One hand on each forehead, Sophie tried to read the nightmare that was her conjoined patient. Morgan was very cold-but her vitals were still strong. Moving a hand, Sophie tickled her knees, her belly, her elbows. Reflexes still there. Level two travel-not gone.
But Marcus had wrapped some kind of insane mind bubble around her head, one strong enough to kill him-or drag both of them into the astral plane.
She needed them separate.
Sophie looked around the room, cursing the inadequacies of her healer bag. And spied what she needed. One quick step and she had the laptop in her hand. Two more, and she smashed the flat side into the side of his head, shielding the baby with her own body.
It wasn’t pretty. But she felt the connection between man and baby snap, the loose end hitting Marcus’s brain with the force of a bull whip. Pain ricocheted into her head, the price of a healing link still wide open.
Dropping the laptop, she reached out to help-and then read the fury on his face.
Oh, hell. Sophie yanked for magic, understanding the deadly race she was in. And she won. By a hairsbreadth. Her paralysis spell deflected a mind stun that would have knocked her out for a week.
Imbecile. And mad as he was, her spell had about thirty seconds to live. Sophie got straight to the point. “You listen to me, Marcus Buchanan, and you listen well. She’s not gone. You hear me? She’s
His face contorted in a desperate effort to speak. “Had. Her. You. Broke.”
God, she wasn’t even going to get thirty seconds. “She’s still moving, still present.” She shook his shoulders, willing comprehension into his head. “She’s not gone.”
His arm jerked free of the spell’s hold, a mad bear about to break loose-and then she saw it in his eyes. Sanity in the midst of madness. He understood.
The remnants of her spell evaporated, and he reached for Morgan’s body, frantic. “I don’t feel her.”
His voice shredded her heart. She laid her hands over his. “Trust that I can.”
Sophie debated. And made the hard call.
She placed her hands on the sides of his head, feeding a bolt of healing power into his reeling mind. “She’s level two, Marcus. Tethered, but floating.” Safe, so long as they got her home fairly soon.
But they couldn’t start yet. Five thousand years of history had made the protocols for most emergent magics very clear. You didn’t throw water on a fire witch. Earth witches needed to sleep outside when magic bloomed. And travelers had to be given the freedom to hit the end of the tether anchoring soul to body.
Calling them back any earlier was like trying to turn around a toddler on their way to an ice cream cone. With a whisper.
Sophie scanned Morgan again. She’d never cared for a level-two traveler, but the lore was strong-and healers were trained to trust those who had come before.
Even when they were scared to their bones. Morgan felt so very far away.
“She’s getting close now.” Sophie eyed Marcus, trying to balance the needs of both her patients. He nodded, eyes still swimming in fear, and what she hoped was enough trust. She took both of his hands. “I can do this-or you can.”
His entire body shuddered.
She would weep for the terrified little boy later. “She’s not in the mists, Marcus.” Not tonight. The risks to either of them were minimal.
He shuddered again, and a bigger dose of sanity flowed back into his eyes.
He was a witch fully grown and he loved the small girl in his arms. She had to trust that it would be enough. “Remember-it’s your job to stand. It’s hers to come back.” She stretched out as much love as she dared. “You can’t do her part for her.”
She reached for earth power, rooted as deep as she could pull, and offered it to him. He needed to feel her strength.
He could go get her now.
Marcus felt like a soldier under fire, numbed to the death screaming over his head at regular intervals. The inside of his skull begged for mercy, channels ripped to shreds trying to hold Morgan close.
Idiot.
Astral Travel 101. Travelers can’t be held. They can only be called.
And usually that failed too.
Cool waters lapped at his head. Healing waters.
He let himself touch the coolness Sophie offered, for just a moment. He had to be ready.
Marcus turned in the darkness of his mind. East. The direction Morgan had gone, just like every traveler before her.
And instead of purple eyes, he saw brown ones.
Anguished guilt blew through the cracking, scarred dike holding back memories of his twin brother. Evan, counting shiny rock treasures and offering up the biggest pile. Evan, bare feet racing up the sand, always a half step ahead.
Evan, headed east, laughing-and never coming home.
He felt her hands, pushing against the memories in his mind, trying to contain them.
He could have told her it was futile.
Brown eyes.
No.
Lauren felt Marcus slide deeper into sleep and nodded at Sophie. “He’s under. Want me to put up a bubble?”
The healer pondered, and then shook her head. “That will block him off from Morgan, and he needs to feel her.”
Lauren looked over at the happy, drooling baby lying on a blanket on the floor, Ginia and Lizzie filling dual shoes as playmates and monitors. “She seems fine.” The motley crew standing outside the house had held their breath as Marcus’s beacon finally flared-and deflated in a collective whoosh of relief, moments later, when a stream of magic had danced through their midst.
One traveler, back home-and nothing wrong with her that a bottle of warm milk hadn’t fixed.
Jamie came over, two suspiciously green glasses in his hand. “I’ve sound barriered this corner of the room so we don’t wake him up. Come drink your just rewards.”
Even Sophie looked askance at the glasses. “Which of my students is responsible for those?”
Jamie’s grin was not reassuring. Lauren decided she didn’t want to know. “I don’t need green goo. All I did was a little mindlinking. Cookies will fix me right up.” It was probably bad that she sounded panicky-healers smelled fear.
Mike walked over, Adam asleep in his arms. “It goes down easier if you hold your nose.”
Right. Lauren scowled at Jamie. “I’m unvolunteering for any late-night duties that involve green goo.” She
