'A little more,' he coaxed.
'No more!' Tristan cried.
'How do you feel?' he asked several minutes later.
'Sleepy. Strange. Not scared… just strange. I feel like someone else is here, watching us,' she said, glancing around the room.
'I'm here. Ivy!'
Gregory offered her the last mouthful of tea. 'There's nothing to be worried about,' he said. 'I'm here for you, Ivy.'
Tristan struggled to keep himself calm. One capsule probably wouldn't kill her, he reasoned. Had Gregory found the other pack that Tristan had thrown behind the bureau? Was he planning to dope her up a little, then give her the rest?
'Lacey, I can't save her by myself!'
Will, Tristan thought, find Will. But how long would that take? Ivy's eyes were slowly closing.
'Sleep,' Gregory was saying over and over. 'There's nothing to be afraid of Sleep.'
Ivy's eyes shut, then her head dropped. Gregory did not bother to catch her. He pushed her to the side and let her slump against the pillow.
Without realizing it, Tristan had begun to cry. He wrapped his arms around Ivy, though he could not hold her. She was far away from him, and drifting away from Gregory, too, sinking further and further into an unnatural sleep. Tristan cried helplessly.
Gregory got up abruptly and walked out of the room.
Tristan knew he had to get help, but he couldn't leave Ivy alone for long.
Philip. It was his only chance. Tristan hurried into the next room.
Ella became alert as soon as he entered.
'Help me out, Ella. We need to get him awake, just enough to let me in.'
Ella climbed up on Philip's chest, sniffed at his face, then mewed.
Philip's eyes fluttered open. His small hand reached up and lazily scratched Ella. Tristan imagined how soft the cat felt to Philip. A second later, having shared his thoughts, he slipped inside the boy.
'It's me, Philip. Your friend, your angel, Tristan.'
'Tristan,' Philip murmured, and suddenly they were sitting across from each other with a checkerboard between them. Philip jumped Tristan's marker. 'Crown me!'
Tristan had dropped into a memory or a dream woven from a memory. He struggled to get them out of it.
'Wake up, Philip. It's Tristan. Wake up. I need your help. Ivy needs your help.'
Tristan could hear Ella purring again and saw her face peering into his, though everything was blurry. He knew Philip was listening and waking up slowly.
'Come on, Philip. That's the way, buddy.'
Philip was looking over at the angel statues now. He was wondering, but he was not afraid. His arms and legs still felt relaxed. So far, so good.
Then Tristan heard the noise in the hall. He heard footsteps — Gregory's — but Gregory was walking oddly, heavily.
'Get up, Philip! We have to see!'
Before Philip could rouse himself, Gregory was down the stairs. A moment later, an outside door banged.
'Put on your shoes. Your shoes!'
A car's engine sputtered. Tristan recognized it — Ivy's old Dodge. His heart sank. Gregory had Ivy with him. Where are you taking her? Where?
'I don't know,' Philip said in a sleepy voice.
Think. What would be easy for him? Tristan said to himself.
'I don't know,' Philip mumbled.
With Ivy drugged, it would be easy to stage an accident. What kind? How and where was he going to do it? There must have been clues in his room, a hint in the newspaper clippings.
Tristan suddenly remembered the train schedule. He recalled the strange look on Gregory's face when he found the timetable on the floor. Gregory had circled the late-night train, the one that stopped at Tusset. Then he had done some calculations, written down a time, and circled it twice. 2:04. That would be right — Tristan knew the train rushed through their station a few minutes after two each morning.
Rushed through! It didn't stop at small stations such as Stonehill's, which would be deserted after midnight. They had to stop him! ' He glanced at Philip's digital dock. 1:43 A.M.
'Philip, come on!'
The little boy was slumped down in the chair, with only one shoelace tied. His fingers were clumsy when he tried to tie the other one. He could barely stand up, and moved slowly down the hall with Tristan guiding him. Tristan chose the center staircase, where there was a railing to hang on to. They made it safely to the bottom, then Tristan guided him around to the back door, which Gregory had left open. As if he had a clock inside him, Tristan felt each second ticking away.
They'd never make it in time by foot; the long driveway down the ridge took them in the opposite direction from the station. Keys-could he find the keys for Gregory's car? If he did, he could materialize his fingers and— But what if they wasted all their time looking for keys that Gregory had with him?
'Other way, Philip.' Tristan turned Philip around. It was a dangerous shortcut, but their only chance: the steep and rocky side of the ridge, which dropped to the station below.
After a couple of steps, the cool night air revived Philip. Through the boy's eyes and ears, Tristan became aware of the night's silvery shadows and rustling sounds. He too was feeling stronger. At Tristan's urging, Philip broke into a run across the grass. They raced past the tennis court, then forty yards more toward the boundary of the property, the edge where the land suddenly dropped off.
' They were moving faster than a child could have, their powers combined. Tristan didn't know how long his renewed strength would hold out, and he wasn't certain that he could get them safely down the steep side of the ridge. It seemed to have taken forever just to get this far.
He felt a moment of resistance as he and Philip climbed the stone wall marking the end of the property.
'I'm not supposed to,' Philip said.
'It's okay, you're with me.'
Far below them he could see the train station. To get to it they'd have to climb down a hillside where the only toeholds were the roots of a few dwarfed trees and some narrow ledges of stone, with sheer drops beneath them. Occasionally patches of brush broke through the rocky surface, but mostly it was rutted earth with a cascade of tumbled rocks that would roll at the lightest touch of a foot.
'I'm not scared,' Philip said.
'I'm glad that one of us isn't.'
They picked their way slowly and carefully down the ridge. The moon had come up late and its shadows were long and confusing. Tristan had to continually check himself, reminding himself that the legs he was using were shorter, the arms unable to reach as far.
They were halfway down when he misjudged. Their jump was too short, and they leaned out too far from a narrow strip of rock. From their ledge, it was a straight drop down twenty-five feet, with nothing but stones to snag them at the bottom before another drop. They teetered. Tristan drew into himself, cloaking his thoughts and instincts, letting Philip cake over. It was Philip's natural sense of balance that saved them.
As they descended, Tristan tried not to think about Ivy, though the image of her head hanging over her shoulder like a limp doll's kept passing through his mind. And all the while he was aware of time ticking away.
'What is it?' Philip asked, sensing Tristan's concern.
'Keep going. Tell you later.'
Tristan couldn't let Philip know how much danger Ivy was in. He cloaked certain thoughts, hiding from Philip's consciousness both Gregory's identity and his intentions. He wasn't sure how Philip would handle the information,
