I’m glad. She misses the way my face twists with rage.
I haven’t forgotten what the Stormer told me about Arella abandoning us during the fight. She made that whole big show, claiming she’d planned to back us up all along. And then she ran. She has to be the most selfish, pathetic coward I’ve—
“I’d better use the emergency call,” Audra says, interrupting my venomous thoughts. “That should tell her where we are. It’ll alert the Gales, too.”
“Whoa—hang on. There’s an emergency call?”
She won’t look at me, and her cheeks flush.
I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “So all this time you could’ve just made a call to the Gales and asked for help?”
“It isn’t that simple. The emergency call broadcasts our precise location for all to see. As long as Raiden didn’t know exactly where we were, it would’ve been too dangerous to use it. But he knows we’re here now, after all the turbulence we’ve caused.”
She stands and whispers the call for an Easterly, a Northerly, and a Southerly and twists them in a pattern that feels familiar—even though I’ve never seen her do it before. Maybe that has something to do with our bond.
She cups her hands around her mouth and blows into the mini cyclone, then whispers, “Launch.”
The funnel narrows until it looks like a piece of rope. It streaks into the sky so high I can’t see where it ends.
She sits back beside me and I take her hand. “Now we wait.”
I can think of a few ways we can pass the time. But I know Audra’s worrying her mother won’t come back.
And I’m trying to figure out what I’ll say when she does.
My blood runs cold when I hear a rush of wind behind us.
“Mother,” Audra says, jumping to her feet.
I stand too, grabbing Audra’s hand to keep her at my side.
Arella rushes toward us. “I’ve been so worried.”
“Really?” I hold out my free arm to block her from getting too close. “Then where have you been this whole time?”
Arella stops, looking just the right amount of annoyed and ashamed. “I’ve been making my way back here. The Stormers bound me in their stripped winds and launched me into the sky. I barely managed to stop my fall, which is the only reason I survived. And they shot me so far into the desert it took me ages to make my way back.”
“Ages,” I repeat. “You couldn’t just fly back?”
“Vane, what’s wrong?” Audra asks.
“One of the Stormers told me your mom bailed on us during the fight. Ran away with her tail between her legs and left us to fend for ourselves.”
“Well, obviously he lied,” Arella insists without so much as blinking.
I’ll give her one thing—she’s a much smoother liar than her daughter. But she’s still full of crap.
“Really? ’Cause you don’t look like someone who was overpowered and flung into the middle of the desert. You don’t have a scratch on you.”
Arella tries to hold my gaze, but breaks eye contact first.
Guilty.
“I landed in a soft sand dune,” she finally explains.
I snort. “Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?”
She doesn’t have a speck of sand on her.
“You left us?” Audra asks her mother, though she sounds more sad than angry. “When did you leave?”
“I didn’t—”
I cut Arella off before she can tell another lie. “The Stormer said she ran off as soon as they found where we were hiding—which was thanks to your stupid bird, by the way. I told you he was evil.”
“Gavin’s not evil,” Audra says quietly, staring into the distance. The winds pick up around her and she closes her eyes.
It’s an Easterly, singing of unwanted change.
Audra’s eyes snap open. “Why was Gavin there?”
When no one answers, she turns to her mother. “You told me you’d send him home—and Gavin would never disobey a direct command. So why was he still at the wind farm?”
“How should I know?”
The edge to Arella’s voice doesn’t match the cool, indifferent stare she’s giving us. Neither does the way she’s rubbing nervously at the golden bracelet on her wrist.
She’s hiding something.
Audra must realize it too, because she pulls her hand away from me, backing up a few steps. “Gavin never would’ve stayed if you’d sent him home. And he never would’ve flown to me under those kind of dangerous conditions, not unless . . .”
All the color drains from her face. When she speaks again, her voice is barely louder than the whipping winds. “Did you send him to me?”
“Honestly, Audra—I don’t know what you’re—”
“Please, Mother!” Audra takes several deep breaths before she speaks again. “You’ve never forgiven me for what happened to Dad. Admit it!”