“Shoot. Extension cord.”
It took some rifling around for her to find a three-pronged, mud-brown, ancient version of one, and as she plugged it in, she hoped it wasn’t going to burn the cottage down.
Okay, fine, the kitchen. Whatever.
She was looking around at the counters and the stove, and the misplaced fridge, and the table and chairs—and imagining it all covered in bright orange and yellow flames . . . when something registered in the back of her mind.
Mae frowned and went over to the sink. The silver dish that she and Tallah had used for the summoning spell was all clean and dry, and she picked it up to look at the scalloped ridges that rode down into the belly of the basin.
“What is it?” she asked no one in particular.
Yet something was definitely catching somewhere deep in her consciousness, the tug persistent, but nonspecific. And the harder she tried to divine what it was, the more elusive the preoccupation became.
“Whatever,” she muttered as she put the dish back down.
Given all the other things that were clamoring for mental attention and energy, she canceled the useless game of hide-and-seek.
“I have to go.”
Okay, who exactly was she talking to, she wondered as she glanced to the basement door. After a moment of indecision, she got a notepad out of a drawer and used the stub of a pencil to write a quick message for Tallah. She left the pad in the center of the table, grabbed her bag—and doubled back to add her cell phone number just in case the elderly female forgot what it was.
As Mae went to leave through the front door, she made sure she had her car key ready, and she said a quick prayer before she—
Ripped open the heavy weight. Spun around and closed it. Relocked things and ran for her Honda.
At the driver’s side, her car key refused to find home inside its lock, the metal slip-skipping around the hole. And the longer it took, the more she looked around frantically, all kinds of shadows pulling up from the ground, from the twisted vines, from the trunks of trees, everything coming to attack her—
The key finally went into the slot, and she nearly snapped it off as she cranked things free, fumbled with the handle, and threw herself into the driver’s seat. Slamming things shut and locking everything back up, her heart was pounding in her ears as she played the same ring-around-the-rosie with the ignition.
Before anything landed on the hood, punched a hole in the sunroof, and dragged her out by her hair, she managed to start the engine and put the car in drive. Except then she had to throw things into reverse—because for once she hadn’t followed her father’s very wise advice about being prepared to leave in a hurry. Stomping on the gas, the tires spun up mud and got her nowhere.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it—”
The whole time, she searched the windows and braced for one of those . . . things . . . to come at her, cross the beams of the headlights, tear her door off, grab her, take her to her grave.
But there was nothing.
Nothing moving. Nothing coming for her. Nothing that was out of place.
Easing up on her lead foot, she panted. And then tried to coax the car backward, giving only a little gas—and as the tires finally grabbed, she resisted the urge to Danica Patrick. Inch by inch, or so it seemed, she moved down Tallah’s little driveway so she could turn around, all the while keeping her hands locked on the wheel as her eyes bounced between the front windshield and the rearview mirror.
Mae hated the idea of leaving the elderly female alone in the cottage.
But she had no choice. Rhoger needed fresh ice.
And besides, it had been her blood that had gone into that silver dish. Whatever was out there, whatever they’d called out of Dhunhd?
It was after her, and no one else.
Tallah would be safe . . . even if Mae was not.
As a symphath, Rehv had never minded dropping drama bombs. When you took a person by surprise or better yet, a whole room full of them got a shot of WTF!?! from something you’d said, you ended up with all kinds of fun emotions roiling around, grids lighting up, people talking over each other.
Chaos. Dissention. Disagreement. All fueled by a delicious underlying anxiety that proved mortals with hypo-deductive reasoning could get wound at the drop of a hat.
Symphaths fed off that shit. Ate it like cake.
That was not the case right now, however.
Well, okay, yes, the Brotherhood’s current raft of buzzy aggression was all on him and his little news flash from that parking garage. But as he sat in one of the silk chairs in the King’s study and listened to all his nearest-and-dearest bubble over with aggression, he was not happy about the angst he’d caused.