Fiji was scared, and she was angry. It was impossible to say which emotion was stronger. Just after they’d left Midnight, a moment of hydroplaning on the slick road had left her down on the floorboard, since she had no way to catch herself. Fortunately, Eggleston steadied the truck and calmed down. Fiji was glad the road west was mostly straight and the hills were gentle. She had so many thoughts running through her head that she couldn’t seize any one of them to develop. She had wept a little (out of sheer anger, she told herself), and her nose was stopped up in consequence. Since her mouth was sealed shut, she had to concentrate on her breathing. Finally her nasal passages cleared, and she was getting oxygen in a regular amount in the normal way. It was amazing how much that helped to clear her mind.

She had a few thousand things to say to Price Eggleston, but by necessity they were bottled up inside her. That doesn’t mean I’m powerless, she told herself sternly. I can still work magic without a voice. Or hands. Or the cat. Great-Aunt Mildred had told her that spoken spells and hand gestures were only tools to the witch, that what mattered most was intent. “Focus and intent,” she’d said.

So this is like a test, Fiji told herself. I can do this. She could see Eggleston’s foot very clearly, in its cowboy boot. She concentrated on the boot. She imagined it getting hot. Suddenly she realized the left foot was the one that needed to get hot; if the right one caught on fire, the truck might crash with her helpless inside it. Idiot, she scolded herself, and rubbed her cheek against her shoulder to wipe off a tear. Shoshanna Whitlock had been easy; she hadn’t been expecting any resistance and she’d been standing still.

This separates the witches from the wannabes, Fiji thought, and she focused on the heel of the boot. She made it hot. She thought of heat, of fire, and she sent it all into the boot. She didn’t let herself blink, and she held herself still, and she was glad that the big man at the wheel did not seem to want to talk to her. In the movies, villains always wanted to explain themselves. It was her luck to have been captured by a villain who wasn’t of the chatty variety.