T*Witches: Split Decision by H.B. Gilmour, Randi Reisfeld Page B

was doing and what she had heard. With a quill pen, the hunchedwretch was laboriously scrawling a message on stiff parchment. Grungy and fragile as he looked, his hand was steady on the page. A pile of already completed sheets sat at his right hand. Was he composing a book? Was it the book she’d seen in her vision this morning, the book she’d thought of a moment ago?
    She was only a few feet away. Surely he would sense her presence soon. She expected him to whirl around, a withered soul, some nutcase whose lair she’d invaded. When he did spin to face her, she saw not the face of a hapless aged hermit. Smooth and unlined, this was a warlock about Shane’s age. His icy expression could have been carved from the very stone he was using as a table.
    She noticed, too, his hair was cropped short on top. Cam had an insane urge to tell him the mullet look was so over — but fear, the first she’d felt since sneaking through the odd door in Thantos’s room, stopped her cold.
    She found her voice. “Who … what are you … doing?”
    The rattailed warlock did not respond. His gaze locked on Cam, pinned her with his inky eyes.
    She swallowed, trying to show no fear. But just then her sun charm grew hot against her chest, so hot she thought it might burn her. When she tried to lift it, she got an electric shock.
    She knew now to retreat, to run. This same force that had pulled her down into this cave was pushing her out. She heeded the warning at the exact same moment the warlock reached out to grab her. Something gleamed from the collar of his grimy shirt. As Cam raced away, she realized what she had seen. A horseshoe-shaped crystal hanging from a gold chain.
    It was identical to the amulet Shane had been wearing.
    “No
way
!” Shane assured her the next day. He’d come again to Crailmore to see her, to spend the afternoon together. “You think Epona is some descendant of an evil equine empire? A symbol of death?”
    Death hauling sun god’s chariot, Cam thought.
    That’d be her. Or her namesake.
    A book she’d found this morning in Crailmore’s huge library confirmed Miranda’s memory of the legend of Epona. How much of it did Shane know? Why would he tease her, or test her about ancient symbols of evil?
    Until she had answers, Cam had decided, she would not let her feelings blind her.
    She could do this now, because her senses were sharper here. Her ability to hear things from far away, while still not in Alex’s league, had improved. Here on Coventry, she was more attuned, in tune, with her biologicalheritage. More like, she thought with a start, the girl she was born to be.
    That’s what she’d been thinking as she walked beside Shane along the cobblestone path leading away from Crailmore. Despite last night’s encounter with the weirdo in the cave, she was feeling strong again, secure, empowered.
    Which was why the sudden dizziness took her by surprise. She reached out to Shane as everything blurred. But he was a step ahead of her and she couldn’t get to him in time. The premonition hit with such force, her knees buckled. She doubled over and fell to the ground.
    And then she was drowning. And screaming.
Help! Help!
But no one could hear her. She had no voice.
    I can’t breathe! I can’t…
    Flailing, kicking, clawing her way out… someone had to help her! She was being sucked under too fast. Something was closing in on her. Water? It was cold, wet, coarse — and it filled her mouth, suffocating her with grainy mouthfuls … of sand? She tried to spit it out, shake it off. Climb out, put one hand over the next.
Pull yourself up,
was all she could think. But there was nothing to grab onto. She had no footing. She was going down. Pulled down. To her grave.
    No! No! I’m not ready to die — help! Somebody help! Alex …!
    She was ready to give in, couldn’t fight anymore. Then a pair of giant hands grasped her rib cage and pulled her up and out.
    “You’re okay! You’re okay!” She heard Shane, but