*
*
Zayin’s vision fractured. Splintered. The world below him broke like a shattered kaleidoscope, escaping its ordered patterns, the mosaic of field and forest, rock and road, fragmenting. Fal ing apart, as his spirit was fal ing apart, bright, broken slivers of his soul. “Zayin.”
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His heart pounded,
Pain burst in his skul , rocked his head, jerked him back into his heavy, human body. The ground spun and solidified under him.
He gasped, dragging air into his inefficient lungs, and felt the cold, hard floor beneath his shoulders, the weight of his bones. He opened his eyes.
Mews mistress Moon knelt over him, scowling, her long hippie hair hanging down around her face.
Jude blinked as shadow returned to his sight, obscuring his bright bird vision. “I lost them.”
“I thought I was going to lose you.” Moon rol ed to her feet and went to the sink of the smal keeper’s room, leaving him lying on the cold linoleum floor. “Next time you decide to have an out-of-body experience, do it with your lady doctor in attendance.”
He flexed his fingers, restoring flexibility to his hands and wrists. “You know I can’t.”
Miriam’s unquestioning loyalty to Simon made it impossible for him to trust her completely. He was rarely vulnerable, even in sex. But spirit casting left him open. Weakened.
“You’l end up in the infirmary anyway,” Moon said darkly.
“Twelve crows, was it, this time? The spirit isn’t meant to divide into that many pieces. You left me with hardly anything to cal you back.”
“You should be grateful for the excuse to hit me.” He rubbed his jaw where the imprint of her hand stil burned.
“Anyway, I had a wide area to cover.”
She turned, a glass of water in her hands. “Here.”
He raised one eyebrow. “No cookies and orange juice?”
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“Fuck off.” But she supported him up with one arm behind his back, guiding the glass to his lips as he drank.
“What did you see?”
“Flyers.” He swal owed. “They thought I was spying on them.”
“There’s a shocker. What about our runaways?”
“Stil headed north.” He sifted through his scattered memories, picking through images and snatches of conversation from the parking lot, reconciling his human knowledge with the crows’ perceptions. Dizzied, he closed his eyes. “World’s End.”
“Where’s that?”
He opened his eyes. “Maine, I imagine.”
Cautiously, he sat up. His spine popped and stretched.
Birds’ vertebrae were fused for flight. The return to his human body left him feeling heavy and unsupported.
“You’l go out again,” Moon said. “After them.”
“I must.”
Simon wanted the girl. And Jude wanted Simon in his debt.
Moon’s round face creased. “This boy . . .”
“Is irrelevant. He’s an elemental. A
Jude added for emphasis.
“You see enemies everywhere.”
He climbed painful y to his feet, leaning on a table for support. His head swam. “Because we have no al ies.”
“Heaven has no al ies. We’re on earth now. Maybe we should put more faith in those who have been here the longest, the fair folk and merfolk. God’s creatures, Jude.”
It was an old argument between them. One he’d given up on winning.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Simon thinks the boy is possessed.”
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