Drayer felt amusement at that. "How long will it last? Our clients might appreciate quiet cargo to the flight."
"Two or three days. I'm not quite as precise with my magic as I used to be. Getting old."
A flare of annoyance. "You better keep that needle of yours steady, Lydia.”
The old woman waved that comment off. “Take your pick of girls and I’ll have her separated from the rest.” Lydia moved her witchlight with an impatient flick and Gentry watched assmall, round faces peered out from the bars of those cages, their eyes wide but their faces otherwise expressionless from what she guessed had to be the lockjaw curse. The womb then stopped at the side of the room where Gentry couldn't see any little faces peering back out.
Drayer stepped forward and murmured a spell that would obscure her face, that would make it appear more like a coolish illusion than anything else. She then bent over and peered into the cage. Four little girls looked back, their faces dirtied with reddish desert dirt. Drayer put her hand through the bar and they shrank back against the jagged rock wall.
She felt her hand get hot as Drayer manipulated strands of magic to drag across each one of the girls' faces. The little girl's magic seemed to respond in kind, tinging like delicate pieces of glass and giving off a certain type of vibration for each. It was only at the last that Drayer smiled.
"That one," she announced triumphantly. "She'll be perfect."
Lydia grunted. "She's a bit strong on the magic for you to try something so experimental on."
"There's nothing experimental about it," Drayer scoffed. "I combed through the Netherton libraries. A soul as strong as mine should be able to handle a magic user — especially a child’s. Me and her"—Drayer extended another piece of magic to caress the girl's cheek—"bonding me to that weak magic-less girl has only caused problems, but this one will make a fine replacement."
Drayer then summoned her own witchlight to illuminate the girl's face and Gentry gasped internally. She knew that girl underneath the grime of the dirt and her tangled hair, and recognized those eyes. It was the same girl who'd healed her on the bus to Skadra, one of Nona's kids.
Amelia.
forty-six
Kit
“So you’re saying thatDrayer Nethertonhas the children and is going to sell them in a day or two?” Kit bit out, making sure that he hadn’t misinterpreted a single facet of Gentry’s story.
The woman hadn’t stopped moving since waking up in his arms. First, she’d leapt to retrieve a notebook in a bag and had traced out a pattern of mountains. Then she’d started to pace as she’d recounted seeing the children in cages as Drayer Netherton planned.
To say the information had put Kit on edge was a bit of an understatement.
Every time he had snapped out a question, she’d grown increasingly annoyed, and this time was no exception. “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she confirmed, shooting him a glare, “now you need to look at the picture I drew and see if you can identify that mountain range.”
“Okay.” He looked down at the paper she’d given him for a few seconds. “I can’t. The desert is a big place.”
Gentry snatched the piece of paper back from him and ran to her computer. “Then I need to run this against a topography map.”
Kit watched as she did just that, feeling a mix of hopeful, impatient, and furious. Hopeful because his girl was getting him the information he needed. It sounded a bit fantastical to him, but he knew that she’d never lie, not where the children were concerned. Not to mention she was a million times smarter than he was.
The impatience and fury was because Benny and the others needed to be rescued ASAP. Gentry had seen them locked up in cages, which meant they’d been treated like dogs for over a week. Kit needed to make them pay for that, needed to be pointed in the direction of the monsters who’d caged his family.
“Fuck,” Gentry hissed, “I suck at drawing. The best I could get was an 85% match.”
Not about to point out that not justanyonecould memorize and draw a mountain range after seeing it once, Kit leaned over her shoulder and took a picture of the coordinates. He kissed the crown of her head. “Thank you, baby, I’ll get these to Mary and the others.” He wasn’t sure that the enforcers would back them up based off a dream, but they could at least try.
Gentry looked up at him, her emerald eyes cold. “You shouldn’t just go in there all gung-ho,” she told him, “there were a lot of men. At least ten. We should plan this out first. They’re not being moved tonight.”
“They’re in cages,” Kit pointed out, already frustrated at the mere idea of waiting, “being treated like dogs.”
“Those bastards need killing,” Gentry agreed, “but we need to pool our resources first. Come up with a strategy before striking.”
Only then did Kit hear the nerves in her voice. He went still. “There’s something you’re hiding from me.”
She looked away. “Not reallyhiding. Drayer picked Amelia for a reason. She’s planning on performing an excision and then bonding to Amelia. I need to tune back in to figure out when they’re planning on doing that.”
It took Kit a few seconds to understand. Drayer was supposed to die when Wren excised him from Gentry’s soul. If it was the other way around… “You need to get the Weavers over here right now. It’s time to kill that bastard.” Before Gentry was killed and Amelia took her place.
“And then what, Kit? Drayer may die but what happens to Amelia after that? She’ll be surrounded with people who have no reason to keep her alive. She’ll just be evidence to be rid of. All the kids will be. That’s why we need a plan.”
