The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(69)

"So you want her to put a motor on it," Arrabelle asked dryly.

"Whatever gets us there sooner," Dev said, grinning back at Arrabelle.

"Let Hessika and me take care of that," Eleanora replied as Niamh took a deep breath, raised her hands in the air, palms up, and closed her eyes.

The others stood in a semicircle watching her work.

"I'm not sure I really know what a pontoon boat looks like," Niamh murmured from behind closed lids. "So I'm just gonna give you what I think it is."

There was no shock wave of magic, no loud noise to connote the arrival of something that a maker had built. It was so much simpler than that. One moment there was nothing, the next, a big, flat-bottomed behemoth floated on the water in front of them.

To Arrabelle, it was more raft than boat, its thick round timbers lashed together with heavy twine-but there was more than enough room for all of them. It seemed buoyant even with their combined weight as they climbed aboard-although Arrabelle was pretty sure that neither Eleanora nor Hessika contributed to the weight load. There was just something about the way the two Dream Walkers moved that clued Arrabelle in. The difference was so slight, almost as if they were floating, and Arrabelle would never have noticed it if she hadn't been paying attention.

"Will it work?" Niamh asked once they'd all embarked.

"Yes," Eleanora said from her perch at the bow of the boat-she and Hessika had taken up places at the front while the others had filled in toward the stern. "Now let us handle the power."

She waved a hand and a swirl of wind encircled the makeshift boat, pushing them forward. The wind picked up speed and soon they were skimming along the surface of the water toward their final destination. Hessika and Eleanora remained standing, no matter what speed the boat was going. The rest of them had to sit down and hold on to the twine that kept the timbers in place, afraid they'd be knocked overboard by the wind buffeting the boat.

Arrabelle stayed close to Evan. She didn't need to touch him to feel the tension he held in his shoulders. The more time they spent together, the better able she was to read him. It was like she'd developed a sixth sense attuned only to him and his needs. She'd never felt this way about another person before, never cared as much about someone as she did about Evan. And as much as she wanted him, she was afraid of the vulnerable way he made her feel.

It was like balancing on a seesaw, fear and need vying for precedence in her mind.

Unable to help herself, she reached over and placed her hand on Evan's shoulder. She felt the muscles of his back go rigid under her fingers. She removed her hand, and when he didn't turn and acknowledge her in any way, the rejection she experienced was heart-wrenching.

She hadn't felt as close to him since he'd been miraculously healed by the blood sisters in the underground lab-and though she knew Evan was still guarded about his feelings, part of her worried that he'd only been open to her love because he was dying. She felt bad about judging him so harshly. He wasn't fickle and she knew he wouldn't play with her heart like that.

But still, round and round she went, her brain unable to stop trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. She hated being in a holding pattern. Was the worst when it came to patience. She would rather push things to a resolution, even a negative one, so long as it ended the uncertainty. She was trying really hard to not do that in this situation. She cared too much about Evan to screw things up with her impatience . . . and, besides, they were in the middle of a crisis and her attention needed to be directed elsewhere. Her brain should be focused on problem solving, not on whether Evan wanted her.



       
         
       
        

But it was hard not to reflect on that kind of stuff when you were trapped on a raft cruising down an endless sea, the sound of the wind filling your ears and making it impossible to talk. All she had were her own thoughts to occupy her. Thoughts that did nothing to ease her worry.

"It's coming," Eleanora called out over the hiss of the wind. "We need to go faster."

At first, Arrabelle didn't know what Eleanora was talking about, but a few moments later she saw it: A cloud of darkness had formed behind them, eating up the water they'd left in their wake.

"What the hell is that?" Arrabelle cried, pointing at the swirl of storm clouds that were quickly gaining on them.

"It's what animates The Flood-here the darkness is in its true form," Eleanora yelled back at her.

They'd picked up more speed, the front of the boat slamming into the cresting waves as it went faster and faster, trying to escape the oncoming storm. Now Arrabelle could see that the darkness was sucking up funnels of water into the clouds.