I nodded uncertainly; that was probably the best I was going to get. “Thank you.” After a deep breath and a moment to collect myself, I glanced up at Cade. Or maybe it was Coyt. “I’m ready, boys.” Though truly, I was anything but.

Without even a glance at each other, the male thunderbirds Shifted almost simultaneously and rose into the air at the exact same time. Fortunately, the porch roof was very high, no doubt to accommodate just such a takeoff.

The upside to having no luggage is that there’s nothing to accidentally drop when a giant bird swoops and grabs you by both arms, then dangles you over the earth from a height no cat was ever intended to experience.

From two hundred feet up, would I land on all four feet?

“Oh, shiiiiit!” I shouted, no more able to close my mouth than my eyes. The ground raced toward me, then the second bird grabbed my ankles in midair, halting our plummet. The birds flapped in unison, and we bobbed for a second—jarring my entire body—before soaring down again at a terrifyingly sharp angle. Three flaps later, they let go of my arms. I fell the last yard or so to land hard on my feet.

I squatted to absorb some of the impact in my knees, and to avoid falling over face-first; I couldn’t afford to catch myself with my bad arm and risk hurting it worse.

I straightened just as the flyboys landed in tandem in front of me, and though they both watched me with evident disinterest—maybe even outright disgust—neither said a word.

“Jeez, could you two hold it down? I’m getting a headache from all the witty banter.”

They only blinked.

We stood in a narrow valley between two small mountains—foothills, if I had my guess. When I turned, I saw that the nest was at one end of the valley, built on an outcropping jutting from the juncture of two hills. Behind Cade and Coyt, far beneath the nest, the gravel road ended in a huge pile of rocks, obviously fallen from the hills. Probably knocked down on purpose, to make the path to the nest inaccessible to humans. Which made choosing a direction a real no-brainer.

“So…where does this road go?” I gestured to the gravel trail leading away from the nest, and finally one of the flyboys spoke.

“North.”

“Wow. Thanks.” I squinted at them, shielding my eyes from the setting sun, and noticed that I was virtually eye to eye with both thunderbirds—they were the tallest I’d seen yet. “Could you at least tell me where we are? How am I supposed to get to Appalachia if I don’t even know which way to walk?”

“We’re in New Mexico,” said the bird on the left. His partner hadn’t even bothered to Shift his beak. “East of Alamogordo.”

Now that, I could use. “Thank you.”

“Two days,” the vocal bird warned. Then they both took off, their powerful wings blowing hair back from my face.