“You look nice,” I say.
She grins. “You don’t look bad yourself,” she says, and her eyes stray to the fire I was building, “but that’s the worst-looking campfire I’ve ever seen.” I laugh and the tension is broken. Juneau goes over to rearrange the kindling while the bird flies over to the tent and makes himself at home.
Something is nagging at the edge of my consciousness. It’s a good feeling, but I can’t quite place it. And then suddenly I do. It’s a feeling of being where I’m supposed to be. A feeling of knowing that I’m in the right place at the right time. With the right person.
I watch Juneau light the fire, and the flames shine through her hair. It looks so soft that I want to go touch it. Run my fingers through the short tufts, that for once seem like she’s done something to them besides running a towel over her head. Tallie must have insisted on doing her hair as well.
“Do you want something to eat?” I ask.
“No, Tallie and I ate in the truck,” she responds.
“So how did you find me? Messenger raven?” Though I’m joking, I realize that until this moment, I hadn’t questioned the fact that this girl found me in the middle of nowhere. Probably because she took it for granted—it just seemed natural to her that (1) I was in Salt Lake City waiting for her, and (2) she could locate a lone boy in the middle of the mountains.
“We’re going to need to talk about that, Miles,” she says, sitting down next to the fire and rifling through her pack. “I know you don’t believe anything I have to say about the Yara, Reading, Conjuring, and all that, but—”
I hold my hands up. “Listen, I think it’s better if we avoid that whole subject.”
She doesn’t look at me. Just puts her face in her hands and squeezes her temples. “Okay,” she says finally. “What do you want to talk about then?”
“You were limping. Did you get hurt?” I ask.
She nods. “Whit and his men found me at the gas station—the place I left your car, which I’m glad to see that you found.”
I nod. I’m not even ready to talk about her grand theft auto adventure.
She continues. “I had to run off. Stepped in a hole in the ground and hurt my ankle.”
“And how’d you find . . . what’s her name, Tallie?”
Juneau nods. “Tallie actually found me. She has a house in the mountains, and I stayed there for the last couple of days.”
“How about the search for your parents?” I ask. “Do you know what you want to do next?”
“Well, I have a clue. Something else you told me when I Read you—I mean . . . when you were my oracle.”
I let my breath out all at once and feel tired.
“What?” Juneau insists, and there’s a challenge in her narrowed eyes.
“Maybe it would be better if we just made a plan. Besides the ‘Readings,’ do you have any solid indications of where your people could be? I mean, for example, is there a place they could have gone if they needed to leave your village urgently? Not suggesting that they would leave you on purpose, or anything.”
But she sees in my eyes that that’s exactly what I’m suggesting, and her face flushes pink. “Like I told you, they were kidnapped by men in helicopters,” she says, her voice low.
“But Juneau,” I say, “you heard a helicopter and found your clan missing. I think you should be open to other possibilities.”
She stands, and I can see in the light of the fire that she is trembling. “Miles, we are not going to be able to do this if you don’t believe me.”
I stay seated. “Juneau, I can’t believe you. I’m sorry, but what you are talking about is magic. And magic is not real. And there’s no way you’re going to convince me otherwise unless you show me something I can see with my own eyes.”
Her face is scarlet, her hands squeezed into angry fists. “I broke your phone, you know,” she says, and her look is menacing. “You saw me do that.”
“iPhones break all the time. So that has a rational explanation.”
“What about Poe?” she asks.
“What about him? He’s probably been fed by humans before and is so lazy he prefers following you around so he doesn’t have to catch his own food.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she says. “I used him to find you just now. I showed him an image of you in my mind and asked the Yara to have him locate you.”
“Okay, that’s weird, but I’m sure it can be explained.” I feel a twinge of guilt for forcing her to this point, but it has to be done. She has to accept reality.