My stomach constricted.
“Good job, moron,” Aurora complained.
“It’s not as if she hasn’t thought about that,” Booker shot back. “I’m not saying that’s what happened but … .”
“It could have,” I finished when he left the sentence hanging.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“What should we do?” Aurora wasn’t giving up. “If Hadley is running into a wall because she’s being targeted, what can you and I do to cast a locator spell?”
The question threw me. Could they cast a locator spell? Then I got excited. “Maybe you can create a water ball and Booker can use his mind magic to … look for Wesley’s mind specifically.”
Booker arched a dubious eyebrow. “We’ve never done anything like that.”
“You can do it.” I refused to let go of the idea.
Booker was a naysayer by nature. When he opened his mouth a second time I knew he was going to shoot me down. Aurora cuffed the back of his head before he could utter a word, however, and he sighed instead.
He nodded. “Tell me what I should do.”
They bandied about ideas for several minutes. I sat and listened because there wasn’t much I could offer. I barely understood myown magic, let alone theirs. It didn’t take them long to agree on a tactic.
“Let’s do it,” Booker said after they’d gone over the plan three times. “It can’t hurt to try.”
Aurora built a small water ball. It glowed faintly with her siren magic. When Booker added his magic, he prettied it up so it glowed red and was easier to see.
“You always have to be flashy,” Aurora complained as she stared at the floating ball of water.
“We need to be able to see it, Aurora,” Booker replied as he sent the ball careening into the woods.
Aurora seemed antsy as she scanned the trees for signs of movement. “There.” She pointed after a few seconds. The ball had reappeared and seemed agitated, chittering like a rabid squirrel.
“Well, let’s see if this worked.” Booker shifted the four-wheeler into gear. “Hold on.”
He might have talked big about his driving ability, but he was a daredevil behind the wheel. I held on even though I was strapped in, and closed my eyes when Booker took a hard turn. I was grateful I hadn’t eaten this morning.
I focused on not wetting my pants for so long that I almost tipped forward when Booker came to an abrupt stop.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
I opened my eyes. Wesley owned hundreds of acres and obviously didn’t know every nook and cranny of the property. I vaguely recognized the field we found ourselves in.
Wesley had called it a grazing field. He moved his herds to various fields so he could focus on watering and recovery for the previous feeding grounds. The herds stayed on a specific field for a week before being moved. He’d explained the entire process to me at one point but I couldn’t remember all of the finer details.
“What is that?” Aurora asked in an awed voice, drawing my eyes to a spot in the middleof the field.
I unfastened my seatbelt and exited the four-wheeler. I didn’t look anywhere but at the huge symbol that had taken over the center of the field. I had never seen anything like it.
“Hadley, wait.” Booker scrambled to keep up with me, but I ignored him.
“This isn’t some sort of weird branding thing, is it?” Aurora asked. She’d kept pace with me.
“A branding thing?” Booker scoffed. “Do you think they fashioned a huge metal brand for a giant and asked him to come out here and stamp the land or something? Good grief.”
“No, nimrod,” Aurora shot back. “I’m suggesting that maybe someone used magic for a controlled burn to mark the field. Maybe that’s how they keep track of when the cows graze where.”
Booker turned contrite. “Sorry. That’s actually kind of smart. I can see Wesley doing something like that.”
