“So that’s right out,” Teddy Jo said. “You understand why? You come with her to Mishmar, neither of you might get out alive. She’s safer on her own.”

Christopher nodded. “Well, can I come with you to see the horses? I promise to be good and not scare them.”

“Sure, why not.” Teddy Jo waved his arms. “The entirety of Hades can come. We’ll have a party.”

Christopher stepped off the porch in to the backyard, spread his wings, and shot upward. The wind nearly blew me off my feet.

“Thank you,” I told Teddy Jo.

“He gives me the creeps,” Teddy Jo growled.

“You’re the nicest angel of death I know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get in the damn swing.”

•   •   •

THE FOREST STRETCHED in front of me, a gloomy motionless sea of branches sheathed in leaves. The waters of the Blue River streamed past, quiet and soothing, the light of the old moon setting the small flecks of quartz at the bottom of the riverbed aglow. Thin, watery fog crept in from between the trees, sliding over the water and curling around the few large boulders thrusting from the river like monks kneeling in prayer.

I sat quietly, waiting, a saddle and a blanket to go under it next to me. Teddy Jo had dropped me off and retreated into the woods, adding, “Don’t treat them as regular horses. Treat them as equals.” Whatever that meant.

Christopher glided above me, somewhere too high to see. Watching him in the sky had made me forget about being suspended hundreds of feet in the air with a whole lot of nothing between me and the very hard ground. Christopher had remembered how to fly. He would climb up, bank, and dive, speeding toward the ground in a hair-raising rush, only to somehow slide upward, out of the curve, and soar. Teddy Jo had rumbled, “You’d think he’d act like he had wings before,” then caught himself, and left Christopher to the wind and speed.

Now all was quiet.

Even if I did manage to bond with a pegasi, I’d have to ride on its back as it flew. My stomach tried to shrink to the size of a walnut at the thought. If it bucked me off, I would be a Kate pancake. Life had tried to kill me in all sorts of ways lately, but falling off of a flying horse was a new and unwelcome development.

I had to get a horse. Not only did my idiotic plan depend on it, but Curran’s did, too. He would walk his mercs into my father’s castle, and he was counting on me to provide a distraction to get them out. Sienna foresaw a flying horse. So far she hadn’t been wrong.