told not to help you, to let you figure things out on your own.”

I nodded, anger snapping through me. “Do you know who did it?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I do.” I took a breath. “Talan met with me in the Deep. He was the one who left the bracelet, he was the reason I was acting strange. He . . . didn’t want you to know he’d been there.”

Grief and pain sliced through the bond between Peta and me. She tucked her head against my belly as if to hide her shame. “Why would he do that?”

I shook my head, placing a hand on her back. “I don’t know. It’s a game to him, I think, as it is to whoever is using the stones.”

My words seemed to still the air and Bella’s eyes widened. “Could it be him doing all this? Could he be playing both sides?”

Slowly, I nodded. “He controls Spirit, and he’s been around a long time.” The puzzle pieces cleared in front of me. Bella’s words were closer to the truth than I think even she realized.

Peta shook her head. “No, I can’t believe he’d do this. That he’d try to kill you.”

“Unless he wanted you back as a familiar, unless he wanted the stones for himself and thought to take them from me once I gathered them.” I recalled all too well the sadness in him when he spoke of Peta loving me better than him. I tightened my hold on her, as if by sheer will alone I’d be able to keep her with me.

I told them everything he’d said about me being trained. I said nothing about the battle, or how he’d said I’d screwed up. Or how he’d said Peta loved me better. I wasn’t so sure, and I didn’t think I could bear to hear her lie to me. My heart couldn’t handle knowing she was never truly mine.

Two days of flying took us across the continent to the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean. We spoke mostly of inconsequential things. Things that would mean nothing to anyone else, and yet they allowed me to freely consider other thoughts and possibilities . . . other ideas that could explain how the rulers knew we were coming.

Though I could easily blame the mother goddess, I doubted she would give me a charge, only to sabotage me. Not when it was clear that she truly believed the stones had to be gathered, and quickly before Blackbird gained hold of them. That left the creator of the stones, and Talan. And I was beginning to believe they were one and the same. The timing was too coincidental that he would appear in my life when the issue with the stones arose.

So his game with me in the Deep was just that, a ruse to throw me off. But how in a bucket of goblin piss had Finley and Bella known I was there before I’d ever revealed myself? Talan found me; could he somehow be tracking me? There were no Trackers left in the world so I knew that was out. The knowing of my impending presence had the feel of stepping into a trap I had no idea was even there.

We swept through the skies high above the Pit and I still had no answer as to how the rulers were being alerted to my presence.

“You’ve got a plan?” Shazer asked.

“Yes, though it will depend on my ability to control Spirit and Earth together.” I stared down at the mountain that held the Pit in its belly, smoke curling out of the top of it. About halfway down the mountain was an indent. Not a cave, but a section that had collapsed, leaving a lip of rock sticking out. “See that edge there; can you drop me off?”

“I can do you one better and land there.” Shazer tipped his wings and angled us toward the mountain. With a swift backstroke, he slowed our descent and landed us on the edge with a soft bump.

I slid from his back and went to my knees, pressing my hands to the dirt, knowing time was of the essence. “Everyone else stay on Shazer’s back. If this doesn’t work I want you out of here fast.”

Peta leapt to my shoulder, in complete defiance of what I’d just said. I opened my mouth to argue with her, and then stopped. I reached a hand up. “Rebel cat.”