“He had two blades,” Keenan said by Editor Page B

sister when the rain stopped and traveled all night. Close to dawn, they halted at a small abandoned hut near the Scottish border. Serena insisted that William be allowed to lie flat and sleep solidly. She changed his dressing and frowned at the redness around the wound. “He will rage with fever, no doubt,” she said and looked up at Keenan in the dim light of the hut. “We need to get him to your home as soon as possible so he can battle it without moving. How long?”
    “With good weather, and few stops, four days.”
    Four days. Serena cringed inside. She brushed the matted hair back from William’s forehead and placed a kiss there.
    Robert carried chunks of peat cut from the moors nearby and plunked them into the grimy hearth. He peeked up the chimney warily.
    “If it doona crumble down on us, we may have a nice fire.”
    Keenan shook his head. “No fire during the daylight. We’d be too easy to spot. When the sun goes down, we can start a fire to cook some meat right before we leave.”
    “Aye, of course.” Robert walked over to William. He looked at Serena. “How goes the lad?”
    “Lucky to have you cradle him so carefully on your mount,” she answered sincerely. Robert Mackay had turned out to be a blessing. Upon meeting his sister, Serena had picked up on her relief and guilt. Robert had killed an English taxman who wanted more from his sister than her money. She lived alone and Robert had swooped in during the attack. He now paid the penalty for saving his only surviving kin. Serena had nearly left him in his cell because of her first impression. Perceptions, even with her powers, could be wrong, she thought humbly and smiled at the man.
    “He will rest now, that’s all that can be done without supplies,” she said.
    Robert patted her shoulder and turned toward a corner of the dirty room. “Time to lower these weary bones to the floor, then.”
    The man’s snore whooshed through the room within minutes. Serena’s exhaustion lay upon her shoulders. Her head ached with worry. She didn’t know much about healing a pistol wound nor a dangerous fever, and she didn’t have Duy’s herbs.
    Serena lowered her body next to William. She threaded out a thought toward Mari, telling her they were alive and as well as could be. Serena didn’t know if Mari could hear, but she would try. Her poor duy must be worried, both of her children gone. As the infinite number of hopeless thoughts piled in, Serena felt a heavy blanket drop. She looked up in time to watch Keenan walk back out of the door. She closed her eyes and fell into oblivion.
    Her body floated along through dark images of the shooting, the dankness of the jailhouse, the strong arms of the Highland warrior. Just as her mind began to relax and retreat into comfortable blackness, she felt a familiar tug. The tug pulled from the dragonfly birthmark near her bellybutton. It had been pulling at her for years to go northwest. Serena felt it in dreams and sometimes when she was awake, staring off into the woods or sky. Wanderlust, Mari had suggested. It worsened the farther north they’d traveled and changed to a westward pull. The tug barely intruded on Serena when they traveled south of London. But now as they made their way into Scotland, the thread inside her jerked taut as if someone in the west wound it like a rope from the other end.
    Serena’s body lifted on the breeze and blew past William and Robert where they lay on the floor. Out the door she moved. Was this real or just a dream? She didn’t see Keenan as she walked among the trees, over branches, across a narrow road. She stopped in a clearing of ancient, gnarled trees as if the person who pulled stopped winding.
    Serena turned in the circle of trees. She spread arms out wide and tilted her head back. The birthmark tingled against her skin. Sun slanted down through a hole at the top of the dense canopy to fall upon her upturned face. She squinted at its brightness. The smell of fresh earth