“We don’t have time for flying lessons,” I said, anger flaring. “Doug has Harper and Thatcher, and we need everybody’s help to find my boys.”
Christoph caught my hands in his. “Look at me, Calli-lass.”
I did. I hung on to the calm command in my grandfather’s eyes as they went from warm brown to onyx, circled with that thin band of yellow-gold. When Christoph touched his rings to mine, it was like he plugged me in, buckled a seat belt around my tenuous grip on sanity, and fed me all his strength and confidence.
“We can only do this at night. Do you understand?” he asked.
I nodded. “If you ever take me flying, please don’t drop me.”
“I’ve never dropped anyone who didn’t need a good shaking up,” he said. “I’m going to release the connection now, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. He let go, his eyes lightened, and I returned to verging on freaking out. My phone dinged with a text message. I pocketed my wand and tucked the gauntlets under my arm. “It’s from Rowan. I have to read this.”
“I contacted Shamaha + gave her your number. She’s on standby. I’m at work until 6,” it read. Another text came in as I scrolled. “You are strong. You have good people around you. Go get your boys.”
I glanced up to see Wes and Christoph staring at me.
“Did something happen?” I asked, wiping my eyes.
“We need a strategy.” Wes inclined his head toward the front of the bakery. Hungry tourists had started to arrive for lunch. “If the Fae are behind Doug’s actions, we get one chance to find your sons and grab them.”
“You’re scaring her, Wessel,” Christoph said.
“She should be scared,” Wes said, hands gripping his hips. “We should all be scared. Let your fear keep you sharp. Don’t let it paralyze you.” He turned toward the bakery. “I’ll go talk to the kid in there, see if he remembers anything else.”
“I’ll wait in your car, Wes. Too many humans around.”
“Order a sandwich for me,” I said, tucking the ends of Christoph’s wings behind his back, “and give me couple minutes. I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.” I was being pulled forcibly in three directions: follow Wes, sit in the Jeep and see what I could extract from inside Harper’s beloved vehicle, or get barefoot and read what I could from the ground.
I started with the Jeep. The driver’s seat was set to accommodate Thatcher’s long legs. I tapped the protective screen of his phone. The two had been listening to music. My heart would’ve broken into bits if I turned on the car and heard even a few notes. Songs on their playlists held memories for me, and memories became tipping points.
I shifted, reached into the back seat, and brought the two backpacks forward. My sons had never given me reason to go through their things. Today was different. Both bags had trinkets attached to the pulls on the longest zipper. Even as my fingers curled around the piece of metal and tugged, my oh fuck light went off.
Trinkets. Trinkets and charms, seemingly innocuous, had dangled from the Pearmains’ front gate the day I went to their orchard to investigate a complaint against their farming techniques. River had collected and bagged the trinkets and given them to me and Tanner to look at.
We’d neglected to follow through. We’d been busy.
I uncurled my fingers. The flat piece of metal was a three-inch-long sword, with an icy blue gemstone in the hilt. Harper’s initials were stamped on the backside. The identical trinket on the other bag carried Thatcher’s initials.
What LARP-loving, MMORPG-playing teenager wouldn’t accept a replica of a sword?
“Pls check the girls’ backpacks etc for trinkets,” I texted James. I included a photo then twisted the swords off their metal loops and tucked them into the card pocket on the back of my cell phone case.
Running my thumb over the lumps, I debated the merits of sharing more with James and decided if this was happening to Leilani, Harper would want to know. We all would.
My thumbs flew as I wrote, erased, reworded, and sent a series of texts. I ended with the promise Wes or I would keep Lei-li, James, and Malvyn as up-to-date as we could.
Relieved, I unzipped the other sections of both backpacks and poked my fingers into every corner of every pocket. Nothing out of the ordinary.
What else did I miss? Probably a lot. If Tanner’s badge, the one he carried when he was working in his official capacity as a provincial agent, could alert him to the presence of Magicals, I had no problem believing doll-sized metal swords could track Harper’s and Thatcher’s whereabouts.
Because that was where my thinking took me. Doug hadn’t used a tattoo on our sons as he had on me, but he’d found another way to keep tabs on them, one I wouldn’t notice.
I slid out of the Jeep and closed the door. I’d donned my work boots out of habit. Off they went. I planted my feet in the grassy area near the Jeep’s rear tire, where the leather pieces holding the boys’ amulets and portal stones had fallen, and closed my eyes.
Boot prints, larger than my size eights. At least two sets. Dust rising from the ground, swirling ankles, heels dug in. Following the imprints left by the boots was like trying to mimic a how-to graphic for a complicated dance. Three bodies in movement until the direction of all six feet turned at once and disappeared.
Harper and Thatcher had gone with their father without a struggle?
I opened my eyes, saw my reflection in the rear window of the Jeep, and spun to face the road. The kid behind the counter said the mini-truck had headed south. Brooks Farm
