WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES, Logan was back inside the Ventra 5000 and driving south across the bridge. Angel went with him, and even though he thought about telling her she should stay behind to help protect the camp, he decided not to. She understood the consequences of her coming with him as well as he did, so if she was asking to go, it must be important to her. He thought that maybe she needed to be part of the search, that she was feeling what he had felt not more than two days earlier—marginalized by her failure to change events through use of her magic and questioning her effectiveness as a Knight of the Word. Lying injured and helpless in Larkin Quill’s cottage while Kirisin and his sister returned to the Elves alone and then watching Larkin die right in front of her would have done that. Perhaps, like himself, she needed to reaffirm her worth in some small way before they set out. Coming with him to find the Loden gave her that chance.
They drove without speaking for a time, climbing slowly into the high desert he thought he had left behind him for good. The day was creeping toward midafternoon, the heat thick and damp, the air hazy, and the sky bright with sunlight. Around them, the countryside began to revert. Forests and grasslands, withered and grayish to begin with, thinned and disappeared, giving way to cactus and scrub that dotted acres of sandy flats bracketed by mountains distant and flat-surfaced against the emptiness of the horizon.
“How long have you been doing this?” he asked her finally, breaking the silence.
“About six years. You?”
“Ten. I was eighteen when I started.”
“Sixteen,” she said. “I had just lost my best friend—my mentor and protector from when I was a little girl.”
“Lost mine just before I started, too. Michael. Same thing. He saved me in a compound raid, raised me, and trained me. He was the leader of a group of raiders that attacked enemy camps in the Midwest. A good man, like a father to me.”
They drove on a bit more. Logan risked a quick glance at Angel Perez, taking in her features, her dark olive skin, her black eyes and hair, her young features. Just a girl, really. He looked back at the road.
“You think we’re all that’s left?” she asked him.
He nodded, knowing right away what she was asking. “Yeah, I think maybe so. If there’s anybody else, I haven’t heard of them.”
“So this is it, huh? This . . . migration to wherever we’re going, following Hawk to wherever he’s taking us, this is what’s left?”
He nodded. “This is what’s left.”
“What if he’s wrong, Logan? Hawk, I mean.”
“He isn’t. He’s what he says he is. He’s a gypsy morph, a creature formed of the Word’s magic and sent to save what’s left of us.” He looked over at her. “I believe that.”
She studied him a moment, then nodded. “You don’t look like someone who could be made to believe something that wasn’t so. You don’t seem like you could be fooled easily.”
“Maybe. But in this case I’ve witnessed what he can do firsthand. He saved my life when I was dying just by touching me. The Ghosts say he saved their dog, too. Same way. But saving me? Well, I have to believe after that.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You have to believe in something, don’t you? Something more than what’s in front of your eyes.”
“Elves, for instance?”
She smiled, a good smile, warm and filled with mirth. “That was hard for me. Even after I found their city and was taken before their King and their High Council, I kept thinking, How can this be? There are no such things as Elves. But there they were, all around me.” She glanced at him. “They don’t much like us, Logan. They think we’re responsible for all the damage that’s been done, that we haven’t been good caretakers of the earth.”
He nodded, smiled back. “Can’t do much about that, can we? Not right now, anyway. Not until we set them free again. Then maybe we can learn something from them and do a better job next time around.”
Her smile faded as she looked back toward the road. “Next time,” she repeated softly. She shook her head. “I wouldn’t let them pen me up like that. I don’t care what the circumstances were. I wouldn’t allow it.” She sighed and looked over at him. “You saw it happen, didn’t you?”
“I saw. It was painless, I guess. One minute they were there, the next they weren’t. That boy—Kirisin—put them all inside the Loden Elfstone and took them away.” He shook his head. “He’s the one I feel for. He’s the one who’s responsible for them. He put them inside; he has to let them out. He has that power. But if we don’t find Praxia and get that Elfstone back . . .” He trailed off. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be him.”