“But…”
A moment later a brilliantly glowing bird rose up, flapped its wings, and easily slipped between the bars of the cage. He flew toward the stairs and disappeared into the smoke.
“Is he all right? How will he get out?” Kristine asked.
Amber set her hand on Kristine’s shoulder, and the two of them disappeared and reappeared, still in the ether; however, now they were hovering near the caving roof.
A moment later, the bird—now sporting the familiar brown body and fire-colored tail—flew out of the chimney and up into the sky.
“What… Where… When can I see him? Can you get me home from here?”
“Where’s home?” Amber asked with a sly smile. “Boston or Manhattan?”
“Whereverhe is,” Kristine answered without hesitation.
* * *
Kristine found herself in the living room of the B and B. She and Amber were the only ones there.
“You probably need some explanations,” Amber said.
Kristine snorted. A curl of smoke exited her nostril. “You could say that. We probably have at least an hour to wait for him, so if you wouldn’t mind filling me in—”
“It’ll be longer than an hour. I imagine he’ll go to his parents first. And, um, he may not be able to talk for a while.”
“Why? Are they going to ground him?”
Amber’s expression quickly turned from serious to amused and then serious again. “Not exactly. Maybe you can talk to them but not him. Not yet.”
“I hate to meet Jayce’s family under these circumstances. I don’t even know where they live. But someone should tell them what’s happened.”
Amber scratched her head. Then she snapped her fingers. “There are a couple of people I can think of who can help. Well, not exactly people…”
“Huh? Like who—or what?”
“Like Ryan, Jayce’s brother—also a phoenix who recently went through this. He lives in Ireland, but I can go and get him for you.”
“Seriously? You can do this poof, grab, and transport thing anywhere in the world?”
Amber chuckled. “Have a seat. I think you could use a drink.”
“I’ll say.” Kristine walked over to the comfortable couch and sank down on one end, while Amber strolled over to the bar and took a bottle of wine out of the fridge beneath.
“Do you like chardonnay?” She opened the bottle and poured a glass.
Kristine nodded.
Amber poured another glass and then brought both over to the coffee table and set them down. She took a seat next to Kristine. “Here’s the quickest version I can give you. I’ll start with myself. I’m a muse. A minor goddess, recruited by Mother Nature because she needed a few modern muses to take care of technology that didn’t exist in ancient times.”
Kristine’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
Amber smirked. “Trust me. I know how you feel. I found this pretty hard to swallow when I heard about it. But as Gaia herself would say, ‘I don’t have time for your doubt. Just go with it, Girlie.’”
Kristine took a large gulp of her wine, and Amber forged on.
“I’m the muse of air travel. Usually I take care of airplanes in trouble. Actually, I’m more apt to help the pilot stay calm and make a safe emergency landing. I used to be a flight attendant.”
Kristine decided she had seen and heard plenty of bizarre things in the past few days, and being, well, adragonherself, why couldn’t there be muses? “Okay. You’re a modern muse. The muse of air travel. I didn’t see you use an airplane to take me anywhere.”
