Page 81 of Morning's Light

“You are in big trouble, young—”

With her sister right behind her, Aisanna dove into her well of tainted magic and sent a wave back into the bedroom. Screeches rose to staggering decibels when the floor erupted with venomous plants. Astix added her might, and together the two sisters took the rungs of the fire escape ladder in hand.

“Hold on!” Astix urged. She flung the latch, and the metal shot down like a missile.

They slammed into the concrete within seconds and the blast caused both to lose their grip. They tumbled to the ground with the air knocked from their chests, neighborhood trash cans crashing around them.

Aisanna saw stars when her head collided with the pavement. She’d always heard the expression and never once thought it true. Now she knew for certain.

Astix was the first to recover. Aisanna felt a tug on her hand and got to her feet with a dizzy sway.

“Come on!”

She allowed herself to be led with only the slightest off-kilter stumble until they reached the waiting motorcycle.

“They’ll come for us,” she tried to warn, her words slurred. Woozy, she gingerly touched the back of her head, surprised when her fingers came back smeared with blood. “Ouch.”

Astix shoved a helmet into her hands and whipped out a second one. “You’re telling me! Now get on and shut up. We’re leaving.”

Despite the fact that she was older by several years, Aisanna let her sister take the lead and gratefully followed. The girls slid onto frozen leather. Astix gunned the engine. They took off out of the back alley, cutting into traffic with only a single honk from an irritated driver, the air filled with the acrid scent of burning rubber.

Aisanna scooted closer until her front melded to her sister’s back. The two leaned into curves as a single unit. She tightened her grip, holding on for her life and ignoring the pain in her head.

“What did you do?” Astix questioned her, raising her voice to be heard. “What the hell did you do to bring them out?”

“I may or may not have attacked Orestes and Zelda in my shop.”

“Zelda Vuur? You’re kidding me. Right?”

“Nope.”

Aisanna did not question where they drove; instead, she relinquished control and hoped her sister had a better plan. After all, without Astix, she would never have been able to get out of the apartment in time. Her brain felt muddled. Going back had been a mistake despite her good intentions.

She fingered the agate amulet around her neck, the one she’d slipped on minutes earlier, and tried not to feel sorry for herself. It was difficult. She felt the pull in her blood, her newfound and constant dark companion. Maybe that was why she couldn’t think straight.

Instead, Aisanna gave in to her own shortcomings and slumped forward, letting her gaze drop to the continuous yellow lines of the highway. Soon she lost all concept of distance.

Astix skillfully took to the backroads. At long last, they pulled to a stop inside a thicket of trees outside a small hayfield. The sudden silence of the motor cutting off held the weight of the world, and Aisanna knew it came down to her.

Her legs wobbled when she rose from the machine and took in her surroundings.

“While I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, really, I do,” she began, “I don’t think freezing to death in a field is my idea of fun.”

Astix removed her helmet and shook out her hair. “Not quite what I had in mind, but great mental image. If you would rather stand here and complain, be my guest. This is my attempt to save our asses.”

Aisanna moved to stand beside her sister and took in the frozen wasteland in front of her. They were outside of the city by more than an hour, she knew. Here, the distance between houses lengthened until there was more land than metropolitan sprawl, more woods than suburbs.

Frost and snow dusted the dead grass in a pristine vision. Trees bare of their leaves shuddered in a slight breeze, ice adorning each branch. In the distance, a small stone cabin belched smoke into the atmosphere with regular gusts.

“What is this place?” Aisanna asked.

“This is asylum. Leo bought it.” Astix dug around in her pocket for a set of keys and gestured toward the house. “It’s off the radar, a small place in the middle of about fifty acres.”

“Fifty acres? Are you kidding me?”

It was a comfortable place on a comfortable amount of land. Defensible and private. It was the perfect stage for whatever it was Astix intended to do next.

She gestured. “Come on. Let’s get inside. I’m freezing my nuts off out here.”

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