“I miss it too,” Peyton said quietly, seeing where she was looking. “It’s a little bit tough being inland sometimes, isn’t it?”
“I never knew it was,” Cela murmured. She wondered if it had hit Tyr this way when he first looked upon the ocean again.
As much as she wanted to take off right away, she couldn’t shift here at the edge of the city. Anyway, it was going to be a long flight and she supposed it would be best to get a good night’s sleep beforehand.
So they drove on the coast highway, bringing them glimpses of lighthouses and small fishing towns. Cela had the window rolled down so she could smell the sea. She was drifting, the last twenty-four hours of anxiety and all the travel catching up with her, when abruptly she sat up straight.
“Peyton! Can you turn here?”
“There’s nowhere to turn,” Peyton protested, but a state park turnoff appeared up ahead. She pulled onto the small side road. “Where am I going?”
“I think I’ve been here.” It wasn’t a fully conscious reaction; she didn’t think that she had recognized any specific landmarks. It was more of a feeling, a deeply instinctive urge from her griffin itself. “I think here, somewhere around here, is where they flew me to when I was exiled. This is the pickup point for griffins who come to the mainland.”
“Oh, so you might not have to go through Canada after all?”
“I guess we’ll see,” Cela murmured.
It looked different in the afternoon sun in midsummer, with the trees fully leafed out. She remembered a lonely wasteland; instead it was scenic and lovely, if isolated. But this could be the road, and there—yes, that might be the bus shelter where she had waited with the twins in her arms. So long ago now. She and her life had changed so much.
“Can we park here?”
Up ahead the road made a sharp turn, and there was a pullout looking out over the ocean. Peyton stopped the rental car, and Cela leaped out as soon as it had stoppedmoving. She went to the guardrail and rested her hands on the sun-warmed metal as she gazed out to sea.
Peyton followed her and stood beside her for a moment, leaning on the guardrail as well. “You’re leaving now, aren’t you?” she said quietly.
“Probably. I?—”
She stopped.
Peyton started to say something. Cela held up a hand. Her griffin had alerted on something.
Cautiously she walked along the railing, looking around. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but with her griffin to guide her, she went all the way to the trees at the end of the pullout.
There, among the trees, she saw a woman standing and looking at her.
It had been long enough since Cela was among her own people that it took her a minute to realize that she knew this woman. It was Lirin, Tyr’s sister, who had been kind to her back at the start of all of this.
“Lirin!” Cela exclaimed.
Peyton jumped, and Cela realized that Peyton hadn’t even noticed Lirin was there. The griffin woman was standing very still in the edge of the woods, even her red hair muted by the dappled shadows of the leaves.
Lirin took a step back, nearly vanishing among the shadows under the trees.
“No!” Cela cried, holding out a hand. “Don’t go. It’s all right. Remember me—Cela? With the babies?”
Lirin stopped her retreat; then, rather reluctantly, she came into the sunlight. Peyton jumped again. “Of course I remember you,” she said.
“I found your brother,” Cela said eagerly. “Tyr. Have you seen him?”
Lirin’s eyes had gone wider. She gave Peyton a nervous glance.
“It’s all right,” Cela said. “She knows about us. You can speak openly in front of her. Peyton, this is Lirin, Tyr’s sister. Lirin, this is Peyton. She’s human, but she helped me get back here.”
Peyton held out a hand. Lirin didn’t move, and Cela recalled how she herself had been slightly baffled by that human greeting, too. Instead Lirin gave them both a tight nod.
“Yes, I did see Tyr,” she said. “I—I hadn’t decided what to do.”
Cela’s stomach clenched. “Is he all right?”
