Briar grumbled under her breath as she climbed into the passenger seat. “Just so you know, I’m a horrible passenger.”
She wasn’t lying. Briar had opinions on everything from my speed—five over was still too slow—to which way would be the fastest route, and she seemed to feel obligated to share every one of these opinions. Or maybe she was trying to annoy me into letting her drive.
I stared straight ahead, not speaking as I followed the roads out of town. I pulled into the parking lot of the gas station where I’d turned around yesterday. Putting the car in park, I focused on the charm around my wrist. The distant pull of Remy’s body was still distinct, tugging back toward the center of the city. No other trail appeared. Well, it had been a long shot anyway.
I shook my head, looking over at Briar, and she sighed. Then she leaned forward against the dash to peer hard through the windshield.
“So this is as far as you went yesterday?” she asked. At my nod, she said, “Well, nothing unusual here. We’ll definitely have to go farther out. Any more specifics about direction?”
I tried to remember. The trail had been pulling deeper into the wilds. The road ahead of us was probably going close to the direction, but as soon as it curved . . . I glanced at the map in my GPS. There were very few roads past this point, but this one would take us into the wilds for a few miles before it turned to feed into the highway leading out of town.
I put the car in drive and Briar sank back into her seat. We drove in silence for several minutes. The forest grew denser as we drove, the trees encroaching on the shoulder of the road, as if the wilds were waiting in anticipation to reclaim the territory the street had cut from them.
“Slow down,” Briar said, leaning forward to peer over the dash again. “There is a turnoff ahead. Take it.”
I slowed, then stopped, not turning. “You mean that barely car-sized gap in the trees that is unpaved and overgrown?” I shook my head, shooting a dubious glare at the path, which wasn’t defined enough to earn the name “dirt road.” “This is not an off-roading vehicle.”
“Drive it or hike it, Craft, but we are checking it out. There are fresh tire tracks going in that direction.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to force them to pick out the details of the tracks under the gloom of the forest canopy. I could make out the lighter dirt in the tire ruts, but a new or old trail? That was beyond me.
With a sigh, I turned the wheel and crept the car toward the dirt path.
“Okay, but if we get stuck, you’re pushing,” I grumbled under my breath.
Briar only smiled, her eyes scanning the forest as we slowly bumped and rolled down the dirt path. A few times the steering felt like it slipped a little in the sand, and the tree roots cutting across the path made my teeth knock together as my car rolled over them, but we didn’t get stuck. The path narrowed, the trees growing so close I could have reached out a hand and brushed the bark.
“This is going to suck if we have to reverse out of here.”
“Then let’s hope there is a turnaround,” Briar said right before we turned a shallow corner to discover an ancient-looking oak growing in the middle of the path. She sighed as I slammed on the brakes. “But of course, no. You’re right, this is going to suck, but park first. I want to check out the area.”
I did, frowning at the tree. “Where did the car go?”
Briar had been in the process of climbing out of the passenger seat, but at my words, she turned back to me. “What?”
“The path we followed. It’s an overgrown mess, but the ruts we followed were mostly dirt and sand. That doesn’t happen from a single car turning off the road once or even twice. This path has been used quite a bit, but why?”
“You’re smarter than you look, Craft,” Briar said, slamming the door as she stalked toward the tree. She circled it, glancing at the tire tracks that stopped in front of it and then at the forest closing in behind the large oak. “It’s possible this is nothing more than a favorite hangout spot for some local teenagers. A place where they know that law enforcement or parents are unlikely to stumble over them doing something less than acceptable. Or—”
“The tree isn’t real,” I said, and Briar nodded.
“Also a possibility.”
“No, I mean the tree isn’t real,” I said again, and Briar’s head shot up, her gaze fixing on me.
I almost laughed. Being in the close confines of the car with Briar and her arsenal of spells, my ability to sense magic had gotten overloaded, desensitized. Now that she was farther away, my magic sense was starting to pick up individual spells again. Kind of like being in a room with a scented candle for a long time. Your nose gives out eventually, but if a breeze cuts through the room, stirring the air and momentarily displacing the scent, suddenly you become aware of the candle again. Briar had given me a little distance, and while I could still feel the maelstrom of spells surrounding her, as well as emanating from her stuff in my car trunk, there was also a distinct swell of magic encircling the tree.
“The tree is an illusion.” A good one. The spell coalescing around the tree was tight and powerful.
Briar reached out, and her hand passed right through the bark. I’d half expected the illusion to be solid—I’d been around an awful lot of glamour recently—but this wasn’t fae magic. This was a witch illusion spell, which meant there was no substance, just illusion.
Every witch could reach the magical plane and draw down the raw Aetheric energy stored there, but typically it took time, concentration, and a ritual. It was also typically only the witch’s psyche that reached across, as he or she all but lost contact with his or her mortal body. It was possible to drag someone else’s spell to the other plane, so that its magic could be studied and examined, even by nonsensitives, but again, it took time and ritual.