Amazon Queen by Lori Devoti Page A

until late Friday night. After that I’d asked for Peter, the son who worked for her. He was gone too, was with her apparently.
    I’d hung up the phone confused and concerned. Mel leaving the tribe had killed our friendship for a decade. We had just started to patch it back together. I was afraid the issue of the sons would soon blast it apart again.
    But the call helped solidify my plan. I would head to Madison Saturday morning. The farmer’s market gave me a convenient excuse for being in the city—much better than just showing up on Mel’s door and demanding to talk to the sons.
    I’d gone to bed and slept a solid four hours. Now I was standing in the bathroom admiring my increasingly haggard appearance.
    I turned my face away from the mirror, grabbed a wet towel, and scrubbed it over my skin. As I twisted my torso, my back shrieked.
    The damned injury had been nagging me again . . . since Thea woke me up at four, asking if I was ready to resume our search for the baby.
    I’d ignored her and eventually she’d gone away, but the other pain had remained. I’d stayed in my room a couple of hours stretching and thinking, but neither had done anything to lessen the pain.
    I ran hot water on the towel and pressed it against my back. After a few seconds I threw it into the bathtub. It landed with an angry slap.
    My injuries and recent failures were piling up and weighing me down, but I had a day to kill before heading to Madison.
    Normally I would have exercised, but my back was in no shape. I left the house and passed by the barn with its room full of weights. It was early, but everyone was up. The hearth-keepers were working in the garden and warriors were clinking weights together in the barn. The camp would be busy for the next few hours, then things would settle down for lunch. During the heat of the day we would run errands and work on less physical projects. In the evening we’d be outside again, working the horses and practicing for the exhibition at the fair.
    I stepped into the woods.
    “Zery!” Thea appeared on the path. She was carrying her bowl. I could smell the same oil I’d smelled before, olive oil. At least that’s what Lao had said it was last night.
    “I was looking for you earlier. You didn’t answer your door.”
    I tilted my head and took another step down the path.
    “I found the son’s name, the one who owns the cabin,” she said.
    I paused.
    “Jack Parker. He’s lived there five years. Has probably been watching this camp.”
    She was right. He had told me as much.
    “I’m searching for more information, for other places he might go now that his house is destroyed, but so far nothing. He seems to have no history.”
    “Like an Amazon,” I replied. Amazons did everything they could to stay under the human radar. We sometimes shared identities, had more fake IDs than a bar full of teenagers. I guessed the sons did the same.
    “You don’t know where he might go, do you?” she asked. The bowl she held dripped oil onto her shoe. I stared at the round stain for a second, considering my answer.
    My voice steady, I replied, “None. I’d never seen him before yesterday.”
    “How about your friend? The one in Madison? She has connections, doesn’t she?”
    “She’s out of town.”
    A shadow passed over Thea’s face. “But she’ll be back. Soon?”
    “No. I called last night. She’s gone for a while. The sons are gone too.” I’d decided last night I wasn’t taking Thea with me to Madison. I had no qualms about lying to her. I just hoped lying was enough to keep her at the safe camp.
    She didn’t like my answer, but she didn’t question it.
    With Thea gone, I returned to my walk. I had plenty to think about. I was going to Madison, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got there. It all depended on Mel and exactly how connected to the sons she had become. If she had thrown in with them, stood with them
against
the Amazons . . .
    My stomach clenched, but as my