by K. C. Neal
I raced to him and crashed into his chest, throwing my arms around his waist. He grunted and laughed at impact, his arms wrapping around my shoulders as he steadied both of us.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I whispered into his shirt.
He pushed me back to arm’s length and examined my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Mason.” I choked back a sob and tried to steady my voice. “And Ang. They’re . . . not okay. I don’t know what to do.”
He towed me by the hand back to the table, where he sat down close to me, his thigh and upper arm pressing against mine. My hand, still clasped in his, rested on his leg just above his knee. I told him everything that had happened, from our showdown with Harriet two weeks ago to Mason shutting me out earlier this afternoon.
After I finished, Zane puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. “Troubling,” he said, his voice light but his face serious and tight.
“Please tell me you know exactly what I should do to make everyone go back to normal and live happily ever after,” I said.
“If only it were so simple.” His lips pressed into a grin, and his blue eyes flashed across mine. Then his smile faded. “I don’t have an answer for you this minute, but I know someone who can help.”
I rested my temple on his shoulder. “Thank you,” I said. I didn’t even want any of the details now. Knowing that he could do something was enough. I straightened and turned to him. “What happened at solstice? In Perth, I mean.”
“Rather uneventful, as those things go. Nothing we couldn’t handle, and everyone’s fine. Seems Tapestry took the brunt of it. Odd, since it was summer solstice here,” he said.
Distracted by the intoxicating lilt of his accent, a faint flush spread up my neck to my cheeks. “Oh, good,” I said. “At least someone had it easy.”
“You did well, you know,” Zane turned to me, his chin down but his eyes locked on mine. “I read your account. It was right amazing, Corinne. A Pyxis alone. I’m not sure anyone else could have survived it. Let alone single-handedly taken out such a massive force.”
“Well, I wasn’t alone. Sophie was there, too.” I kicked at a rock with the toe of my shoe. “And she deserves a lot of credit. I was getting sucked in, and she . . . she brought me back into the fight.”
“True,” he conceded. “But still. Unions are meant to function as full teams. Your power must be . . . almost unthinkable.” He watched me, his lips parted.
I squirmed a little and gave a short laugh. “Oh, whatever.”
He chuckled at my discomfort, but I could feel his gaze on me. I just stared down at my feet like an idiot.
Zane brushed my hair back from my cheek, and I turned into the touch. All it would take was the slightest movement of my head, the tiniest tilt of my face toward his. I shifted away from him.
“I promise, I’ll bring help,” he said, his eyes lingering on mine for a moment, and then he was gone.
I looked out over the lake and thought about Mason. Maybe it was part of Zane’s vision, the one where he and I were together. If Mason never fully recovered, well . . . maybe whatever Harriet had done to Mason—the real Mason—enabled Zane’s prophecy to come true. I wrapped my arms around my ribs and the deep ache in my chest.
* * *
With a flourish, I set an iced mocha, topped with a ridiculous heap of whipped cream and chocolate shavings, in front of Angeline.
She giggled. “Trying to fatten me up for slaughter or something?”
I slid into the chair across from her, facing the counter so I could watch for customers. Ang wasn’t strong enough to return to work, but I was almost back to my old schedule at the café, which had been majorly disrupted when Bradley got sick and I was trying to help him and the other kids, not to mention having to deal with Harriet.
“Nah, I just think we should celebrate,” I said. Her parents had finally relented to our begging and haranguing, and I was going to stay at Ang’s house tonight for the first time in ages.
“I’m probably not going to last long. I’m still sleeping like ten hours a night.” She gave me a look out of the corners of her eyes that was half apprehension and half apology.
I shook my head, brushing away her concerns. “I don’t care. I’m just happy that we get to hang out, and something will be back to normal.”
I’d told her about Mason. Ang remembered nearly everything that had happened to them before they’d both been rendered unconscious. She said Mason nearly held Harriet at bay long enough for Ang to escape. She believed Harriet had punished him for that, and maybe now he was living through the aftereffects.
Her face always grew still when she talked about that night. Even though she sympathized with my frustration, she seemed to understand why Mason remained, in a sense, lost. And she believed with all her heart that it had nothing to do with me, and that he would return to us. I wanted to share her confidence.
Before I went over to Ang’s house that night, I baked two fluffy loaves of banana bread in the basement kitchen. It was her favorite, and despite my denial earlier, I really was trying to fatten her up. She looked far too thin and frail. She’d had another seizure, too. That was why her parents wouldn’t let her spend the night at my house. Not that I blamed them, really. Last time she’d stayed with me, she’d been transported away in an ambulance.
I arrived at Ang’s house with the banana bread and a carton of her favorite soup from the café—cream of chicken—and made her eat until she insisted she’d burst if she ate any more.
Sophie stopped by and watched a movie with us, but Ang was out before the movie ended. I picked up my phone to check the time. Only ten minutes before nine.
“How’s she doing?” Sophie asked, keeping her voice low.
“A little better every day, but . . .” I shrugged and tried to swallow the lump forming in my throat.
Sophie reached over and gave me a one-armed sideways hug. I brushed a tear from my face and whisper-laughed.
“What?” Sophie asked.
“This.” I pointed back and forth between the two of us.
“Oh. Yeah.” She giggled softly. “I know. Pretty weird, right?”
“A little. But we needed you. I really needed you. I seriously do not even want to think about how it would have gone down if . . . if Harriet had all three of you, and I had to face her alone.”
“Well, lucky for you, I’m going to stick around and keep bringing the awesome.” Sophie flipped a wave of hair over her shoulder.
I rolled my eyes and whisper-laughed again. “Whatever.”
After Sophie left, I started another movie. But a few minutes into it, I switched the movie off and moved from the floor to the papasan chair, tucking my legs under me and pulling a blanket around my shoulders. Ang was curled up on her side, fast asleep on her bed.
I stared at a spot on the carpet, then blinked and looked up into the night sky of the dream world. A burst of orange light twisted across the stars. I inhaled deeply. There was something about the air in the hypercosmic realm. It felt more pure, like it had been strained and purified, and released fresh every time I drew a breath. Well, except when the nasty fog was stinking it up.
Softly crunching footfalls approached from my left, and I knew it was Zane even before I heard his voice.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. I wanted to run to him, but an unexpected flush of shyness held me back.
He strode up to me and sucked in a deep breath. “How are things in Tapestry, Pyxis?” His dark hair was combed back from his face, emphasizing his square jawline.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Mostly the same.”
“I’ve got some good news for you,” he said. His eyes danced, trying to hide a smile. “Someone’s agreed to come to Tapestry and see what she can do for your friends.”
“Really?” Happiness and relief bloomed through me, and I grinned. “Who is it?”
“Mai.”
“Wait, what? Isn’t she one of your Guardians?” I looked at him incr
edulously.
“Yep. She also has the gift of healing.”
“Wow,” I sputtered. “I don’t even know what to say. She’s going to come here all the way from Australia?”
He nodded, and then his face darkened. “There’s something else I must tell you.” He sat down on one of the log benches near the fire ring, and I joined him. “In Rome, they’ve worked out how to forecast breaches.”
I frowned. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, it’s quite remarkable. It works through mathematical modeling. Models need historical data to work well.” Zane paused, and for a second my thoughts flashed to Mason. He would have loved this technical, mathy mumbo jumbo. “Tapestry isn’t old enough to give good predictions, but the other convergences are.”
“Um, okay.” My frown deepened as I tried to guess what that meant for me and the others.
“They’ve all but determined that in the next solstice, there will be only very minor breaches at Perth, Britain, and Rome.”
An icy stream of dread crept through me. “What about Tapestry?”
“They figure it means all of it will come down on Tapestry.”
“How . . .” I swallowed. “How bad?”
Zane met my gaze and looked so grave I started shivering a little. “Bad. Many times worse than what you just experienced.”
“Oh . . . no.” I ran my hand up the side of my face and into my hair. “But Mason and Ang. I don’t know if they’ll even. . . .” My mouth didn’t want to form the words.
“I know,” he said, saving me. “That’s part of why we decided Mai would come here.” He held my eyes with his, and his gaze softened a little as a smile stole across his face. “She won’t be alone. I’m coming, too.”
END
Watch for the final book in the Pyxis Series,
coming soon!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K.C. Neal works in publishing and co-founded StoneHouse University, a resource for writers and authors. She lives in Idaho.
Connect with K.C. Neal:
Blog kcneal.blogspot.com
Twitter @KCNealTweets
Facebook www.facebook.com/KCNealFanPage
Goodreads www.goodreads.com/KCNeal
K.C. Neal © copyright 2012
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
StoneHouse Ink 2012 Boise ID 83713 http://www.stonehouseink.net
First eBook Edition: 2012
ISBN: 978-1-938426-90-2
Cover art: Fuji Aamabreorn
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
StoneHouse Ink
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Copyright Information
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Copyright Information