He dropped her at the ticketing entrance to United, still offering to come along, to accompany her, to meet her, to do whatever she asked. She smiled, shook her head, said good-bye, picked up her bag, and walked inside. Robert drove away. She waited to make sure.

She hadn’t seen Ariel since the night before and had no idea how the tatterdemalion planned to reach Seattle, but that wasn’t her problem. She checked her bag, received her boarding pass, and was advised that the departure time had been moved back to five o’clock due to a problem with the plane.

She walked down to the assigned gate, took a seat, and resumed reading the book she had begun the night before. It was titled The Spiritual Child, and it was written by Simon Lawrence. She was drawn to the book for several reasons—first, because it made frequent reference to the writing of Robert Coles, and to his book The Spiritual Life of Children in particular, which she had read for a class in psychology last semester and enjoyed immensely, and second, because she was on her way to find John Ross, who was working for Lawrence at Fresh Start, and she wanted to know something about the thinking of the man with whom a failed Knight of the Word would ally himself. Of course, it might be that this was only a job for Ross and nothing more, but Nest didn’t think so. That didn’t sound like John Ross. He wasn’t the sort to take a job indiscriminately. After abandoning his service to the Word, he would want to find something he felt strongly about to commit to.

In any case, she had whiled away the time reading Simon Lawrence, the airplane still hadn’t shown, the weather had begun to deteriorate with the approach of a heavy thunderstorm, and the departure time had been pushed back yet again. Growing concerned that she might not get out at all, Nest had gone up to the gate agent and asked what the chances were that the flight might not leave. The agent said she didn’t know. Nest retraced her steps to customer service and asked the agent on duty if she could transfer to another flight. The agent looked doubtful until Nest explained that a close friend was dying, and she needed to get to. Seattle right away if she was to be of any comfort to him. It was close enough to the truth that she didn’t feel too bad about saying it, and it got her a seat on a flight to Denver connecting on to Seattle.

The flight had left a little after five, she was in Denver by six forty-five, mountain time, and back on a second plane to Seattle by seven-fifty. The flight up took another two hours and something, and it was approaching ten o’clock Pacific time before the plane touched down at Sea-Tac. Nest disembarked carrying her bag, walked outside to the taxi stand, and caught a ride downtown. Her driver was Pakistani or East Indian, a Sikh perhaps, wearing one of those turbans, and he didn’t have much to say. She still hadn’t seen a sign of Ariel, and she was beginning to worry. She could find her way around the city, locate John Ross, and make her pitch alone if she had to, but she would feel better having someone she could turn to for advice if she came up against a problem. She was already composing what she would say to Ross. She was wondering as well why he would pay any attention to her, the Lady’s assurances notwithstanding.