Page 58 of Sightwitch
My lips parted. I sucked in air, ready to answer …
But then my mouth clamped shut. For there was nothing I could say. If he cleaved, then one of us would die. That was that.
“I thought so.” His arms relaxed, and the snow broke off. Not the wind, though. It funneled around him and whipped against me.
Hot, dry,powerfulwind.
“I won’t let you risk it, Ryber. I won’t let you endanger your life just so you can go deeper into this nightmare place.” He drew himself up to his fullest height, a towering beast of a man, and there was a clear challenge in his jaw.
I was having none of it.
I matched his posture. I matched his expression. Then I marched right up to him and poked him in the shoulder. “Don’t,” I hissed, “say ‘just.’ I do not want your magicjustso I can go deeper into the mountain. I go after my family, Captain. After my Threadsister.
“You may not remember anything, but surely you know what love and loyalty feel like. So do not tell me that if your family, that if your best friend in theentire universeneeded you, you would give up on them.
“All I’m asking is that you fly me to this ledge.” I shook the map in his face. “Then you can leave. You can go right through this door and figure out who you are.”
So certain was I that he would argue more—sosurewas I that he would shout or make a run for the archway—that I planted my feet and braced for impact.
Instead, his chin dropped, and he said, “Fine.” Then he spun away and marched to the outcropping’s edge.
My jaw sank low, and when I glanced at the Rook, he looked as shocked as I, his beak half open and head dipped to one side.
“Well?” Captain called. “Are you coming or not?”
“Right.” I scurried over, and before he could change his mind, I flung my arms around him.
“Uh.” He cleared his throat, and the air around us ratcheted up to boiling. “Why are you holding me?”
“For flying.”
“The thing is, you, uh … You don’t need to.”
I flung off my arms and tumbled back. Heat that was not from his magic flagged through me.
“Not that I mind, of course,” he added hastily, amusement crinkling his eyes, “but surely I can create multiple air currents. Seems logical, right? And the two separate currents will get us where we’re going—and where is that, by the way?”
Embarrassment blazed onto my neck and cheeks as I pointed vaguely up. “Somewhere that way. And stop smiling.”
His grin stretched wider. “I’m not smiling. This is simply my summoning-magic face.”
“Liar,” I muttered. Then, for good measure, I added, “Blighter.” But the word was lost in a roar of wind that tore around me. It curled beneath my feet, a physical thing that grabbed my arms, my legs, my waist.
I rocketed up, the stone fell away, and the next thing I knew, I was flying.
I might have been screaming too, but my voice was lost in the charged, spinning air that grasped me. My stomach was lost as well, left on the stone below where it could vomit up bile without me.
And my heart—blessed Sirmaya, it was going to explode in my eardrums if we didn’t slow or return to the ground or …something.
At least the wind was too strong for me to look down, though, and see how far we had to fall.
As I tried to swivel my head to see Captain, something fizzy surged up from my belly and curled into my skull. It sang along the back of my neck and behind my ribs.
I was flying.I was flying.
Captain had done it, and any moment now, we would land and I could finally, finally reach my Sisters.
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