The Wild Road by Marjorie M. Liu Page A

distance was even trickier. It took a connection, permission. Like what the witch who’d captured them had wanted Lannes and his brothers to give.
    A simple yes would do. A mere acquiescence, however innocent. A person had to be ever vigilant with the mind. To do less was to lose everything. Or to be vulnerable to everything.
    Lannes started the Impala’s engine and drove around to the back of the motel. He parked out of sight of the freeway and walked back around the building. Clouds had begun to move across the sun, but only a scattering of them. He wondered if the woman’s jacket would be warm enough.
    A name, he thought, binding his wings again. She needs a name.
    Lannes was trying to think of one when he felt a spark of heartache pulse along their link. He turned the corner and found the woman standing in the doorway of their room, gazing out at where the Impala had been with such a look of disappointment and hollow resignation that he almost ran to her.
    She saw him coming. Her hair hung in a soft tangle around her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes green as sun-bathed grass. She blinked several times, almost as though she was surprised to see him.
    “Out for a walk?” she asked mildly.
    “Moved the car so it couldn’t be seen from the road. Police might be looking for us.”
    She nodded, still with a pinch of stress around her eyes, and gazed out at the barren parking lot. A strip of earth and a chain-link fence separated them from the highway. Cars roared past.
    “You need to rest,” he said.
    “I did. A little. I heard the car start.” Her mouth quirked into a sad smile. “It’s a distinct sound.”
    “I’m sorry.” Lannes leaned against the door frame feeling awkward, exposed. His wings curled tight around his back. He suspected the illusion made his shoulders appear hunched. “You thought I was abandoning you.”
    “Crossed my mind,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
    Lannes held her gaze, willing her to understand. “We need to get something straight. I’m not leaving you.”
    “Right. Because you’re just that nice.”
    “Nice has nothing to do with it. You need help. Do you understand? I’m here because you need someone.”
    “That’s being nice and dumb. I might hurt you.”
    “I can take care of myself.”
    “Can you? What’s happening…it’s not normal. It’s not…human.”
    Chills raced up his spine. “Is that what you think?”
    “I know it.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “Here. Call me crazy, and maybe I am-”
    “No, you’re not crazy.”
    “But something took me over.” She hesitated, cheeks flushed, studying his face with an unnerving intensity that made him want to search out a mirror and check his illusion for cracks. “You really don’t think I’m nuts? A psychopath?”
    He smiled gently. “Go. Rest. I’ll warn you the next time I decide to go out.”
    The woman backed up, her gaze pale and hollow. “ You should rest. You haven’t slept since we met.”
    Lannes said nothing and gestured for her to precede him into the room. He locked the door behind them. The room felt darker than he remembered. More oppressive. His skin crawled.
    The woman slid back under the covers of her bed. He lay down on the other mattress, his healing ribs aching, his wings smashed like a soft, articulated blanket. The mattress groaned beneath him. He thought it would be impossible for him to relax, but after a tense minute, his muscles began to sag and his breathing slowed.
    Think of the woman. You need to hold it together. Walls are nothing. Walls are not stone on your skin or the bars of a cage. The witch is dead. The wicked witch at last is dead. Let the joyous news be spread, Lannes told himself, reciting from The Wizard of Oz. All he needed now was a heart and a brain, and some courage. Anything, to help the woman near him find her way home.
    The woman said, “This isn’t over. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt someone else.”
    Her certainty was as