Caelum?I whispered.
I imagined I felt some spark, some bare hint of his presence.
I reached out with as much of myself as I could.
CAELUM! CAELUM PLEASE! HELP ME!
I strained to feel him on the other end.
I knew it was probably futile. We weren’t even in the same dimension. I imagined I could see and feel him anyway. I saw his face, eyes closed. I almost,almostfelt something else, some whisper or spark of his mind, or?
The car came to a squeaking, squealing stop.
“We’re here,” the voice next to me said.
That harsh voice snapped me out of my golden sun.
Rain pattered down on the metal roof, and the windows.
“You can unlock the doors now,” the voice instructed the driver.
The locks made a clicking sound around the vehicle.
Everything I felt in that voice was dark, dead, harsh. It was the opposite of what I’d felt in the writhing, sparking, out of control sun.
A talon-like hand grabbed my arm.
“Come on,” the voice hissed.
The magic that had held me frozen released me abruptly.
It happened so fast, my head smacked into the window. I gasped in pain, raising a hand. I’d been straining so hard through my primal, I must have put all of that tension into my muscles, too. Either way, the impact was hard enough to crack the glass.
It was hard enough to stun me, whiting out my vision.
Pain blinded me next, but I could move again, at least.
I pressed my fingers lightly to the already-forming lump. I still held my forehead protectively when the door jerked open in front of me. The hooded figure must have released me in disgust when I slammed my head. They’d gotten out of the car on theother side, and walked around the back of the cab to reach me from outside.
Now they stood over me in the dark, rain dripping down from the black hood.
Their talon-like hand gripped my arm, wrenching my hand off my face.
But I knew her now.
My vision had cleared just enough, maybe from the same blow to my head.
“Ankha.” My tongue turned my words into a thick slur. “Where are we?”
“Shut up, girl,” the witch hissed. “Get out of the car. Now.”
She yanked on my arm, hard enough, with enough magic behind it, I fell head-first out of the taxi’s back seat. I landed on the gravel on my knees and hands. My aunt yanked me to my feet before I could recover, still gripping my arm. That iron grip kept me upright while she used her other hand to slam shut the cab’s door.
“Go away,” Ankha snapped at the driver.
The man jumped in his seat, then hammered his foot down on the gas.
The car’s wheels spun. He fishtailed backwards off the edge of the driveway, then wrenched the wheel around to take the cab back onto the road.
