“We haven’t visited them yet,” Kara answered.
Stella rested her hands on her hips and tilted her head. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a social call? And since when can we even do this?” She lifted one hand and made a circular motion, indicating their group.
Sally shrugged. “Since now, I guess. And like most things we learn about our power, it’s out of necessity.”
“And that necessity would be?” Stella drew the last word out as her brow rose.
“We’ve learned there’s another healer, and she’s working with the vampire king,” Kara explained. “Though we don’t really know if she’s working with him or if she doesn’t have a choice.”
Stella pressed lips together. “So the cavalry, as in us, are charging in to get her?”
Sally shook her head. “Not exactly.”
“Absolutely not,” Kara’s added. “Nick is having a hard enough time being away from me right now.”
“I’m lucky if Dalton lets me walk in another room where he can’t see me.” Jewel rolled her eyes. “I mean, he’s not that bad.”
“Don’t lie,” Stella said dryly.
Jewel shrugged. “Okay, he’s that bad.”
Stella looked between the two of them. “If we’re not going on a rescue mission, then what’s the point of this reunion?”
“We needed to see if it was possible to use the gypsy healer bond to contact one another,” Rachel answered.
Stella’s mouth opened in an O shape. “You all are going to get in her head.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Sally sang. “You’ve won absolutely nothing, except the joy of guessing correctly.”
Stella pursed her lips as she looked Sally up and down. “Are pregnancy hormones making you weird?”
“Yep.” Sally nodded quickly. “They are jacking me up so bad. And it’s getting hard to act normally.”
“Glad to know you feel safe in our little healer pack to get your weird on.” Kara turned back to Stella. “We love you, Stells, but we’ve got to go through three more threads to see if we can find Alice.”
Stella’s eyes widened. “The new healer is named Alice?” She chuckled. “How ironic is that? The same name as a character who fell down a hole into another world and then met lots of crazy people.”
Sally laughed. “Jen’s going to give her hell about her name.”
Kara snapped her fingers. “Focus, people.”
“Why don’t you just touch the strands?” Stella asked. “I would think you’d be able to recognize our magical signature.”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” Kara’s chin dropped.
“Blame it on the bump.” Sally pointed to her stomach. “We be pregnant, so we get to be dumb.”
Kara walked back through the door, and she felt the others follow. She looked down and saw her form dissolving, starting from her feet and moving upward until she was a strand of light again. Kara moved forward to the golden strand and began to weave around it, flowing along its length, letting her light touch it. She flowed along the sea green chord and immediately recognized it as Heather’s magic. If feisty was a feeling, then that is what Kara felt when she touched the green cord.
She moved on to the vibrant red chord. As soon as her magic came into contact with it, Kara felt Anna. The magic was calm and steady, just like the healer. That meant the purple one had to belong to Alice.
Kara turned back toward the door into Stella’s mind so she could regain her form. When the others joined her, she blew out a breath. “It’s the purple strand.”
“Thank you, Stella.” Jewel smiled at their friend. “You’ve saved us some time, though we’ll need to do this again so we can see Anna and Heather.”
“They’re going to be ticked when they find out you came and saw me.” Stella grinned.
“You could just not mention it,” Sally pointed out.
