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Authors: Christine Amsden
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her eyelid, though it was hard to tell in the photograph. She was lean, almost willowy, and she wore a black “Camp Ozark” t-shirt that washed out her overly painted face.
The other girl, Regina, could not have been more different from her friend. Regina’s hair was a deep, dark chestnut that remained its lovely natural color. Her round face was scrubbed clean, enlivened by sparkling blue eyes. I hadn’t even noticed Laura’s eye color, I realized, but when I looked back at her face I could still only see the glint of metal in her eyelid.
Regina was slightly shorter than Laura, her figure showing its curves even beneath the shapeless camp t-shirt. She looked like the girl next door as much as Laura looked like everyone’s nightmare of a Goth child, and yet their faces and posture showed that they couldn’t have been better friends.
“Laura’s father, Jack, is my dad’s second cousin,” Evan said.
“Is he a sorcerer?” I asked.
“No. That branch of the family never had any magic, as far as I know. My father and Jack grew up together around here before Jack moved to Little Rock, and my dad always looks out for family.”
So did mine. Apparently, they had a little more in common than their mutual enmity.
“Jack knocked on Dad’s door last night with a hair sample, begging him to help find his daughter. Obviously, we didn’t find her with magic.”
I shuddered. There was no way the reason for being unable to find a teenage girl with a hair sample and a decent scrying spell could be a good one, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask Evan whether he thought they were dead. I looked back down at the laughing faces of the fifteen-year-old girls whose broken bodies might be lying in the woods somewhere, waiting for discovery.
I tried to think about what I knew of scrying from my own family. It required something of the target such as fingernails, saliva, hair, or best of all – blood. A knowledge of the search area helped too, but a powerful sorcerer and access to the target’s blood could overcome that obstacle. I had looked into ways of hiding myself from magical spying a few weeks earlier, and found that the only real way to do that was for a more powerful sorcerer to conceal me. Evan had done that for me to keep my own family from spying on me. Knowing Evan, he had probably put in a loophole for himself.
“What can you tell me about the spell you and your father did?” I asked hesitantly. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a good idea to ask a sorcerer for his secrets, even peripherally, but I thought my careful phrasing would allay any annoyance.
“There’s not much to tell,” Evan said. He didn’t sound annoyed. “Your family probably did the same basic thing looking for Regina. The bottom line is, unless someone was blocking us, we should have been able to find her anywhere within about a thousand miles of that camp.”
“But not anywhere in the world?” I pressed.
Evan shook his head. “No, for that we would have needed blood.”
If Jack had been raised near a sorcerer, then he would have known better than to leave blood lying around. But the mention of blood reminded me of something I had wondered ever since Evan had saved me. When the vampire nearly killed me a couple of weeks ago, I had lost a lot of blood. What happened to it? Had Evan cleared it away, or kept a sample for himself?
“So,” I said, shaking off the nagging suspicion, “when did the girls disappear? Did they have time to fly to Europe or something?”
“According to Jack, the girls weren’t in their beds yesterday morning. They thought they might have just gone to the shower house early, so no one got worried until after breakfast.”
“But they could have been missing since late Monday night?”
“Yeah.” Evan frowned. “I guess that did give them time to get pretty far, but why and how? It doesn’t seem likely.”
I had to agree with him on that, but it was a tiny ray of hope for two young girls who I
The other girl, Regina, could not have been more different from her friend. Regina’s hair was a deep, dark chestnut that remained its lovely natural color. Her round face was scrubbed clean, enlivened by sparkling blue eyes. I hadn’t even noticed Laura’s eye color, I realized, but when I looked back at her face I could still only see the glint of metal in her eyelid.
Regina was slightly shorter than Laura, her figure showing its curves even beneath the shapeless camp t-shirt. She looked like the girl next door as much as Laura looked like everyone’s nightmare of a Goth child, and yet their faces and posture showed that they couldn’t have been better friends.
“Laura’s father, Jack, is my dad’s second cousin,” Evan said.
“Is he a sorcerer?” I asked.
“No. That branch of the family never had any magic, as far as I know. My father and Jack grew up together around here before Jack moved to Little Rock, and my dad always looks out for family.”
So did mine. Apparently, they had a little more in common than their mutual enmity.
“Jack knocked on Dad’s door last night with a hair sample, begging him to help find his daughter. Obviously, we didn’t find her with magic.”
I shuddered. There was no way the reason for being unable to find a teenage girl with a hair sample and a decent scrying spell could be a good one, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask Evan whether he thought they were dead. I looked back down at the laughing faces of the fifteen-year-old girls whose broken bodies might be lying in the woods somewhere, waiting for discovery.
I tried to think about what I knew of scrying from my own family. It required something of the target such as fingernails, saliva, hair, or best of all – blood. A knowledge of the search area helped too, but a powerful sorcerer and access to the target’s blood could overcome that obstacle. I had looked into ways of hiding myself from magical spying a few weeks earlier, and found that the only real way to do that was for a more powerful sorcerer to conceal me. Evan had done that for me to keep my own family from spying on me. Knowing Evan, he had probably put in a loophole for himself.
“What can you tell me about the spell you and your father did?” I asked hesitantly. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a good idea to ask a sorcerer for his secrets, even peripherally, but I thought my careful phrasing would allay any annoyance.
“There’s not much to tell,” Evan said. He didn’t sound annoyed. “Your family probably did the same basic thing looking for Regina. The bottom line is, unless someone was blocking us, we should have been able to find her anywhere within about a thousand miles of that camp.”
“But not anywhere in the world?” I pressed.
Evan shook his head. “No, for that we would have needed blood.”
If Jack had been raised near a sorcerer, then he would have known better than to leave blood lying around. But the mention of blood reminded me of something I had wondered ever since Evan had saved me. When the vampire nearly killed me a couple of weeks ago, I had lost a lot of blood. What happened to it? Had Evan cleared it away, or kept a sample for himself?
“So,” I said, shaking off the nagging suspicion, “when did the girls disappear? Did they have time to fly to Europe or something?”
“According to Jack, the girls weren’t in their beds yesterday morning. They thought they might have just gone to the shower house early, so no one got worried until after breakfast.”
“But they could have been missing since late Monday night?”
“Yeah.” Evan frowned. “I guess that did give them time to get pretty far, but why and how? It doesn’t seem likely.”
I had to agree with him on that, but it was a tiny ray of hope for two young girls who I
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