I open my mouth to argue, glance at Thunar, who looks as perplexed as I am, and then turn around and shift into Azar. I’m not going to shove my way through crowds to go back and retrieve things. As I launch, I glance back over my shoulder and notice Thunar smirking at me.
It must make him really happy to see me acting like an errand boy.
I reach the clearing with the bags quickly, but Liz isn’t waiting on my return. I snatch all the bags in one big claw, hoping nothing will break from the rough treatment, and leap back into the air.
“Put her down. She’s coming with us.” Liz drops her hands on her hips. “But thank you for stopping her.”
“You can put me down,” the old woman says. “I’ll go along with her.”
But she ran, Thunar says. She shouldn’t have run. It’s suspicious. What if she runs again?
“I won’t run,” the woman says. “It was a reflex.”
I reach the clearing in time to see more humans showing up from several directions.
“Is there a problem?” A man with a gun lifts it to point at Thunar.
That makes Liz laugh. “Put your gun down before he roasts you, idiot.”
The soldier glances back at me and then turns to face Thunar again.
“Do it now.” Liz doesn’t look entertained anymore. “Your government welcomed us, and we’re not harming anyone.”
“That woman appears to be forcibly detained.”
“That’s our business,” Liz says. “Put the weapon down, or I’ll let him incinerate you.”
The soldier blinks, but he lowers his arm.
“Liz.” That voice I recognize. Stupid Gideon. “What’s going on?”
When she spins around and sees him, Liz groans. It’s satisfying. “We came to get Christmas gifts before we picked everyone up, but then. . .” Liz points. “This old woman was also in Selfoss and I want to know why.”
“Wait.” A woman with long, curly hair steps out from behind Gideon, and I recognize Liz’s mother. “I know her, too.”
The old woman’s still clutched in Thunar’s massive claws, and now she’s cackling like she’s unhinged.
I don’t like her. I’m going to melt her, Thunar says.
“Wait,” Liz says. “Please put her down. She can’t run away with all of us here, and I have some questions for her.”
Thunar looks extremely irritated, but he complies. I’m going to open a portal for the humans waiting in lines near the camp outside of town. Hurry back, or I’ll return and eliminate the distraction.
He drops her from quite far, and the old woman crumples in a heap when she lands.
“Sorry,” Liz says. “He’s not?—”
“Do not apologize for the behavior of the sky children,” the old woman says. “I know what they are.”
“It is you,” Liz’s mother says. “You—” Her nostrils flare. “You told me you could heal Elizabeth when she was a dead babe in my belly.”
Liz spins on her boot so fast, she almost bumps into me. “She—this is the witch who lied to you?”
“She didn’t lie,” her mom says. “She saved you.”
The cackling’s even louder than it was before now. “You were so easy to manipulate,” the woman says. “All we had to do was pay the hospital technician to tell you that your baby died.”
Now it’s Liz’s mother who looks ready to do violence. “You—what? Why would you do that?”
