“You think you can knock her out? Buy some time to slip away from her?” Trent asked, totally misreading my words.

I snorted, and even Jenks laughed. “Vivian is not the one trying to kill us,” I said as I gathered up the trash. “And the last thing I want to do is lose her. They might give the job of tailing us to someone else, someone more likely to throw spells and ask questions later.” No, Vivian and I understood each other, and that was more conducive to a good night’s sleep than a cauldron of sleep charms. Even so, I was glad she hadn’t been around when I’d done the demon curse to free Trent. That would have been hard to explain.

Trent opened his door, and the breeze went right through the car. “You do make the oddest friends, Rachel.”

“You want me to buzz her anyway?” Jenks asked. “Pix her, maybe?”

I shoved another empty box of Milk Duds in the garbage. Who is eating the Milk Duds? I glanced at Trent and Ivy, and seeing that they were leaving it to me, I shook my head.

“Good,” Jenks said from my shoulder. “The elevation is kicking my ass. I can’t fly worth a Tinker’s damn.”

I carefully got out, catching my hair before it could hit Jenks. Vivian had her head against the steering wheel as if exhausted, her straight blond hair falling to hide her face. She was alone, and therefore likely hopped up on a charm or a spell. She’d pay for it later. Big-time.

“Trent, will you pop the trunk?” Ivy said, standing beside it. “I’m going to shower.”

I plucked my chemise away from my skin, thinking a shower sounded fantastic. Breathing deeply, I took in the air, tasting the differences. My body felt like it was almost noon, but the sun wasn’t that far above the horizon. Nine o’clock and the sun was already warm as it hit my shoulders. It felt good to be warm, and I squinted at the distant horizon, missing my sunglasses. The hard-packed earth had a pink tint to it. Rusty, almost. It was as if I could sense the salt beneath the earth, just under the surface. The wind moving my limp curls had the feeling of distance.

While Ivy stretched in what I recognized as her martial-arts warm-up, I reached out a finger of awareness and looked for the nearest ley line. My lips curled up in a smile. There was so little water in the ground here that it seemed as if I could feel the earth forever. The mental landscape of ley lines stretched as far and as clear as the flat horizon. There was space here, both visually and in the more nebulous regions of the mind. Lots of space, and nothing to stop any of the senses until the very earth curved from you. It was odd, and I took a moment to just taste it.

Breaking my line of sight, Ivy grabbed her overnight bag from the trunk. “I’ll see if they’ll rent us a room for an hour,” she said, flicking her gaze at Trent, daring him to protest. “You want to shower, Rachel?”