“They want to know if you will let them die if Headwaters kills them because they don’t want to be apart and sad and lonely.Okay.Thank you.We’re gonna go kill stuff now.Bye!”
She ended the call.“There.Do you think he’ll call back?”
I took my phone and shook my head, life having fully jumped the rails, and me too tired to make sense of it.“No, Pumpkin, I don’t suppose.”
“Well, maybe.”She shrugged.“Are we going to bed now?”
“Not much time left,” I noted.
“Enough not to spend it arguing or worrying.”Lula stood and took my hand.“Let’s get you some shut eye.”
I rose with her, and Abbi took my other hand.“Can I come too?”
“Of course,” I tugged her toward the door, encouraging her through it in front of us.
The three of us climbed into bed in the room with the stars overhead, me on the outside, Lula in my arms, and Abbi hugging her.We hadn’t changed out of our clothes, though we’d shed our boots.Lorde had followed along and jumped up to lay herself across our feet.
“I’m not going to sleep,” I said.“But if I do, wake me up.”
“Mmmm,” Lula said.
If she said any more, I didn’t hear her.
* * *
The drive wentby faster than I expected.Lu, me, and Abbi (who had fiercely refused to stay behind) rode in the truck.The spell book of the gods was wrapped in the shadow cloth, shut away in the witch’s box.
We’d left Lorde behind with plenty of water and food and a place where she could go to the bathroom.She hadn’t been happy about it, but Lu and I had agreed we couldn’t risk her getting hurt.
Though we’d made Lorde stay behind, we’d been unsuccessful in talking the hunters and Cardamom into doing the same.
None of them had a weapon that could kill Headwaters.Only Lula and I could cast the spells in the book.
But the Walches knew the land like the backs of their hands, and Cardamom insisted his magic could cloak and help defend us.
Abbi, of course, had her mortar and pestle.
I’d tucked the scrying mirror in my pocket.
“We’re almost there,” Lu said.
I rubbed my hand over my mouth and nodded.I was just as hungry for Headwaters’ death as Lu, and had finally admitted it could take us several more lifetimes to get good enough to control the spell, to control the beast within it.
We didn’t have those several lifetimes.
Lu slowed and signaled the turn to the rest stop.
A wooden sign withCONTINENTAL DIVIDEarching across it indicated this was the exact point where the continental United States essentially broke in two, weather from one side rising against the western edge of the mountains, and weather from the east side crashing from the other.
The rest stop wasn’t much—a paved parking area on a rise above the highway which intersected the Divide, a few placards explaining what the Divide was, and a restroom.But the view of the land was stunning.
Hills rose around us.Even though it was still dark, it was clear, the sky just the smallest bit lighter than the hills.
Lu parked the truck, and the hunters rolled up beside us.
Elmer lowered his window.I did the same.“We’re gonna tuck the car back there behind the scrub,” he said.“Then we’ll take off on foot.Don’t look for us.We’ll be watching.We’ll be there when you need us.”
“Safe travels,” I said.
