“I would have an orange drink, Master Marcus.”

“You talk funny,” he said.

“’Twas always thus.”

“Are you Aunt Zee’s boyfriend? You always park outside our apartment.”

“I am her champion. I watch that I might her serve.”

He brought from the icebox two cans, and we sat upon the threshold to the house and drank.

“Do you know where my mommy is?” he said.

“Nay, I know not.” Yet I knew what caused my lady’s distress.

Always in the hall where we ate what was our midday meal, the Duke of Bombardier allowed his vassals to see the news. The night past, I had seen the visage of my lady’s sister. I knew her straight away, for oft I saw her with my lady and with Marcus. Taken, the news had said of the lady LaReigne, by knaves locked up in the gaol at El Dorado. Certs they weren men of ill intent, but mayhap my lady’s sister still lived, tho there was no word of her fate.

When the hour of my leaving Bombardier had come that morning, I went not home, but to my lady’s house. There I saw the sheriff’s men. I perceived not their task, but as I kept watch, Lady Zhorzha had passed and stopped not.

“Soon,” the Witch had said for nigh two years. “Soon Lady Zhorzha shall have need of thee.” As I sat beside young Marcus, the Witch spake again, saying, “They aren under thy protection now. Take them to thy keep.”

“To my father’s keep?” I asked.

“Nay, to thine own.”

I kenned her not, for my keep lay in chaos, a field of stones, and no fit place for my lady, tho oft I dreamt it.

“I don’t like being out here,” Marcus said.

“Dread thee nought. Thine aunt and thee, ye aren under my protection.”

The boy put his hand into mine and I took it as the Witch’s surety. She oft spake in riddles, but I trusted her. If she said ’twas to be, it was.

CHAPTER 4

Zee

   Have you heard anything from your sister?” Mom said, as soon as we were alone.

“Not since Monday.” I took out my phone, meaning to show her the texts, but then I looked at them and changed my mind.

Remember you’re getting Marcus from school today. LaReigne had texted that at one forty-five, when I was still at the restaurant.

I remember. She acted like I didn’t have a calendar on my phone to remind me.

Please don’t get high tonight ok? She sent that with a little sad, disappointed emoji, which wasn’t even fair. Who kept all the bills paid? Good old stoner Zee. So why did I get the sad, disappointed emoji?

I never get high when I’m watching him, I’d answered.

Right it’s for “pain relief” but you won’t even TRY the guided meditation I use. You know I had Marcus through natural childbirth using that. No pain meds, no spinal block.

I know. Because she never got tired of telling me.

Just please don’t get high tonight.

It was useless explaining to LaReigne that there’s no natural childbirth equivalent to hitting a highway at sixty-five miles an hour, dislocating your hip, and breaking your leg in two places. Lamaze won’t get you through that.

“The last time she texted me was at like six o’clock on Monday,” I said. “She always lets me know when she gets to the prison, and when she’s leaving, but she didn’t.”

I’d texted her at ten to see where she was, but she never answered. Same at midnight, and, by then, Asher had told me to make the trip to Colorado.

“Well, where have you been?” Mom said, like an accusation.

“I had to do a favor for a friend of mine, so I took Marcus with me, and I thought LaReigne maybe just flaked out. Only she didn’t come back.”

Saying it out loud, it finally hit me. LaReigne had been kidnapped. Taken hostage. Whatever you called it, I didn’t have any idea if she was safe or if they were going to hurt her or when I was going to see her again. Maybe we didn’t always get along, but she was my sister. She was the person who held my hand on two of the worst days of my life.

“Oh, baby, I know.” Mom opened her arms and I went to her the same way Marcus did. I put my knee up on the reinforced arm of her chair, and leaned against her to bury my face in her shoulder. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged her. Not put my arms around her to leverage her in and out of her chair, or the toilet, but to hug her.

“What do we do? What’s going to happen?” I said. Mom’s hand was warm on my back, rubbing slow circles, while I cried all over her shoulder. I wanted to stay there, but I knew I couldn’t. That was even more true than it had been when I was sixteen. I pulled myself together and stood up. “Should we call the police? They have to tell us something, right?”

“They’ve come by twice now, but I couldn’t answer the door.” I couldn’t meant a lot of things to Mom. Maybe she’d been too scared to talk to the police. Maybe she couldn’t get out of her chair and answer the door. “Now that you’re here, though, we’ll call them. And they’ll tell us whatever they know.”

I got the phone plugged back in, and Mom dialed. She was put on hold three times, and every time she had to tell someone new who she was. Then she finally got someone on the line who knew something, because she listened and nodded.

When she started crying, I had to sit down on the arm of her chair. The worst, that was what I expected. The very worst. After a minute Mom went back to nodding, and then she said, “Yes, I understand. That’s fine.”

“What did they say?” I said after she hung up.

“They’re going to send someone to talk to us.”

“What does that mean? Do they have any news?”

“They didn’t tell me anything.” Mom started crying again.

“Have you talked to Emma or Aunt Shelly?” I said. They were practically the only family we had left. Aunt Shelly had been married to Mom’s brother, Tim.

“Not Shelly, but Emma. I talked to her yesterday, just for a minute. Before everything got so crazy.”

“And?”

“We had a little fight. You know, in their minds this is somehow your father’s fault. Or LaReigne’s fault, which is ridiculous.”

“Well, not like she’s completely innocent, either,” I said.

Not that anybody would take me as an example of how to be a good person. Like Toby said, What kind of person takes a kid on a drug run? But what made LaReigne want to do something goody-goody like volunteer at the prison? Hadn’t we already put in our time? Before he died, our father spent twelve years in prison, and we went to see him almost every single week. Wasn’t that enough for LaReigne?