Page 29 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I took it as a sign he wasn’t going to expand. “I. Was. Fine.”
“It appeared otherwise.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him again. “I—ahhhhh!”
The wind swept up from the river and seemed to course right through my sodden bones, reminding me that while we were standing here, it was still, in fact, the middle of winter and approximately thirty-four degrees outside.
A shiver took hold of my body and wouldn’t let go.
The stranger’s eyes blazed, and his lips moved with some unintelligible statement.
Immediately, my clothes dried. I even felt…warm as I jerked toward him in shock. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“No, you only shivered so hard I thought you might crack a tooth.” He nodded toward the trail. “Shall we, or must I ask the wind to carry you up as well?”
I blanched. Could he even do that?
I decided not to take the risk and followed him back up the bluff to his car.
Once inside, whatever spell he’d cast to dry my clothes seemed to wear off, and I was wet again. And irritable.
Odd.
“Put your hands over the heater,” he said as he started the ignition, and we took off into the night.
He was quiet on the short drive, which was fine by me. The visions were gone, but voices still rumbled in the back of my mind, incoherent and angry. I focused on quieting my mind as the man steered through the backstreets of Sellwood and eventually pulled up outside Reina’s house. Warm lights glowed inside. The shower awaited, along with her fireplace and bundles of sage.
I opened the door but turned after I got out.
“I suppose—would you like to come inside?” I found myself offering. “Seems like the least I can do since you’ve?—”
The door shut swiftly behind me before I could finish my sentence.
“Must go,” called the man through the open window before the engine revved, and he shot off again into the night.
I stood outside the house for a good five minutes wondering what in the hell had just happened.
For the second time in a week, I’d had a spell of visions bad enough that the world lost all coherence.
For the second time in a week, this man had saved me.
And I still didn’t know his name.
Amid all the questions, my mind still swam, and the entire block seemed to spin in a long, elliptical orbit. I took a heavy step to my left.
“Oh, gods,” I muttered as I turned back to the house, clutching my head.
All suspicions flew out of my head as another wave of images crashed through me. This spell wasn’t done with me yet.
The fireplace and showerhead called.
Touch the water.
I’d worry about the rest in the morning.
10
THE SHADOW
