I heard Maya’s shrill scream outside, and the ceiling came down and buried me alive.
***
I woke reluctantly, finding myself in a bed. I kept my eyes firmly closed and twitched a finger.
“Ow,” I groaned.
“Take it slow, baby.” The warm, growly voice I loved rumbled around me.
I let out a breath of relief. Mick was all right. Not destroyed by the building he was trying to break out of or fused for life to Emmett’s chauffeur.
“Weird spell,” I said. My words came out an incoherent mumble.
“Just rest.” Mick’s breath brushed my face. “You were screaming in your sleep. Bad dreams?”
Dreams?
I popped open my eyes, and confusion hit me between them.
I was in a motel room on a lumpy bed, a water-stained ceiling above me. The curtains at the window were open, moonlight spilling in. I could see only tall trees, thick stands of conifers that didn’t grow near Magellan. Arizona has plenty of soaring pine trees, but not these thick-limbed walls of green.
The air was cool, a sharp bite of high elevations and northern climes. Mick was in a T-shirt and underwear, which he only wore when we were up north. In Magellan, he slept naked most of the time, but at more northerly latitudes he liked a layer of fabric between his skin and the night. Dragons hated being cold.
I swallowed. “Mick, where are we?”
“Montana. Remember?” He gave me a look of concern with blue eyes that were shading to black. “We got in yesterday.”
Cold fear flooded me. I craned my head to look around at the motel room, the same one I’d been in when Coyote, Mick, and the mirror had awakened me from the first dream. I was back as though no time had passed.
“Coyote,” I said.
Mick put a soothing hand on my shoulder. “I heard coyotes in the night. Came really close. They’re gone now.” The soothing touch turned to a caress. “You gonna be all right for some riding?”
I put my hand to my head, my heart sinking. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
As I’d raised my hand, I’d seen that the silver and turquoise ring was gone. I rubbed my third finger, missing the pressure of the cool silver.
“Sure,” I repeated. “I’ll be fine.” Now to get myself to believe that.
***
We said good-bye to the bikers we’d met at the little motel and headed out not an hour or so later. I followed Mick through Montana, heading west again.
As in the last dream, my nagging memories of the future me began to slip away. It didn’t matter that I lay buried beneath the county jail, perhaps stuck there forever. Mick was leading me into wild country, the two of us alone and free, without care. This reality was far preferable to the one I’d left in the future, and I didn’t fight losing it.
Mick had told me I’d love it out here, and he was right. Montana was a big state, with rolling hills and open grasslands under endless sky. The sun warmed us as we went, a single rain squall a welcome respite. My storm magic embraced the wind and rain, powering up without the worry of Beneath magic to counteract it.
I let the landscape soothe me. Whatever evil Emmett was doing to me, it was a bizarre way to go about it. Riding with Mick across the world wasn’t a torture. This had been the happiest time of my life. Ignorance truly is bliss.
Mick took me north to follow the Missouri River across Montana, then up to Glacier National Park, with its amazing mountains, gloriously colored lakes, and the breathtaking winding road appropriately named Going to the Sun.
From there we returned to the main roads and went on into Idaho. In the cold sharpness of the mountains, we came upon more beautiful lakes stretching under the sky, surrounded by an array of resorts for the rich, motels and boat docks for the ordinary.
Mick settled us into a motel on the edge of Coeur d’Alene’s glimmering lake, again making friends with all those who favored this little motel miles away from the big resorts.
Mick announced he wanted to stay here for a bit, to rest up. Then we’d ride through Washington, and he’d show me the grandeur of the Pacific coast, guaranteeing I’d never seen anything like it.
Since I’d lived my entire life in the Four Corners area of the Dinetah, and no farther west than Nevada, he was no doubt right. I was excited to see the Pacific. Mick had already shown me the Atlantic coast, in Maine, and the remarkable Bay of Fundy with its unusual tides. But for some reason, seeing the ocean on the western edge of the country stirred great anticipation, as though it would be a turning point of some kind for me.
I both remembered this excitement, and was feeling it for the first time. The juxtaposition of my old life and flashes of the new, though they became fewer, made me a little dizzy.