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I buckled up as Belle started the car. “Where to?”
I gripped the watch’s dial a little bit tighter, feeling a directional tug through the flow of sensory information. I didn’t quite see the “guide rope”—a glittery silver thread that was a physical emanation of the connection between the watch and its owner—but I suspected I would once we were closer.
Of course, guide ropes were usually only visible when it came to active tracking spells, and even then, they weren’t always in evidence. It definitely shouldn’t be happening when it came to psi talents such as psychometry, but the wild magic had recently started blurring the line between the two.
“Head toward Capital Hill—I’ll know more once we hit State Circle.”
The latter being the name of the road that ringed the Hill and Parliament House.
She nodded, threw the car into gear, and sped off faster than was probably wise given that even when we’d lived here in Canberra, we very rarely came to this section of town.
“What did Samuel say?”
Her smile flashed. “Exactly what we expected.”
“And his response to your response?”
“Impolite.”
I laughed. “I take it he is heading over?”
“No, he said to update him once we find out where the idiot who’s snatched Deni ends up, and under no circumstances are we to go in without him.”
“Unless, of course, the situation disintegrates before he arrives.”
“I did add that. He said it probably will.”
I glanced at her. “That almost sounds like he knows what’s going on.”
“Deni apparently had a restraining order on her ex because he made several threats against her when she decided to break off their engagement.”
“Sounds like she made the right choice.” I directed her left. “Did he say anything about the ex?”
“Just that he has an explosive temper when things don’t go his way.”
“A typical Canberran royal witch then.” And that meant both sexes.
I directed her to Adelaide Avenue. We sped past The Lodge and onto the arterial road. As we neared another big roundabout a few minutes later, I clenched the watch a little tighter and then said, “Left.”
She obeyed and we sped on, through more roundabouts and a number of amber lights. Thankfully, there were no cops and not much other traffic about. Eventually, I directed her right, toward Tuggeranong.
Belle did so, then glanced at me. “Isn’t the Tuggeranong district a bit too working class for a royal witch?”
“That makes it a perfect place to hide someone.”
“Too many families, I’d have thought.”
“Which Aiden would no doubt say is what makes it perfect, because families are often too busy with work and their kids to pay much attention to what else might be going on around them. Take the number of pot farms that are often found in residential homes, for instance.”
“True, but a royal witch is going to stand out like a sore thumb in the midst of the everyday working class.”
“The everyday working class is not going to sense a disguising spell.”
She grunted in acknowledgement. We sped on down the empty road, the streetlights flashing by and the rumbling thunder getting closer. The storm would unleash when we finally found our target, I just knew it.
Once we neared the Tuggeranong area, the guide rope appeared, a gossamer thread that led us unerringly to Deni’s location without me having to constantly deepen psi contact with the watch.
Belle stopped on the opposite side of a driveway that led into a long complex of two-story, red brick, red-roof-tiled homes. They were identical in every way except for the types of plants growing under the crab apples that dominated the small front lawn of every second unit, and the cars parked in their driveways. To the left of the complex lay empty land, while Google Maps said there were parklands behind it.
