Page 94 of My Wild Horse King

“That’s still a kid,” I say.

“You—are you Liepas?” He glances between Katerina and me. “Or from one of the other families?”

Now it’s our turn to be shocked. “Who are you?” I release his wrist.

“I’m Gabriel Brooks,” he says. “And I’ve known about you for a really long time.” He shakes his head. “No one ever believes they’re anything but stupid fantasy, but I’ve actually turned them into a comic book.” He’s beaming. “But to really see you, with my own two eyes.” He whistles. “Grandma Mandy’sfinallygoing to have to read them.”

“Wait,them?” I ask. “Do you have the journals?”

Gabe nods. “When I was like, ten, I was obsessed with them. After I translated the Russian parts with Google Translate, I pored over them.”

This can’t be happening. “So they didn’t get burned up in a fire?”

“Oh, I stole them way before Grandma Mandy pretended to die.”

“She. . .what?” I’m so confused.

“It’s a long story, but when I bring the journals up, everyone just rolls their eyes. I gave up on talking about them a few years ago.” Gabe’s eyes are bright, and he grabs my wrist this time. “Let’s go.”

“But the stall?” Katerina points. “Did you need to. . .?”

Gabe shrugs. “Someone else’ll get it. Who cares about fifteen bucks an hour when I’m talking to real horse-shifters.” His eyes light up then. “What’s your other power?”

“Lightning,” Katerina says before I can wave her off.

“We should find my sister, too,” I say. “Then we can all go over together.”

“Oh, good idea,” Gabe says. “The more the merrier.” His eyes light up. “Wait, can your sister turn into a horse, too?”

“Not exactly,” I say. “But we do have three more horse-shifters in the group.”

Gabe’s bouncing on his feet as he walks.

“Should we meet with this Amanda without everyone else first?” Katerina whispers. “She seemed pretty adamant earlier.”

“Meet with her?” Gabe freezes. “Did you already talk to her?”

I nod slowly. “We came here looking for her, hoping to find the journals. But when we found her, she said they were destroyed.”

Gabe balls his hands into fists and growl-shouts. “I swear, it’s like they don’t listen to me at all.”

Seems like we’ve hit on a sore topic.

He inhales a time or two, and then he nods. “Well, they’re going to have to listen now.”

“Actually, the fewer people who know about all this, the better,” Katerina says.

“Sure, sure,” Gabe says. “But obviously Grandma Mandy can know, because, like, she can probably turn into a horse too, right?”

Katerina’s frowning. “Gustav can’t even?—”

“She should know any part of it she wants,” I say, before Katerina can bum the kid out. “But we have a few questions we’re hoping to find answers to as well, and there’s a dangerous man following us, so the quicker we can find them, the better.”

“There you are.” Aleksandr, Kristiana right behind him, barrels around the corner. He breathes a heavy sigh of relief.

“Over here,” Kris says.

Grigoriy, Mirdza, Alexei, and Adriana round the bend, all of them showing signs of relief at finally finding us.

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