Page 66 of Wind Called

The Secret Canyon wilderness was huge, though, and she knew they’d only hiked about a mile so far. It made sense that the thief would want to conceal themselves way back here, in a place where few people — locals and tourists alike — rarely traveled.

Which sort of begged the question of how they came and went. Did they have a vehicle hidden somewhere, maybe a dirt bike because it would be a lot less suspicious? These trails weren’t designated for motorized vehicles, but rules never stopped some people.

Especially people who seemed to think it was no big deal to break into a house warded six ways from Sunday and owned by theprimaof a witch clan.

Bellamy and Marc hadn’t spoken much, but she was fine with that. She knew he was concentrating on the landscape, doing his best to see if anything from his dream jumped out at him. Besides, she’d never been much for chatting while hiking, just because she came out to these isolated spots to be alone with the rocks and the trees and the hawks and ravens that occasionally circled overhead, not to talk about silly inconsequentials that could have waited until they were back in civilization.

Actually, that had been part of the reason why she and one of her previous civilian boyfriends — John Brooks — had split. The guy never wanted to shut up, even when surrounded by the kind of beauty that should have made him want to be quiet so he could drink it in.

Marc, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a problem with silence, as though he knew all they needed was one another’s company, whether they were talking or not. From time to time, he glanced over at her so he could give her an encouraging look…or maybe to check and see how she was doing…but he remained quiet.

Not that he needed to have any worries about her. She was keeping up just fine, and could do this all day if she had to. Of course, she’d prefer not to, just because in a few hours, it would be truly hot instead of comfortably warm, but she’d manage as long as the water held out.

But then he paused so he could take a swig from the bottle in his hand, and Bellamy did the same, glad of the cool liquid trickling down her dry throat.

“Nothing yet?” she asked, and Marc shook his head.

“Not so far.” He went quiet then for a second or two before adding, “But all my intuition is telling me we’re on the right track. We just haven’t gotten to a place yet where it feels right to go off the main trail.”

Which meant they could be hiking for hours still. She was less than thrilled with that idea, even as she told herself she was the one who’d pushed for this. Marc had wanted to talk to the elders, and possibly Angela and Connor as well, and maybe they could have come up with a better plan.

Or maybe not. Sometimes it felt as if theprimaandprimus— and Levi, too — had the powers of gods, but the situation wasn’t quite that cut-and-dried. As she’d pointed out to Marc when he woke up from his dream, even they couldn’t teleport themselves into a place they didn’t know. They would have been forced to trudge out here like ordinary mortals.

Just as she and Marc were doing.

Another ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then he paused on the trail, pointing toward a barely visible path that branched off toward the west. “There,” he said.

“You’re sure?” Bellamy responded. Yes, she’d be more than happy to move off the main trail and into a place where they might be getting closer to their quarry, but she also didn’t want them to take a wrong turn and have to retrace their steps.

His head lifted toward the red rocks, eyes narrowing slightly, as though he was comparing them to what he’d seen in his vision. “I’m sure,” he said, and the words sounded confident enough. “I recognize that formation over there, the one that sort of looks like a rooster head.”

She followed his gaze. Yes, that odd little formation with the jagged top and the funny protrusion off to one side did look kind of like a rooster.

Well, if you squinted, anyway.

“Then lead on,” she replied, even as her heart began to beat a little faster. Yes, she’d signed up for this — had even pushed Marc into it, when he’d obviously thought it would be better if they got some advice from the older generation first — but now that they might be getting close, she found herself wondering if maybe going off half-cocked had really been the best plan.

You can,whispered on the wind, and she went stock still.

“What is it?” Marc said. He’d begun to take a step down the new path but had paused, clearly catching something in her expression.

“I heard them,” she replied.

“The voices?”

“Yes. They said, ‘You can.’”

His mouth curved upward at the corners. “Well, I’d say that was a vote of confidence. Ready?”

What could she do except nod?

He began walking down the trail, not moving too fast, still conserving his energy since they didn’t know how far they would need to go. Bellamy followed in his wake, ears straining to see if the winds had anything else to say, but they seemed to believe they’d done enough by delivering that one encouraging message and were now content to sit back…if they were even the kind of beings who could sit…and see what happened.

It was much rougher here than the ground they’d covered already, the trail riddled with rocks, some of them big enough that they had to detour around the things before they could continue on their way. Most likely, these trails were only maintained once a year, if even that. She was sure the people with the Forest Service did their best, but of course they would focus on the paths hikers tended to use the most.

Because although it was beautiful out here, with the clear blue sky overhead and the red rocks soaring above them in almost every direction, there were plenty of other spots around Sedona that weren’t quite so off the beaten path and probably showcased more important rock formations, the sorts of landmarks people would want to show up on their Instagram feeds and their TikTok videos.

But because Marc kept forging ahead, Bellamy knew she couldn’t do anything other than that as well. The sun climbed higher as they walked, now beating down on their heads in earnest. He didn’t seem to mind too much, but she slid her pack off her shoulder and pulled off the foldable field hat she’d stored in there earlier, then zipped up the backpack and hoisted it into place again.

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