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“Come along. You may bring your ‘bodyguard’ if you like.”
“I said no. I meant no.”
It was impossible to discern Fridtjof’s emotions by examining his face. He could have been joyous, enraged, or maybe even just bored. His features appeared incapable of demonstrating anything other than smugness and contempt. I found myself casting an eye at the driver, trying to use his expressions as a barometer of Fridtjof’s thoughts, until I realized I didn’t care what Fridtjof was feeling. There was no way I was going anywhere near him, let alone with him. I turned and began to head home.
“I’ve been sent as delegate by your fellow anchors,” he called out after me.
Okay, now we were “fellows.” I stopped and turned back. “Then talk. Why did they send you?” Emmet insinuated himself between us, readying himself for, well, for just about anything, I guessed.
“We have agreed the unpleasantness between us is at least partially our fault.”
“Partially?” My voice squeaked into a higher than normal register. “You tried to destroy my hometown.”
“That is not entirely true. It was your mother—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff a sock in it.” I’d already heard this from Beige. No need to sit through White’s version of the same excuse. “What else you got?”
For a moment he seemed a bit thrown by the colloquialism. His head tilted and a line formed between his brows. His silence lasted just long enough for me to consider leaving him sitting there. He recovered just in time. “We have been withholding many truths from you. Truths about the line and its creation. Truths about the damage you and your family have caused to it.” He gave his accusation sufficient time to register fully. “You may have saved your city from the hurricane’s destruction, but that salvation came at a cost. Your activities have weakened the line.”
His words had no sooner escaped his snowy lips than I felt an awareness burst all around me. “No. It isn’t weaker. If anything, it’s stronger than ever, just less in your control.”
“Miss Taylor—”
“Mrs. Tierney,” Emmet corrected him, earning himself more points than I had time to calculate.
“All right then, Mrs. Tierney, I had hoped you would accompany me willingly and that I wouldn’t have to resort to threatening you . . .”
“You had better choose your next few words with extreme care,” I said, reflexively pulling my hand back and feeling a ball of blue fire dance on my fingertips.
Fridtjof startled and slid back a bit, but he forced himself to recover. “You are leaving us with no choice. That you are such a slave to your passions you would even consider harming another anchor is proof enough.”
I let the ball of fire dissolve. “Fine, spit it out.”
“I hoped, we hoped, this could be a dispassionate meeting of the minds. That you would join me of your own accord and learn the error of the way in which you have been conducting yourself. However, I must warn you that if you refuse to accompany me, the other anchors are at the ready, prepared to perform a binding on you.”
Emmet took a step toward the car. I used my magic to grab hold of him and stop him. I knew that otherwise Fridtjof might find himself split into three parts rather than two. “If I do agree to go with you?”
“Well, that would indeed be seen as a sign of good faith.” I felt his sense of control return to him. His certainty hovered around him like a cloying cloud. “Come. There is something I must show you.”
I turned to Emmet and he to me. “I have to go . . .”
“Not a chance will I leave you to go with this . . . chalky bastard . . . alone.” He approached the car. “Slide it, frosty.” He looked back over his shoulder, trying to appear confident and pleased with himself. He failed to cover up the concern in his dark eyes. Emmet had to duck to slide himself into the car, but soon I stood there alone, the expectant driver fixing me with a stare. A quick and silent prayer to anything out there that might be looking out for me, and I joined Emmet. The driver shut the door behind me.
The sound of the car door closing coincided with, if not triggered, a blinding incandescence, and rather than riding along the streets of Savannah, I found myself traveling in a way I’d never experienced before. I felt that my body sat completely still, and the world moved around me. Emmet’s hand caught mine, his steely grip letting me know that no matter what, he had no intention of letting go. Images alternated with blackouts; each strobe of light revealed a new location, until an eruption of darkness washed the scene away.
The pace of the images relented as open fields spread out below us. The pictures grew finer in detail, alerting me that we were descending even though my senses swore to me I had remained stationary. Coming into focus was an area boxed in on three sides by a squared-off U made of trees. In the enclosure’s center stood an unidentifiable structure. A grain silo? A water tower? No, neither. It cast too odd of a shadow to be either. The image gained in depth, and within the wink of an eye, we touched ground near a collection of enormous upright granite slabs. The edges of the colossal blocks remained rough, but their faces had been polished and inscribed in both modern and long-dead languages.
“The Guidestones,” I said to myself. I’d never been here before, but I’d of course heard of them. Many called them “the American Stonehenge”; many others called them the work of the devil. As I registered the distance we had traveled, I fell into a panic. I was an anchor of the line. I knew I was to remain physically near the point where the line had selected me as such, but I had no idea how much leeway existed. Had I been brought here in an attempt to break my connection?
Fridtjof seemed to anticipate my anxious reaction. “Don’t worry. You are still within the physical boundary you must maintain. At its limits, yes, but still within.”
Emmet’s hand remained tightly latched to mine. “Why the subterfuge of the automobile? Why not tell us you intended to transport us using magic?”
“I had to threaten your pretty friend to get her into an ordinary auto. Do you think I would have stood a chance getting her to come along through a less mundane form of transport?” He was right on that point. “The little teleportation trick you do,” he said addressing me, “you’ve just experienced what it is like once you’ve mastered it.” His pale face turned at an angle. “Or perhaps you believed this was a gift particular to you?” The question was an obvious jibe, intended to make me feel insecure in my own powers. It hit home. “No, this skill of yours is shared by all anchors. Its intended use is to make sure we can always return to our respective points of anchorage regardless of how far from home we might find ourselves.”
“See,” Emmet said to me. “I told you there was no need to click your heels.” We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Fridtjof was less than pleased with our act of lèse-majesté, realizing Emmet had completely undermined his attempt to intimidate.
I focused on his face as sour and white as spoiled milk. “Why did you bring us here?”
