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* * *

Dayna and Eric showed up, midday, at The Dancing. Jess saw them arrive, watched from the tack room window as Eric, more focused than usual, escorted Dayna to the big double sliding doors at the end of the aisle, taking them out of her sight. Jess carefully hung the bridle she'd just cleaned, and went to the tack room door to pick them up as they entered, staring unabashed at Dayna.

The small woman was always a little stiff; it came along as part of her many rules for self and others. But today she seemed smaller, tighter. And wasn't she supposed to be working today? Wasn't that the reason Mark had the day off?

Jaime was in the indoor ring, doing concentrated work with her high level competition horse, Sabre. Jess knew she wouldn't notice the arrivals, and wouldn't want to be interrupted. She stepped out in the aisle to greet them when they drew near, about to pass without noticing her quiet presence.

"Jess," Eric said, and his voice gave the name more significance than a greeting deserved.

"Eric," she returned, her own voice in the low end of husky and still awkward with the syllables. She looked at Dayna who, uncharacteristically, was allowing Eric's arm around her shoulders, plainly upset. In the unthinking honesty that was Jess, she sought to comfort. She moved close to Dayna, a hug without arms; it was only as an afterthought she added that human facet of the gesture.

She was taken completely by surprise when Dayna began to sob. She didn't hear the grief and pain that came with her own cries, but instead, a frightened, childlike quality. After only a moment, Dayna's boyish frame ceased its shaking, and drew away from Jess, wiping her reddened eyes with the back of her hand, staring at Jess like she hadn't quite expected to find comfort there.

Eric said quietly, "Dayna had quite a scare this morning."

Jess heard the clop of Sabre's powerful stride and held her questions. Jaime was coming, and she would say anything that needed to be said, would ferret out the last bit of information that mattered. For Jess had no doubt that it would matter, that it was not coincidence that Eric had brought the shaken Dayna here.

Jaime stopped just behind Jess and murmured, "Stand," to the horse. There was a pause, conspicuous in its lack of greeting. Then, "What's going on?"

Jess stepped away, putting her back against the wall to allow Jaime into the group. She reached to retrieve Sabre's discarded halter and held it out as Jaime slipped the gelding's bridle off. Jaime gave him half a granola bar and left him in cross-ties. "So?" she prompted, tugging her gloves off and tucking them into her waistband.

"I got into Derrick's room today." Dayna's voice husked into a low whisper.

"He caught you," Jaime said, with a glower on her face that was meant for Derrick.

Dayna nodded, then changed her mind with a quick shake of her head. "I hid under the bed."

"Dayna, why? You're an employee—you could have told him you were checking on the plumbing, or the light bulbs, or anything."

"I didn't think he'd let me go, knowing what I'd seen," Dayna said, regaining some of her natural asperity. "He had a man in his room, drugged and tied. Hurt. He called him—"

"Carey," Jess breathed.

"Carey," Dayna affirmed.

"Carey!" This last was Jaime, caught completely by surprise. "Did you talk to him?"

"Just a little. He wasn't in very good shape—and what he did say didn't make much sense. He was worried about someone getting hold of . . . something. I think he said 'spells.' "

Jaime frowned. "Did you call the police?"

"I thought you two didn't want the police in on this," Dayna said, looking from Jaime to Eric. "So I waited."

"No! No police," Jess said decisively. She had not lost her equine memory, which was as formidable as any elephant's. The uniformed men had done nothing but blunder, as far as she was concerned—taking her unawares in the fountain, scaring the chestnut into his fatal run.

"Okay, okay," Jaime said, holding a hand up for time out. She turned back to her horse and hauled up on the girth billets to free the buckles, tugged the saddle off the gelding's towering back. "Start from the beginning, Dayna. There's no point in arguing over what to do until we understand what's happened."

Jess tossed her head impatiently, but Jaime caught her eye, and she responded to the directive within that gaze. She took a deep breath and blew softly through her nose, and listened.

"I've told you most of it," Dayna shrugged. "This guy was tied to one of the beds. He was dirty and smelly, and had a pretty gross bandage around his arm. I didn't get much from him—I'm pretty sure he was drugged. He was worried about some kind of . . . well, 'spells' is what he said. And he talked about Lady."

Jess stood straight up. "Lady," she murmured.

Dayna scowled slightly. "He didn't say Lady was a horse."

Jess snorted expressively but kept her thoughts to herself.

"Well, he didn't. Just said he was worried about someone getting hold of these spells. I was trying to untie him when Derrick came back." A scowl. "Scum."

"I noticed." Jaime checked the heat of Sabre's chest and returned him to his stall. "Jess, do you know what Carey meant when he said 'spells'?"

Jess sifted through memories of the time before, distinct but hard to translate into human terms. She knew Carey was most likely to be concerned about that which they took from Arlen's stable to the other stables—lately, usually Sherra's, a woody, friendly place with the best of grain, the leafiest green hay. And she also knew Arlen could make unexpected things happen, and that Carey referred to these things under the generic name of "spells." She wasn't sure how Carey could put one of those spells into the saddlebags, but . . .

"Arlen did spells," she said finally, frowning in concentration, staring at the aisle's rubber mat floor. "He sometimes gave spells to Carey, I think. We took them from one stable to another. We were on a run when men chased us, and then I was here."

They stared at her, offering various expressions of amazement. Finally Eric said, "I had no idea you could speak so well."

"She's a smart one," Jaime said brusquely, responding to the uncertain look on Jess' face. "She knows there's no point to talking unless you have something to say."

"What sort of spells did Arlen do?" Eric asked. Dayna stepped away from his arm and wrapped her own arms around her waist, listening without committing to acceptance.

"I—" Jess started, and faltered. It was so difficult to be sure what they might consider a spell. So many of the strange things of this place seemed like things Arlen might have done. "He can move things without touching them," she offered tentatively. "He can make his voice come out of nowhere, when he's at a different part of his bar—um, house. Once I saw him stop a fight across the yard. He said words and pointed and the two foals—children—stopped. Tied by hobbles you could not see, I think."

Eric and Jaime exchanged a frown. He said, "Are you thinking—"

"That sealed document. With the strange writing. I'm beginning to think there's a reason the OSU language people couldn't ID it."

"I don't like this," Dayna said. "It's beginning to make too much sense." And she tightened her arms around her slight torso and shivered.

"Jess," Eric said thoughtfully, taking obvious stock of her strong, dusky features, "why haven't you told us any of this before?"

Jess laughed, short and sharp, almost a snort. "You call me Jess instead of Lady. You whisper that I am mad. You give me Words: Easy, Jess. It's all right, Jess. When Carey said Words, he never lied to me. If he said, 'easy,' I knew I could trust him to take care of the scaring things. You—you tell me I am not Dun Lady's Jess. You tell me easy—but you lie! You have not taken care of anything!"

Eric's brows folded together in dismay. "Jess—" he started, and then couldn't seem to find the words he was looking for. Jaime did better.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's easier for us to deny what we don't understand than to try to face it."

Jess studied them a moment, her dark-eyed gaze resting longest on Dayna, who shook her head.

"I'm sorry, too," Dayna said. "Because I still won't—can't—accept all of what you say."

Jess took a deep breath that filled the most remote areas of her lungs, and let it trickle audibly between her teeth. "At least those," she said, "are true words."

* * *

Jess stared into the fizz of her glass while Jaime finished the inanities involved with pouring drinks for four people. It was all right, she thought, to play with bubbles when she had little else to accomplish. But now, Carey was found. And he needed her. Jess left the bubbles alone.

"When you first got here, you didn't know our language," Eric said, ignoring his own drink. "But you learned it so fast. How'd you do that?"

Jess watched Dayna draw squiggles on the bar with the condensation ring from her glass. Not listening, she concluded. "The words were not new," she said. "Just the meanings."

"Except for a few," Eric concluded. "Blanket." He smiled, inner amusement. "I guess that's not surprising, given the rest of your story."

Dayna seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing, and reached for a paper napkin to wipe up the water lines.

"Tell us what happened, Jess," Jaime said abruptly. "Now that we're ready to listen—and that we seem to have some decisions to make."

So Jess told them, using the words she hadn't been able to find on that first morning at Dayna's small house. She painted for them her unique view of the uneventful morning's ride, of the sudden ambush as they'd entered the patch of woods that was after the grassy scrub and before the deep, dry riverbed. With her inner eye on the memory, her body unconsciously following the dip and shove of her narration, she missed the grim look that traveled between Jaime and Eric as she told of knocking two riders to their death. When she told of her own fall, she faltered, and her dark eyes refocused on Jaime's kitchen, and she gave them a puzzled little look. "Maybe Arlen . . . ?"

"You think it was one of his spells," Eric said thoughtfully, reaching an absent hand to capture Dayna's, which had moved to clean up the condensation and little spills from all their glasses. She gave an annoyed sigh and sat still, obviously against her inclination.

Jess shrugged. "What else besides a spell could change me like this?"

"Are you really listening to yourselves talk?" Dayna asked.

"We're listening," Jaime assured her. "Maybe it's about time."

Jess brought them all back to the subject uppermost on her mind. "Carey."

"Yeah. Right. Carey." Eric frowned gently. "What about this guy Derrick, Jess?"

"He aimed the flying stick at Carey. We were almost upon him when we fell."

Jaime repeated, "Flying stick."

"Arrow," Dayna said without thinking; her own words seemed to catch her by surprise. "Derrick had a bow and a full quiver in his room."

Eric grinned indulgently at her. "Pretty helpful for an unbeliever."

Dayna frowned and waved him away with a flip of her hand. "I saw them just hours ago. It made me realize what she was trying to say."

Jaime ignored her. "Right. He was chasing you then, and he's got Carey now. And you want him back."

"Damn straight," Jess said emphatically, creating a moment of astonishment in Eric before he burst out laughing.

"Got it from Mark," Jaime said through her own smile. Then she grew serious again. "Jess, the easiest thing to do is report Derrick to the police."

"No!" Jess cried in refusal.

"Sweetie, I know you had a bad time with them once. It was a misunderstanding. But the cops are the ones used to handling this kind of thing."

"Jaime," Eric said slowly, "what will they do, once they free Carey from Derrick?"

"They'll ask questions, that's what," Dayna said with assurance. "They'll want ID. They'll want things to make sense."

"They will believe him no more than you believed me," Jess said, just as assured. "And what will they do then?"

After a moment in which no one offered an answer, Jaime asked, "So then what? What other options do we have? You want to walk in there and take him, ourselves?"

"It doesn't have to be such a big deal," Eric said. "So we watch and go in when this creep's gone. Dayna's still got the key—all we have to do is go in and get him. You and I can help him out if he's still all drugged up, and Jess can convince him we're okay. And if it doesn't work, we can still call in the big players."

"If Carey happens to think Jess is a horse, he won't exactly recognize her," Dayna pointed out acerbically.

"Carey will know me," Jess said confidently.

* * *

Which is how they came to be outside the hotel after dark, lurking. Mark was in the office, and had already told them there was no answer at room 26. They milled uncertainly at the end of the building, close to the room, hesitating, until Dayna broke away and marched up to the door, more frightened of the anticipation than the action. The others, after the hesitation of realizing what she was up to, followed her into the dim unit.

Jess' eyes adjusted quickly to the low illumination, the only source of which was the bathroom light at the back of the room. Her gaze searched out Carey and found him before the last of them had made it past the threshold. The door was left open; they didn't intend to be there long enough to make closing it worthwhile.

"Carey," Jess said urgently, kneeling by the ropes that tied his wrist. Jaime slid in beside her and went to work on the knots right away.

His eyes flew open, clear and piercing hazel. They showed no sign of drugs as they rested uncomprehendingly on Jess. It was only as his gaze went from face to face of those that hovered around his bed and prison, and landed on Dayna's, that his expression cleared. "You were here earlier."

"Yes, and I nearly got caught," Dayna said dryly, flipping the covers back to discover his feet were tied together as well.

"But you came back."

"With reinforcements," Eric said from the foot of the bed, taking an instant away from his vigil of the parking lot to look at Carey and nod. "Eric, Dayna and Jaime. We're friends of Jess'."

"Jess?" Carey asked, wiggling his wrist around in impatience as Jaime swore and dug in her pocket for a knife. "You'd better hurry. If he meant to be gone long, he'd have drugged me."

"Great," Dayna muttered. "Hand me that knife."

Jaime finally sawed through the tough rope around Carey's wrist. She folded her little pocketknife and tossed it; it landed with a thump between Carey's knees. He tried to rise far enough to reach it, grunted with failure, and fell back.

"Take it easy," Jaime said. "Looks like you've been this way far too long."

"Jess?" he asked again, eyeing Dayna as she hacked away at the ankle bonds with the inadequate little knife.

"Me," Jess said, touching his arm, wanting to lay her head on his shoulder like she had so many times before, knowing he wouldn't understand that gesture from this human form. "Lady," she added softly.

His head snapped around; his gaze trapped her and examined every feature, every facet of the woman who was now Jess. Or of the Lady who was now woman. "Lady," he said, accepting the fact as easily and simply as that. "Good job, Lady." Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. "That crazy wizard," he said wearily. "He didn't warn me half again as much as he should have. And you had no warning at all."

The ropes at his ankles gave way and Dayna rubbed some circulation back into the joints through his high, worn boots. "Talk about it later," she said shortly. "Let's get out of here."

Jaime pushed him upright from behind and Eric moved around to haul him to his feet, discovering that he was too tall to offer a shoulder to the unsteady captive. Instead he grabbed the back of Carey's belt and let Jaime move in to offer the shoulder. Jess jigged, trying to hold back for them, and Dayna did nearly the same from behind, trying not to run them over.

So it was Jess who, just out of the doorway, ran squarely into Derrick; beside him stood a slick-looking companion.

"Lady, run!" Carey blurted.

It had the effect of all his Words. Jess obeyed without a second thought, evading both grasping pairs of arms with her quickness, long lean legs putting instant distance between them, running hard, full out, not concerned for the darkness and the unfamiliar ground. Noisy hard-soled pursuit spurred her on, and she raced over pavement to the long uncut grass behind the hotel. Small town turned instantly to dairy country and she ran along a barely visible wire fence line, pulling away from her pursuer with every stride. It was breathing space, and it gave her the room for thought—for the realization that hers were the only running-away feet. Jaime, Dayna, Eric—Carey—all still at room 26.

Thought took away attention and the dark line of a drainage ditch escaped her notice. She sprawled hard with the misstep, skipping across the dew-slick grass like a stone across water, finally spinning to a stop against the solidity of a deep-sunk wood fence post. There she gasped, hearing her pursuer come on, his steps now awkward and irregular with fatigue. And something else: the faint zzzt, zzzt of an electric fence, just above her.

She found the line, a ribbon of wire-woven plastic that ran inside the top tensile wire strand. She recognized it immediately as the same kind of ribbon that discouraged Jaime's horses from leaning on her board fence. And when her eyes fell on the wheel-like bulk that hooked on the tensile wire, she knew it was an insulated reel attached to the end of the ribbon.

She rose and snatched at the reel in the same movement, pulled it back down the way she'd come and stripped the ribbon loose of its guiding insulators. Then she fell back into the wet grass and waited, listening to the extra loud zzzt of the line grounding out beside her, hissing in time to her own pulse. She made herself very small, very flat in the tall grass and, when Derrick's companion stumbled to a stop in front of her, cursing her and searching for her, made herself lie absolutely still. When he took another step she sprang to her feet, ignoring his first startled exclamation and the second, more heartfelt cry when the initial pulse of electricity hit him.

She looped the line around him once, twice, and then had just enough left to hook the reel back to the tensile fence.

Out of his reach.

The curses increased in intensity as he was jolted again, and again, and he realized his predicament. Jess backed away, warily eyeing his jerking silhouette against the starlit country sky. Then she turned and loped back toward the hotel.

In her innermost self, Jess was a prey animal, elegantly suited for running away. She forced every step against her body's will, and all too soon found herself on pavement again, tossing her head in protest against her inner struggle. She moved up against the hotel to hide against the brick as she stared at the open door of room 26.

Light flooded out of the room, clearly outlining Derrick's form just inside the door. Way in the back, crowded into the anteroom to the bathroom, were her three friends—and Carey. Derrick's sideways stance and alert posture left no doubt that his attention was trained inward as much as out, and in his hand he held . . . he held Jess didn't know what. But he held it like a threat, and she intuited that it was a weapon.

Jess slid along the building. Room 16. Room 17. And then she realized she did not have to be alone, and her next step was a pivot that turned into a sprint.

"Mark!" she cried, bursting through the door to the office unit.

He jumped off the stool behind the counter, as startled by her ragged appearance as by her sudden entrance and cry for help. "Geeze, Jess, you knocked ten years off my life! Don't tell me it's gone wrong."

"All wrong," she panted. "Derrick—and another. He still has them! Hurry!"

"No kidding," Mark muttered, following on Jess' heels as she flung herself back out the door. She looked back once to see that he was still there, and took his hand as they jogged down along the bricks together.

The light from the room streamed out onto the walk, Derrick's shadow clearly cast within.

"Jess!" Mark hissed. "You didn't say he had a gun!" But he waved away her puzzled look, murmuring, "Never mind. This isn't going to be so easy. This second guy—is he here, too?"

"Fence," Jess said, pointing toward the pasture, her hands flashing to indicate the tangling as newly learned language deserted her.

He took her arm and drew her back, motioning imperiously with his head when she resisted. Together, quietly, they moved into the anonymity of the night.

"Now, look," Mark said, his hand still closed around her upper arm, more reassuring than commanding now. "We haven't got much time, if you've just got the other guy tangled up in fence. We're going to pretend I'm him, okay? I'm the other guy, and I've caught you, but I need you to fight like hell—and be noisy about it! I want Derrick's eyes on you. Got it?"

"Be noisy," Jess nodded.

"Scream and shriek and curse—all the lung power you've got. When we get there I'm going to turn you loose on him while I go for the gun. Ready?"

It wasn't hard to fight him. It was harder to fight him and not successfully break free. Mark's grip grew tighter as she nearly slipped away, and he shoved her along ahead of him, ducking his head. Jess was brilliantly vociferous, letting loose one equine curse after another—attention getters, every one. In the doorway, Derrick's jaw relaxed into a wide grin.

"Atta boy, Ernie," he said. "She's a prize."

Almost close enough to smell him. Close enough so he was beginning to frown, to peer more attentively at the ducking man behind her. Mark gave her a shove and she pinballed off Derrick's solid form. He automatically reached both hands to steady and contain her, slow to realize she was no longer trying to get away—

—that she had gone for his face with her teeth, unaware, for the moment, that she lacked the formidable incisors and jaw strength she expected to have—so that she merely tore flesh instead of crushing bone.

Derrick yelped; he batted her away and flung her against the door frame, closing in on her dazed form to haul her up and cock his arm back.

"Think twice."

It was Carey's voice and Carey's shaky but resolute arm drawing the bowstring back behind a notched arrow.

"Think hard." Mark this time, holding the gun like it was an old friend.

Carey glanced at the gun, frowned uncertainly at it, and maintained the tension of the bow string. "Step inside," he said. "Just one step. Then back into the corner behind the table." The head of the arrow followed Derrick's resentful compliance. "Lady, push that table in against him."

Jess responded without second thought, meeting Derrick's gaze with her own anger. She stood back and flicked her head in a wrathful gesture, one Carey seemed to be able to interpret and attribute to his own version of Lady, for he smiled a grim smile.

"Let's get out of here!" Dayna burst out, inching along the wall opposite Derrick.

"Let's go," Jaime agreed. She brushed by Eric, picked up Dayna along the way, and grabbed Jess as she passed by. Eric followed, careful to stay out of the path of both arrow and bullet. Then Carey, the arrow still trained on Derrick—and lastly Mark, who slammed the door closed behind him and joined the tail end of the group that hustled for Jaime's pickup.

They moved as a single unit until Carey stumbled and sank to the pavement, his meager supply of energy depleted. Jess was at his side in an instant, her eyes full of worry; Eric looped back and hauled him up, ignoring the warning—be careful—in Jess' face.

She dogged him to the truck, where Jaime flung up the cap door and down the tailgate, then went for the driver's door. Dayna dove for the passenger side as Eric slid Carey into the pickup bed and folded his own length to fit; Jess pushed in behind them and waited for Mark. Instead, Mark slammed the tailgate up and peeled off for the office unit.

"Mark!" Jaime called, tension riding her voice. "You're not going—"

"I'm on the desk tonight, Jay," Mark called, still backpedaling for the hotel. "Besides, now that you've got Jess' guy clear, I take it you have no objection if the police suddenly get interested in that room?"

"Mark, be careful. This isn't a game!"

"I know that," he said, the scowl clear in his voice. Then it brightened. "Besides, I've got the gun!"

Jaime growled something unintelligible and gunned the pickup to life. As they pulled out of the parking lot, sacrificing rubber, Jess imagined she saw a man outlined against the fence line, running for the hotel. Then the view swung with their turn onto the four-lane, and the hotel was out of sight.

And Carey, still panting, barely aware, was here in the truck beside her. Hardly daring to believe, Jess put her hand on his leg, a leg that was so familiar to her side but never to such things as fingers. In some strange way it brought upon her all the depths of despair from the uncontrolled changes in her life, and in this moment that should have been joyous, she found herself crying again.

* * *

It was a sober, wrung-out crew that pulled into the giant "U" of Jaime's driveway and disembarked onto the gravel. Carey managed to stay on his feet as they escorted him into the kitchen; then he slumped into one of the table chairs and stretched his feet out, while Jaime went straight to the bathroom to relieve her aching eyes of her contacts. When she came back in glasses, still in that perceiving-the-world-anew mode that came with the eyewear, she looked around at the group and couldn't help the bubble of laughter that escaped. "Will you look at us? We look like we've been on a 20-mile hike under full gear—and we only left this kitchen an hour and a half ago!"

"I, for one, think we did pretty damn good," Eric announced. "And I'd like something to drink."

"Drink, or drink?" Jaime inquired, thinking that her kitchen was fast becoming the ritual place for group drink-and-thinks.

"In between. A beer would be nice," he allowed.

"I'll have a screwdriver. A double," Dayna muttered, then shook her head at Jaime's inquiring look. "No, a beer is fine."

"Beer all 'round, then," Jaime announced. "Except for Carey, I think. Food is what he needs—how about some scrambled eggs, Carey? And a glass of milk?"

Bemused, Carey nodded.

Jaime reached for the eggs and pointed Eric at the refrigerator. "You're the barkeep," she told him, and turned on the stove. Carey, she noticed, had grown more alert, and was watching every move. "Would you believe," she asked no one in particular, "that I've got a show in two days?"

"If you can handle this, a horse show'll be a piece of cake," Dayna said.

Jaime laughed. "I guess you're right at that." And, with hardly any pause, "Carey, after you've had a meal and a chance to clean up, we've got more questions than you'd want to answer in your whole life. I hope you're up to it."

Carey glanced at Jess. "I'm not surprised," he said wearily. "I haven't seen much of this world, and I know even less about it, but I don't guess you get many like us dropping in."

Dayna's laugh was short and just short of bitter. "I guess not."

Eric scooted the last of the beers onto the bar and looked thoughtfully at Carey. "Jaime, you got first aid stuff around here somewhere?"

"Um, yeah," she said, stirring eggs. "In the downstairs bathroom linen closet. But it'll wait, Eric. Just have a seat and drink your beer. Take a couple of deep breaths. I think we all need it." And while they followed her advice, she finished with the eggs, coming around the bar to slide the plate in front of Carey, adding a glass of milk before she finally grabbed her own drink and settled down on one of the bar stools.

The silence that settled around them was part awkward, part comfortable. Comfortable to be sitting, relaxing, strange mission accomplished. Awkward in Dayna's almost sullen, cross-legged posture on her chair, backed into the corner. Threatened, Jaime knew, by what she still couldn't—or wouldn't—understand. And awkward in the way Carey kept looking around, watching them, double-checking Jess—as if he needed to see again that she was there, long and lean and tousle-haired. Jess herself had withdrawn somewhat, and looked a little befuddled, like she didn't know how to act around a man whom she obviously worshipped—as a horse.

Jaime heaved a big sigh and wished that she was, indeed, at the relative simplicity of the horse show, where all she had to do was keep straight the patterns of the several different classes each of her two horses was entered in. Training level, test four. Young Silhouette's first class. Enter, working trot. Halt at X. Salute. Her mind quickly fell into the familiar exercise, leaving her as quiet as the rest of them, until Carey pushed his plate back and downed the last of the milk.

Jaime roused herself. "Through? Feel better?"

"A little," Carey nodded. "Just now starting to get hungry, now that my stomach's awake."

"Not surprising. Tell you what—you know how to use the shower?" she asked, remembering Dayna's account of the debacle of Jess and the shower monster.

Carey ruefully shook his head. "I saw it in the hotel, but I never got the chance to use it. As I'm sure you can tell."

"I don't think Derrick used it much either," Dayna said dryly.

"Good," Jess said, interposing her first, fierce contribution since their arrival home. "That way we can smell him coming."

Eric choked on an endearing, unmasculine giggle, and even Dayna relaxed for a smile of true amusement. "I'll show him around," Eric offered, holding out a hand to haul Carey to his feet. "Start making a list of those questions, Jaime. We won't be long."

* * *

Jaime hung up the phone and stared at it thoughtfully. Jess knew it had been Mark from this end of the conversation, but she, like Dayna and Eric—who'd left Carey to take care of himself in privacy—waited to hear what his news had been.

"He didn't call the police after all," she told them. "Derrick and his friend took off. Mark checked the room and there was nothing left there. He doesn't think Derrick will be back, and neither do I."

"I wouldn't, if I was him," Eric agreed. He rinsed out his beer bottle and added it to the other glass in the bag by the door.

"Mr. Environment," Dayna said. "Always recycle, even in the midst of a crisis."

Taken aback, Eric gave her a puzzled look. "Why are you coming down on me?"

Dayna covered her face with her hands and scrubbed her cheeks and eyes. "Never mind. I'm sorry. You know chaos drives me crazy."

Although Eric and Jaime seemed to follow the entire exchange, Jess was left in the dust. But maybe she would have been the first, anyway, to notice Carey coming out of the downstairs guest room, the room where Jess now slept. At the sight of him, something within her relaxed, for he was much more the Carey she was used to seeing—clean-shaven, clean, period; his blond hair several shades lighter than it had appeared an hour ago, if still too long for conservatively polite society. The fatigue from his ordeal still showed clearly in the dark hollows beneath eyes set a trifle too deep, but there was something of his jaunty self-confidence in evidence as well.

"I'm going to have to tell Arlen about that shower business," he said. "There's got to be some kind of spell that would make it work for us, too."

"Arlen," Jaime repeated thoughtfully.

"Jess said something about a man named Arlen," Eric said, then added, "But not much. She really hasn't been able to answer our questions, Carey. That's why we've got so many for you."

Carey rolled back the sleeves of the lightweight shirt Mark had unknowingly contributed to the cause. The pants, too, were too long, for Carey's build had helped to make him the successful courier he was. Not too tall, leanly muscled as opposed to muscle-bound. Now he sat that rider's frame down by the table again, giving Jess a pensive gaze. "I'm surprised she was able to tell you anything," he said. "Considering her point of view."

"Which was?" Dayna prodded, and Jess knew what it was about, knew the others were waiting for the answer as well. They wanted confirmation. They wanted to hear from the lips of someone else, someone who seemed infinitely more worldly, that Dun Lady's Jess was who she claimed to be.

"This some kind of test?" he frowned, sensing the tension that had suddenly diffused the room, pitting Jess defensively against the others. "If it is, maybe you'd better tell me the stakes."

Jaime shook her head. "Not really a test, Carey. The problem is, we're trying to believe in things we—well, that we don't believe in. Horses that turn into women. A man named Arlen who makes magic spells. So far, we've been hearing it from Jess—and considering the state she was in when Dayna and Eric found her . . . well, let's just say that we're confused. Anything you can do to help clear that up would be great. Other than that, you don't owe us a thing. There's more than enough gold in those saddlebags to take you just about anywhere you want to go."

Dayna's head rose sharply at the mention of the gold, and she gave Eric a look that clearly said we'll talk about this later. Eric shrugged, seeming not in the least affected.

Carey sat for a moment in thought, fingering the plain silver band on his little finger. "Which was," he said distinctly, answering Dayna's question of minutes earlier, "Dun Lady's Jess. Best courier mount I've ever trained. Nearly sixteen hands, black points and the prettiest tiger striping on her legs you'd ever care to see." He gave Jess a sudden thoughtful look, and beckoned to her with a single word. "Lady."

Jess responded immediately, went to stand in front of him and then went to her knees when he gestured her down. He didn't appear to notice that Jaime stiffened at his casual commands, and that Dayna's jaw had set; with a sure but impersonal touch he tipped Jess' head and pushed her coarse shaggy hair aside. "Lady was branded," he murmured. "I just don't know exactly where the spot would be on this form—"

Jess closed her eyes as he searched her neck and nape. Part of her thrilled to feel Carey's touch again, but there was definitely a part that wasn't sure about it. And there was a part, too, that was decisively aware, for the first time, of his maleness, as opposed to his Carey-ness. Behind her closed eyes, Jess succumbed to a quandary of opposing feelings, until the only bearable response was, for the moment, to fall back into the relationship that she knew. She was Lady, and he was Carey. He had the Words, the hands that groomed and fed her, and the affection that drove her.

"There we go," Carey said softly, his fingers touching the raised tissue of a scar in the hair behind her ear. "Look, if you want to believe."

And they did. Four sets of fingers, in turn, lightly touched her scalp. Four sets of eyes stared at her, and breath gusted lightly down her neck as they all leaned close.

"It's Arlen's brand," Carey said. "It was set magically, which is how he got the detail."

The breath and the stares retreated. Carey let the thick mass of hair fall back into place; Jess opened her eyes and barely had time to relax before his fingers caught her jaw, this time tipped her face up to look at him. While the others absorbed what they'd seen—one more chunk of evidence in the growing assortment—Carey examined her new features. He brushed back her bangs to stare into dark, slightly-larger-than-normal irises, eyes that gazed trustingly back up into his. He ran his fingers along high, long cheekbones and down the slightly long nose that complimented them so well. Strong jaw, good bones under dusky skin. It was when he lifted her lip to look at her teeth that Jaime spoke, and her voice was distinctly cool.

"She may have been a horse to you, but she's a woman now. While you're in my house, you won't treat her like an object that you own."

Carey's hand fell away from Jess' face, but his expression was mildly perplexed. "I think," he said moderately, "that I probably know her a little better than you do, considering that I raised her and trained her—but in consideration of your ignorance of magic and its ways, I defer to your wishes."

"Oh? You've seen horses turned to people before?" Jaime asked archly.

Dayna laughed out loud, and startled the rest of them away from the impending argument. "Sorry," she said to their surprised faces. "It just struck me funny. We can't believe she's a horse and he can't believe she's human."

"What does Jess believe?" Eric asked, looking at her.

Jess knew with unwavering confidence that she was completely confused, and her expression must have shown it, for Carey once more reached out to her, this time with a consoling touch.

"Tell us," Jaime said, changing the subject but very little in her tone of voice, "about this spell you're concerned about."

Carey grew instantly somber. "You said you had my saddlebags. Can I have them?"

Jess rose to her feet and moved quickly into her bedroom, retrieving the bags from between mattress and headboard. There, she knew no one could take them from this room while she slept, and from there, she could smell the oiled leather that reminded her of Carey, Carey and his careful hands adjusting her tack so none of it pinched or rubbed dun horseflesh.

She returned with the saddlebags and held them out to him, not certain if she should sit by him or take her seat again.

"Have a chair, Jess," Jaime said softly.

Jess backed into the seat and Eric's hand fell on her shoulder, quiet and supportive.

Carey took no notice. He dug into the cavernous pockets of the saddlebags and mined the contents, depositing a horseshoe, a handful of nails, and a small hammer onto the table. A light, oiled-canvas slicker followed.

"We haven't taken anything," Jaime told him. But the pouch of gold came next, and she amended, "Well, not quite true. We took one gold piece and cashed it in. Jess needed something to wear."

"You're welcome to all the gold if I can get back to Arlen with—" he came up with the sealed document and brandished it with a sigh of relief, "—this."

Eric reached over Jess' shoulder for the document, and Carey surrendered it only after a painfully reluctant pause. "And just what is it?" he asked, looking again at the strange paper and the dark wax that sealed it. Beside the seal were the runes he and Dayna, and then Jaime, had puzzled over. His eyes widened and he glanced from the dark ink to Jess and back.

"Yes," Carey said. "It's the same as the brand. It represents Arlen's name."

"How come you speak English?" Dayna asked abruptly. Eric looked at her in mild surprise while Jaime's eyebrow raised in appreciation of the question.

"Jess didn't," she contributed. "Although she seems to have picked it up pretty damn fast."

Carey suppressed most of his amused laugh. "I'm not surprised at that," he said. "She's been listening to me ever since she was a foal. She had most of the words in her memory—just not all the meanings."

"She knew 'blanket' well enough," Dayna muttered.

"'Food' went over pretty big, too," Eric added. "But why English? I know Americans tend to think it should be the universal language, but I don't think this is quite what anybody had in mind."

Carey shrugged. "Magic," he said simply.

"Magic," Dayna repeated flatly.

Carey ducked his head, scratching the back of his neck in a vaguely embarrassed way. "Unfortunately, I can't tell you exactly how it works."

"Convenient." This, too, a mutter from Dayna.

Carey's head raised sharply, a flash of anger replacing the chagrin. "If I understood magic that well, I wouldn't be a courier, now, would I?"

"Just tell us what you do understand," Jaime interposed, shooting a warning glance at Dayna.

Carey's hand went to the neckline of his shirt, flattened against his breastbone as if searching for something, and fell away, empty, to rest on the table. Jess had often seen the small colorful stones he wore hung on a chain, and she wondered where they'd gone, and why they were important. He caught her questioning gaze and gave her a nod: affirmation.

"I suppose the easiest thing is to tell you why the document is so important." He took a deep breath and appraised their somber, attentive faces. "Until recently, no one in my world suspected that you existed. I suppose we should have wondered—the less conscionable and more stupid among the magic users traffic with unspeakable monsters every time they figure out a new way to circumvent the checkspells."

"Checkspells," Jaime repeated. "Laws?"

"Oh, we have those, too—but the checkspells deal only with magic. When the Wizard's Council—which is independent of all the little countries in my land—can agree long enough to decide certain magics shouldn't be used, they figure out a checkspell and set it in place. It more or less nullifies that particular spell, if anyone is of a mind to try it anyway."

"Sounds sensible to me," Eric nodded.

Jess listened, entranced, learning about her own land for the first time, and fitting the explanation into a hundred different pieces of memory.

"The tricky part," Carey went on, "is that there's always a gap between the discovery of a new spell and the formation of the checkspell. Normally it's not too much of a problem; little spells are discovered every day, and even the ones that could cause potential mischief don't get a lot of attention right away. There's usually enough time to do something about it."

"I'll bet we fit in here somewhere," Dayna said.

He afforded her the barest sideways glance. "Occasionally, someone comes up with a new spell that's really revolutionary, and then there's a scramble to keep it classified until it can be evaluated and checked. And that's what I have here. A spell on its way to one of Arlen's associates."

"And one that Derrick wants," Eric concluded.

"Derrick's employer, most likely," Carey said. "Calandre."

"Pretty name," Jess murmured.

"Pity it went to one so foul," Carey said, his expression darkening. "For it was she, Lady, who sent those men to chase us."

Jess closed her eyes and shuddered, finding the memory of that chase all too easily summoned.

"All right," Jaime said, stretching. "So you've got a really nifty spell and Calandre wants it. How'd you end up here? And why hasn't this kind of thing—visitors like you—been going on all along?"

Dayna's light blue eyes narrowed. "Because they haven't known how. Isn't that right, Carey. That precious spell of yours tells them how to get here, and you don't have any way to keep them off our world. A thousand Derricks could pop in, or maybe even a thousand Calandres. We haven't got anything to check magic. What happens when they start summoning their monsters here?"

Eric blinked at her, while a slow smile spread across Jaime's face. "Woman, I like your style," she said. "Sat there behind all that sarcasm and figured it right out, didn't you?"

Carey, too, seemed taken aback. "I thought you were the one who didn't believe me in the first place," he complained.

"That doesn't mean I turned my brain off," Dayna said smartly.

"No," he agreed, and picked up the thread of her statements. "That's not even considering all the things you have here that we couldn't come up with checkspells to stop. Guns. Explosives. Machines that poison your air and land. Things that we've never even thought of, because so many of our needs are met by magic. Things that people like Calandre would introduce just to get an edge." His face was grim. "I've learned a lot since I arrived here, even though I spent most of the time tied up in that room. Derrick spent enough time watching that television thing. . . . And I tell you this—even though Arlen's concern was for your world, I've seen enough to know my world is in just as much danger."

Eric regarded him with a puzzled look. "So what's the problem? You've got your spell, and Derrick's probably in some dark alley, hiding from the police."

"Marion isn't big enough to have a dark alley," Dayna objected, a glint of humor finally showing in what had been an entirely too somber face.

Eric rolled his eyes and poked her on the arm. "Smart ass," he murmured, not without affection.

"The problem," Carey said, his hand drifting up to his chest again, "is that Derrick took my spellstones."

"Is that supposed to make sense?" Dayna asked.

Carey scowled. "I never said this was going to be easy to understand."

"Just do your best," Jaime said patiently. "We're with you so far—whatever you're talking about specifically, it seems plain enough that Derrick has something you need before you can leave."

"That's right. Arlen provides all his couriers with a certain number of spells. By setting them into an object—different kinds of crystals and rock, usually—he gives us something we can take along and use if the ride turns ugly."

"For instance, if someone like Calandre sends someone like Derrick out to chase you down," Eric suggested.

Carey nodded. "Usually it's a recall spell, which would take a courier back to the safety of his employer's dwelling. But Arlen is the only one who fully understands the spells that can cross worlds. He couldn't take the chance that someone after the document would be close enough to be included in the recall."

"Then Calandre—or whoever—would have both the document and Arlen. It'd be impossible for anyone else to come up with a checkspell," Jaime surmised.

Carey blinked at her. "Exactly. So he set the new spell for me, twice—once to take us away, and once to get us back. But magic is a little tricky—"

Dayna laughed out loud, then covered her mouth as he turned an annoyed gaze on her. "Sorry," she mumbled around her hand, the smile still in her voice.

"—and some of it works on the principles of intent rather than direct instruction; all I knew was that language would be accounted for. I had no idea Lady would be changed like this." He scowled on her account. "I doubt he knew—it may even be a glitch in the spell."

"Gives you confidence in the whole procedure, I imagine," Jaime said dryly.

"I still don't get it," Dayna said, resting her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. "In order to use that spell, you'll have to trigger it from here. This world. You know, the one without magic."

"I was told," Carey said, his dry voice showing his full awareness of the situation, "that the spell still has some connection to my own world."

Jaime looked at him for a moment, and then rested her gaze on Jess, who sat wide-eyed, beginning at last to understand some of the aspects of her situation. "And if you're wrong?" she asked finally.

He looked at her, facing both Jaime and the circumstances squarely. "Then I live the rest of my life here. Lady stays as she is. And Arlen assigns another courier to the same job, and tries again."

"Does he know we're here?" Jess, finally, began to take an active part in the conversation. "Will he look for us? Will he come for us, and give me back my running, the wind in my face?" She held her hands before her, regarding them with something akin to scorn. "These are not sturdy enough. My face is flat and I have no whiskers."

Eric moved around to face her, taking up her hands and enfolding them in his. "Your hands are elegant, Jess, and so is your poor flat face. Jaime's horses will take you on wonderful runs—and you will learn to find the beauty that's still inside you. What about the Jess that speaks, and cries, and plays soccer—do you want to lose her?"

Jess gave a humph that left little to the imagination regarding her feelings about this Jess. But she let him keep her hands.

Behind him, Carey shook his head. "She is what she is, Eric. That's what I was trying to tell you earlier. Essentially, Lady will always be a horse. Magic can change form, but not essence."

"This means you'll have to deal with Derrick again," Jaime said grimly. "If you want the recall spell."

The edge of Carey's mouth quirked into a wry grin. "That shouldn't be too difficult to arrange. I'm sure he's still looking for me."

"How reassuring," Jaime said. She tucked back some dark strands of hair that had escaped her French braid and said, "Look. I've got my own life here. I'm heading into a pretty busy show season, one I can't afford to screw up." She looked up from the thumbnail she'd been contemplating and caught Carey's carefully expressionless face, while Jess made no effort to hide her anxiety. "Relax, you two. I'm just saying that my life's got to go on. I can't arrange it around you while you figure out what you're up to. On the other hand, Jess is a real help around the place and I could use her at some of the shows I've got scheduled. So if you don't mind paying for your own groceries, you can stay on for a while."

Carey sat stiffly, his face giving away nothing of his thoughts. After a moment Jaime's expression closed up, too, leaving only the confused hurt of an offer apparently refused. Carey took belated notice and hastened to clarify his thoughts.

"I'm not sure you realize the danger," he said. "I don't know what the general rules of conduct are for this place—I get the feeling your television doesn't represent you any more accurately than our children's puppet shows—but I doubt Derrick is like anyone you've dealt with before. He's ruthless and he's already found contacts with his seamy counterparts here. If—when—he finds me, he won't hesitate to do whatever's necessary to get his hands on that document."

"He can't be any worse than some of the people in this country," Jaime said firmly, and watched him until he gave her a nod, a succinct acceptance of her offer.

Jess thought her head would explode if she tried to think about all these new things for one more minute. "I'm hungry," she announced boldly, and Carey laughed affectionately.

"That's my Lady," he said.

* * *

The rest of the evening, in contrast with their conversation about magic, wizards, and alternate worlds, had been incredibly mundane, Jaime thought, staring down the barn aisle from the arena, watching Jess go about the morning cleaning. Carey was still in the house, sleeping; after the adrenaline of escape had faded, so had he, and he'd done it in a big way. She wouldn't be surprised if he slept for days, considering what he'd been through.

Sabre walked up behind her and pushed her shoulders with his nose. He knew the routine: a few days before a show, she turned her competition horses into the arena and free-longed them, twice a day, enough to get the kinks out and keep them fresh. But it wasn't any fun, he seemed to say as he nudged her again, unless she played too.

"All right, big guy," she murmured, shoving him away from her and raising the longe whip to a more attentive position. "Move out, then." With faked annoyance, he shook his head, laid his ears back, and struck out into a reaching trot. After ten minutes of it, he was ready for a good roll, and she left him to himself, tucking the longe whip behind the kick boards lining the lower walls.

Jess was waiting for her by the arena aisle gate, the mounded wheelbarrow behind her. She seemed lost in thought, and didn't take her gaze from Sabre until Jaime was at the gate.

"You don't look happy," Jaime observed. "Especially considering we finally found Carey."

Jess shrugged, one of the gestures she'd completely incorporated into her new persona. She looked down at herself, and then at Sabre. "I am not me," she said, with the look that meant she didn't think she'd be understood. "Carey is Carey, but I'm . . . ?" Another shrug.

"You're Jess," Jaime said. "And Jess isn't someone who's ever had to deal with Carey before."

"Yes," Jess said with a small sigh.

"Forget it," Jaime said. "Just go on being Jess. Finish Reading For Tomorrow, keep working with the horses, and go on learning about the things you do or don't like. Carey's got a lot of decisions to make, and he's probably not worrying about what you're up to."

Jess looked at Sabre again, and this time brightened a little. "First show this weekend," she observed. "You still want me to come?"

"You'd better believe it," Jaime said emphatically. "I need someone there who can take care of the horses without constant direction, and you can do that."

Jess nodded and turned back to the wheelbarrow, balancing a bigger load of old bedding and manure than Jaime had ever dared. The conversation, Jaime felt, had not entirely appeased the young woman's worries. She needed what Jaime herself needed: distraction. She glanced at her watch. She had a lesson scheduled in fifteen minutes, but beyond that, and the chores of packing the show trunk and horse trailer, her day was dismally short of distractions. "Jess," she called, as Jess and wheelbarrow were about to disappear out the open double doors, "would you like to try riding today?"

It was an impulsive suggestion, and an activity Jess had never shown any interest in—but perhaps Jess was equally aware of the need to be doing. "Yes," she said simply, and pushed the wheelbarrow out of sight.

* * *

Fifteen minutes into Jess' lesson, Jaime was all but convinced the whole idea was her biggest mistake of the week. Month, maybe. Looking the perfect equestrian in a pair of Mark's breeches and snugged into his expensive but seldom used riding boots, Jess had walked into the arena like an instructor's dream: long-legged, straight-backed and leanly athletic. And the illusion had shattered the moment she sat down in the saddle.

Somehow, Jaime had expected Jess' intimate knowledge of horses to translate into the reactions of a good rider. Thank goodness she'd followed policy, and put Jess up on her most trustworthy mount. Sunny wandered amiably around the outside track of the arena, while Jess sat, stiff and awkward, her hands clenched on reins that hung uselessly along the gelding's neck.

"Whose idea was this?"

Carey. Jaime glanced at him, confirming what she'd thought she'd heard in his voice: the faintest tinge of derision. "It was my idea," she said calmly, returning her full attention to Jess. "Jess, just relax. You know Sunny's a great beginner's horse; he knows what he's doing."

"What did you think, that she would be a natural, just because she's a horse herself?"

Since that was exactly what Jaime had figured, she bit back the angry denial she'd like to have snapped at him. What was he doing out of bed, anyway? He looked . . . fragile, and not ready to face the world. "I had no idea she'd be so frightened," she allowed, taking his appearance into account as she moderated her voice. "Since you seem to know more about it, maybe you have some suggestions that'll help."

Carey shrugged, grimaced, and rubbed his sore arm. "I never would have put her up there," he said. "Not unless she asked me to."

"It didn't take any convincing," Jaime said sourly, not sure how much longer she would be able to take his attitude. "Jess, come on down to this end. We'll put you on a longe line—that way you won't have to worry about guiding him. All you'll have to do for now is sit on him."

But the change brought little improvement; instead, Jaime felt that Carey's presence was making Jess more nervous. She sat so stiffly that Sunny, feeling her unmoving seatbones, began to offer halts, trying to respond to her apparent signals. Finally Jaime said, "Jess, you're not happy with this, are you?"

Jess mutely shook her head, though it was obvious she didn't want to admit her feelings.

"Are you frightened of him?"

"Of Sunny?" Jess blurted in surprise.

"No," Jaime smiled. "I see not. Try and give me a clue, kiddo—we're going nowhere here."

"If I do the wrong thing," Jess said hesitantly, staring down at the reins in her hands, "then it hurts him."

Ah. Jaime glanced at Carey to see if he'd lit on Jess' meaning as clearly as she. He had indeed tuned into them, lifting his chin from where it had rested on his fist, atop the gate.

"Okay," she told Jess. "I think we can work on that. First of all, I want you to know that as long as you're just sitting up there, moving with him while he walks around in this circle, you're not going to hurt him. Don't worry about what you might be doing tomorrow, or next week, or even ten minutes from now."

Jess eyed her uncertainly, but her fisted hands seemed to relax a little.

"What about it, Carey?" Jaime asked, taking him by surprise. "You ever put a beginner up on Dun Lady's Jess?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "She's not that kind of horse. You've got to be a thinking rider with her."

"Anybody else but you ride her at all?" Jaime persisted—even though the realistic little voice in her head insisted the whole conversation was absurd.

"Sure," he said. "Arlen's always having to contend with people who're politicking him—and every once in a while it suits him to humor them. Since he's got a reputation for one of the best courier fleets in the region, the horses get attention, too." He nodded at Jess. "Lady's a pretty mare, elegant . . . a little more compact than you might think from what you see of her. Quick, though. She tends to catch the eye. Sometimes they ask to ride her. Sometimes I let them."

It was, Jaime thought, an awful long answer to her question. The answer of a man who was trying to justify himself. Jess, though, was now paying him more attention than she gave Sunny. "They asked for me?" she questioned. "Me? They thought I was a good horse?"

"Thought?" Carey snorted. "You are a good horse, Lady."

The turn of the conversation was . . . far from what she had been looking for. Uneasily, Jaime said, "I was just wondering if she could relate to having a rider who was stiff and tense."

Carey shrugged. At first she thought he wasn't even going to make the effort to search his memory, but then his know-it-all attitude fell away, victim to a pleasant grin. "Hey, Lady, you remember that wizard's son, the one who couldn't even spell a night glow?" At her blank expression he realized, "No, you wouldn't remember that part. Tall, skinny guy, walked like he had a pike stuck up his ass. Sat that way in the saddle, too."

Jess perked up, forgetting her fears and twisting in the saddle so she could see him as she traveled the circle. "I stepped on his foot!" she recalled with just a little too much enthusiasm; Jaime saw her quick double check to see if Carey had noticed the slip.

"You sure did," he agreed, letting it pass if he had.

Jess laughed. "He sat with his feet stuck out like this," she continued, locking her knees and pointing her toes east and west. "He was awful!" she decreed and, looking down at herself, laughed again.

Carey's grin broadened; it was hard to look at Jess' laughter and not smile. "He was awful."

Jaime smiled for a different reason. Jess, absorbed in amusement, had relaxed. Sunny sighed a huge sigh, one Jess could not fail to feel through the saddle, and was now softly chewing the bit, a contented little gesture. And Jess looked down at him, and then over to Jaime, as understanding dawned.

"I was riding like that man," she said. "With a pike up my ass. And now I'm not, and Sunny likes it much better."

"Didn't you?" Jaime asked mildly.

She nodded, and then, with a sly smile, asked, "Do you think Sunny will try to step on my foot?"

* * *

Carey sat on the low stool that resided by the arena aisle gate, absently kneading his quickly healing arm as he watched one of Jaime's advanced students longeing a lesson horse. The critical nature of his gaze was more attributable to Jaime's refusal of his own offer to exercise the horses while she was gone than to any slight errors he might have seen in the student's effort. Cathy, her name was, and she seemed to know her way around Jaime's barn pretty well.

The Dancing was a beautiful setup, Carey had to admit, and when it came right down to it, he almost admired Jaime's firm but pleasant refusal of his riding services. She'd pointed out that she'd never seen him ride and she didn't want to fool with it, only one day before the show. It was his pride that was growling, not his common sense.

But it was all tangled up in something that wasn't merely pride, and that was his strong and even fearful conviction that this small group of friends had no concept of what they were dealing with—not when it came to Derrick, or to magic in general. Petite Dayna wasn't even thoroughly convinced that Lady was a horse. Was a horse, and not what Jaime seemed to think, used to be a horse and now human. Association with Arlen had taught Carey that not even magic could change the essential nature of any creature.

He nodded to Cathy as she passed by, leading in the horse to exchange it with another. The clothing on this world was certainly something to get used to. Despite a certain level of sophistication lent to it by mage technology, Camolen had not yet discovered the stretch fabrics which changed bodies from vague shapes under loosely tailored clothing to distinct shapes and movements. He'd had to work hard at nonchalance two days earlier when he'd found Lady wearing those breeches for her first ride. Part of Lady's essential nature was her beauty, and that certainly hadn't changed, even if she was more exotic than conventional. He caught himself wondering how she was doing at the horse show.

Behind him, a horse paced briefly in its stall and squealed. JayDee. In heat, and announcing it to the world, hoping she could get somebody interested. Just like Lady when she—

Carey gave an internal shudder and cut the thought short—or tried to. He and Jaime had had a short and somewhat awkward conversation in which Jaime mentioned that Jess the woman was not dealing with any kind of monthly cycle, and did he suppose she would stick to her equine cycles? Probably. Thank goodness spring had passed with no sign of such an event, for Lady in heat was a . . . was a . . . was less than demure.

Stop it! She's not human! No little wonder he couldn't get his thoughts aimed in the right direction; as long as he sat here looking at horses, how could he expect himself to ponder anything else? Back to the house, he decided, rising and shoving the stool against the wall. He ducked under the cross-ties, gave the horse there an absent pat, and murmured a reply to Cathy's, "See ya," wondering why everyone in this place seemed to use that phrase, regardless of the chance that it might be true.

In the house he found Mark, with whom he'd had little contact so far but whom he judged to be amiable enough. Mark was in the final stages of preparing the boxed ingredients of what he called macaroni and cheese; he looked up from the stove and said, "You want some?"

It smelled good enough . . . worth a try. "Sure," Carey allowed. He was still getting used to the idea that obtaining almost any kind of food was as easy as walking into one of many stores. He wasn't, however, spending a lot of effort to get used to this world, despite the purchase of new clothes and his much shorter hair. He hoped he wouldn't be here long enough to make familiarity a necessity.

Mark dropped two plastic bowls on the table, dumped the macaroni into them, and hooked a chair with his foot, sitting with a thump. "Not the greatest stuff, but I don't do much cooking when Jaime's at one of her shows," he said.

Carey thought it was odd to apologize for offering food and nearly said so. Instead, he said, "I'm grateful you and Jaime are letting us stay. I hope it won't be for long."

"I thought you didn't have a way to get back home," Mark said through a mouthful of macaroni. He swallowed and added, "You really think this Derrick guy'll try to find you?"

"I know he will," Carey said positively, testing a cautious forkful of the pasta. Not bad. "I suppose he might try to go home, but I doubt it—Calandre's a pretty tough mistress, and he'd do better to stay in this world than try to return to Camolen without the spell."

Mark frowned, and spent an obvious moment chewing on words as well as his dinner. "Some of this doesn't make sense to me. I mean, how do things work over there? Who's in charge? Isn't there someone who does this James Bond stuff for a living? The Feds, the Camolen CIA?"

Carey ignored the unfamiliar references. "There is . . . but there isn't." He waved off Mark's protest with his fork. "It kind of works like your states, from what I've picked up so far. Camolen isn't one country, it's about two dozen little ones called precincts. Originally they were just territories held by powerful wizards. For the most part wizards aren't interested in politics . . . but they do tend to attract people looking for power or security."

"And the precincts formed around them."

Carey shrugged. "It's part democracy, part inheritance . . . lander control tends to stay in the family."

"Like the Kennedys." Mark nodded, amused by yet another reference that sailed by Carey.

"Whatever. Even now, though, people tend to think of Anfeald as Arlen's and Siccawei as Sherra's—or Erowah as Calandre's. But each precinct has its own guard, and a Lander Council."

"So who's really in charge?"

"Depends on who you ask." Another shrug. "It's the wizards that hold us together as Camolen. A long time ago they decided that if they didn't create a council to police one another, they'd tear the continent apart. Now people can go to the Lander justice sessions with complaints, and the Landers go to the Wizards." He grinned. "I understand life was pretty interesting before that."

"Spare me," Mark muttered. "It's been interesting enough around here lately."

Carey snorted. "Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, major political squabbling tends to upset the wizards—too distracting—so that helps to keep things quiet. And the landers usually stay out of the wizards' way, unless they're really causing problems."

"Like Calandre."

"She's been pretty good lately—until this. They'll be in on that soon, if they're not already." Carey held out his bowl for seconds when Mark got up to help himself. "But everything rides on that checkspell—and keeping Arlen's spell out of Calandre's hands in the first place. That brings it right back to me. Somehow I've got to get those spellstones back and get home."

Mark inserted some obviously reluctant reality. "Maybe you're not connected to your magic after all—maybe there's no point to butting heads with Derrick."

Carey echoed the gesture. "There's only one way to find out, now."

"How's that?" Mark asked with interest.

"Try Arlen's spell," Carey said matter-of-factly, looking up from the bowl to see Mark's reaction, which turned out to be intense curiosity.

"Can you do that?"

"Probably not. I've never done magic, aside from a few simple spells almost everyone knows."

"Can't hurt to try, I suppose," Mark said, scraping the last of the food from his bowl.

Carey didn't say anything. It could, indeed, hurt to try. If Arlen had been right, and he had some tie to Camolen that let him bring magic into this world, a botched spell could wreak havoc. But if he took it slow . . .

"Well, whatever you're going to do with that manuscript, I'd find a good hiding place for the thing," Mark advised, dumping his bowl into the sink, along with the other dishes that had accumulated since Lady and Jaime had left.

"Hide it? Why?"

Mark gave him a surprised look. "Because your friend Derrick knows Jaime lives here, that's why."

Carey fought through astonishment, and then anger. How in the nine heavens had Derrick found this place? And how could Jaime have neglected to tell him about it? "Derrick knows . . ." he said slowly, closing his eyes.

"Jay forget to tell you?" Mark asked. "Yeah, I'll bet she did. She gets like that before a show, and things have been a little . . . odd around here lately anyway. Old Derrick came by a couple weeks ago—he was checking all the stables around here, looking for Jess. It's hard to believe he wouldn't recognize Jaime when we were at the LK."

"So of course he'd come back here again," Carey muttered, half to himself, suddenly glad he'd stowed Derrick's bow and quiver under the couch he'd been sleeping on. He decided that tonight, he would string it. "He'll probably come as a thief would," he told Mark. "At night, or when no one's home. Hiding the spell sounds like a good idea."

"Hey, I know just the place." Mark squirted a liberal amount of thick blue liquid over the dishes as he ran hot water; he ended the task with a flourish and returned the bottle under the sink. "Toss your bowl over here, huh? Might as well get this done before they take over the kitchen." He fielded the bowl that Carey obligingly—and literally—threw to him, and explained, "This is a pretty old house. When they built it, they used a pier foundation—didn't put in a basement, aside from a little storm cellar. Since then the family's been digging it out. It's done, now, but there's one wall that's not blocked up yet. It leads right under the front porch crawl space. A guy your size could get in there easy—heck, I'm skinny enough to do it—but Derrick's big enough he probably wouldn't even think about it. We can put the spell inside a couple zip locks and stash it under there, if you want."

It was just clever enough to suit Carey. Except . . . "Zip locks?"

"Yeah, plastic bags. It'll keep the paper dry." Mark glanced at Carey's lack of understanding—Camolen had spells for such things—and said, "Never mind, you'll see. Anyway, it'd be easier to do it before dark, if you want to."

Carey glanced out the window over the sink. Another hour till sunset, maybe. "I want to get a quick look at the spell, first," he said. "Just so I can get an idea of what I'm working with." A look he'd been wanting for two impatient days, and that he didn't dare try to take until he felt clear of the fatigue and drugs of his captivity.

"I don't know how you're going to do that," Mark called after him as he went to get his saddlebags, also under the couch. "It's sealed pretty well."

It would be, Carey thought, dropping to his knees to fish the saddlebags out, retrieving the bow and quiver while he was at it. Fortunately, the spell that would release those seals happened to be one of the few he knew—although he doubted Arlen realized it. But it was inevitable that a wizard's top courier would pick up something of magic, over the years. And Carey had been with Arlen for . . . ten years, twelve? Ever since his adolescence. He absently thumbed the courier's ring he still wore.

He pulled the manuscript out of the saddlebags and rested it on his thighs, contemplating the idea of trying it himself, and the possible consequences. Maybe he'd use the indoor arena. He didn't think any pyrotechnics would affect an area larger than that, although the noise might alarm the horses. He ran his fingers along the edge of the thick, creamy vellum and sighed. What a mess. You're the only one I know who will invoke that crystal, Arlen had said. Given a second chance, Carey wasn't certain he could be trusted to do the same again.

Mark came in the family room, leaned down to look over Carey's shoulder. "See? We thought about getting into it—Jaime was going to take it to OSU, see if they could identify the language, but decided against it when they couldn't do anything with a copy of the letters on the front. But we decided we'd just rip the thing up, so we left it."

Magic, Carey had learned, was little more than a series of mnemonic devices that channeled the user's will, which in turn guided the power of the magic. That was the one problem with magic, and the reason he'd never given any thought to learning more than he already knew—any power that was used in a spell was also channeled through the magic-user's body, and the more potent the spell, the more the power. No, thank you. Fortunately, the spell for releasing Arlen's seal required little in the way of concentration or magic.

And it would tell him if he had any hope at all of employing magic in this world. With a glance at Mark, Carey closed his eyes and took the deep breath that triggered his own minor level of concentration. His fingers spelled out the short formula, and with a wash of relief greater than he'd expected, he felt the slight tug of magic pass through body and soul. When he opened his eyes, the seal didn't look any different, but it was warm putty to his fingers, and peeled right off the vellum.

Mark, still close over his shoulder, gave a low whistle. "Holy shit—it's for real!"

Carey couldn't keep the satisfaction out of his voice. "Yes, it's for real—and it's my first step home."

* * *

Well into dark of the next evening found all of the household members at work, trying to wrap up the end of a busy day. Carey ferried flakes of hay for the horses' bedtime snack—a chore Jaime did trust him with—while Mark fumbled around in the dark, hauling in the sacks of grain that should have come in while it was still daylight, but which had been forgotten in a day of fence mending. They were both tired, and Mark was slow—slow enough that Carey had once checked, and found him listening to the owls in the small patch of woods behind the paddocks. Carey couldn't blame him.

The third party at work was Keg, the ever-busy farm dog, who took off in his nightly rounds of the property. It was Keg who first alerted Carey to trouble, although at the time he was more concerned about his skirmish with the baling twine than he was about what Keg might find to bark at. It took a moment for him to recall Mark's warning of the previous day, and by then he'd heard the unmistakable grunts of a fight.

He flung aside the loose twine and ran outside, momentarily blind in the darkness. The dog's barking was close now, and had escalated into fury; Carey followed the noise to the front of the house, and had just made out the two figures struggling there when he was stunned by a thunderous blast of noise. Keg silenced immediately, and through the ringing in his ears, Carey shouted Mark's name.

"Son of a bitch!" Mark yelped in way of an answer, and by then Carey had found his night vision, and could see Mark struggling with a larger man he'd nonetheless managed to get partially pinned. "On the ground, Carey—get the gun!"

It was a dark moon and the gun was invisible on the dark grass; not until a car drove by and its headlights glinted off the steel did Carey see it, and then they all three dove for it at the same time. Carey's hands closed around the warm barrel and he rolled away and up to his knees, brandishing the weapon even though he had no idea how to use it. Three wary figures stared at one another for the merest instant as they each deciphered who was who, and then Carey pointed the gun more accurately and advised, "Stand fast, Derrick."

"You don't even know what a gun does," Derrick sneered, nonetheless following instructions.

"I saw enough of those movies you watched to tell me exactly what it does," Carey said, mostly bluff. "I know what you're after, Derrick, but you might as well forget it. I don't have the spell anymore."

"You think I'm going to believe that?" Derrick scoffed. "I'll get it, Carey—if not tonight, another day. Getting that spell is the only thing on this world that I care about."

"Life's a bitch," Mark muttered without sympathy.

Carey said bluntly, "I lost it. Lady and I were separated when I fell, and she didn't have any idea how important it was. You want the spell? Fine. Go look in the woods—I already have."

"No," Derrick said, his head shaking, barely visible in the darkness. "It's a good story, but too easy for you. It's here somewhere. It took me a few days, but as soon as I remembered where I'd seen that woman's face, I knew you—and it—were here."

"Fine," Carey shrugged. "Then how about I just kill you and get you out of my way."

"Um . . ." Mark said, "Carey . . ."

"I don't think so," Derrick said, his voice full of smug certainty. "I've still got your stone—but it's not on me. Without it you've got no way home."

"If I were you, I wouldn't count too heavily on that." Carey readjusted his grip on the gun and it was enough to spook Derrick; he dove into the shrubs in front of the porch, and the only sign of him after that was footsteps on pavement until, far down the road, a car started and squealed away on abused tires. Keg gave one last indignant bark and went to Mark, whining anxiously.

"I thought Derrick shot him," Carey said with some relief.

"No, gunfire scares him. I'd say he's been hiding." Mark rubbed the dog's ears and stared down the empty road. "That guy's provided us with two guns. I think tomorrow before Jaime gets home, I'll go get some ammo."

Carey thoughtfully hefted the weapon in his hand, then held it out to Mark. "When you do, maybe you should show me how to use one of them."

Mark gave a single guffaw, and slapped Carey's unsuspecting shoulder. "Bluffed him out, did you? Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll show you how to use 'em—provided they aren't so fancy I can't figure 'em out myself."

* * *

Jess sleepily lifted her head as the tire noise and feel of the road changed; it was well after dark on the day Jaime called Sunday—as if the sun wasn't out the other days of the week, too—and they were just moments from The Dancing. She stretched and yawned hugely, and Jaime moaned, "Oh, don't start," right before she gave in to the yawn Jess had inspired.

"Almost home," Jess said encouragingly.

"Right," Jaime agreed. "Where we have to unload Sabre and Silhouette, and haul in our things—"

"Mark and Carey," Jess interrupted decisively. Her self-confidence had taken a great bound upward this weekend, which she had negotiated without attracting undue attention, and without making any errors that left Jaime in the lurch. Armed with a watch and a simple written schedule, she had had the horses tacked up on time, groomed to perfection and ready for several classes each. In between her duties she had plenty of time to wander around the show grounds and soak in the people, their behavior and language. She'd proudly decided that very few of them knew horses as well as Jaime, or for that matter rode as well. And on that score, she decided, she was as well or better equipped to judge than anybody else, even if she was new to this world and this body. She yawned again, big and satisfied, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

"Never mind," Jaime said. "Here we are!"

Suddenly Jess was wide awake, and had somehow managed to forget that she hadn't yet defined her new relationship with Carey. After all, the only reason she'd left him again so soon after his liberation from the hotel was her disturbing confusion about who and what she now was to him—and what he was to her—and her reluctance to face him without Jaime's support.

He and Mark were out in the horseshoe-shaped driveway before the truck had stopped rolling, and she hopped out of the truck to greet them, uncertainties forgotten for the moment. "We did good!" she announced, grabbing both of Mark's arms in her excitement and using him as a human pivot.

"He-ey!" he said, a laughing protest, as she left him to give Carey a snatch of a hug, there only an instant and then gone to one knee to greet Keg.

"We did good, Keg!" she told him, as he solemnly offered his paw.

"Lady, you'll bounce yourself all the way up to the fifth heaven if you aren't careful," Carey said, still looking a little stunned by the hug.

She stopped short, cocking her head a little, the gesture that had evolved from her attempt to prick her ears. "You used to say that to me," she realized. "When I was . . . when I was . . ."

"Full of yourself," Carey supplied. "When you ran up to me in the pasture at a full gallop and stopped right up in my face."

"Did you like that? I did."

Carey shook his head, but it was in amused agreement.

"C'mon, guys," Jaime said, climbing stiffly out of the truck. "Horses to unload. Gear to carry in. More excitement than you've had all weekend, I imagine."

Mark laughed out loud, and Carey gave him a grin as the two shared some secret joke.

"What?" Jaime asked blankly.

"Later," Mark said, moving around the back of the trailer to swing the doors open. "It's a short story, but I think you'll want to give it all your attention."

With four sets of hands and legs, the unloading went quickly, and by the time they were finished, so was Jess' burst of energy; Jaime sent her into the house with their suitcases while Mark and Carey moved the truck and she herself put the horses to bed.

Jess dumped her suitcase in her room and Jaime's at the bottom of the stairs, and collapsed on the couch in front of the television Mark had, as usual, left on. She automatically changed the channel to one of the several stations that often ran nature shows and sat there, grateful to be back and just then realizing she'd come to think of this place as home.

But home, she told herself, was a completely different place, where she was a completely different creature. She closed her eyes and was instantly drawn into intense visions, of running free and of taking Carey from wizard to wizard, feeling the power in her sturdy limbs. Then, relieved to find she could still draw so easily on those memories, she just as quickly left them behind and her attention focused on the strange new object on the coffee table.

It was heavy and metal, and it had a sharp, acrid smell to it. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, recalling that Mark had named another similar thing a "gun." It was a weapon, she thought, from the way they'd all reacted to it at the hotel, but she couldn't see the threat in it. It wasn't sharp, and it wasn't a very good shape for throwing. But it was here, on the coffee table, where it hadn't been before.

With sudden alarm she wondered if Derrick had been here. He was the only one she'd ever seen with one of these things. She sniffed the gun without thinking, but her puny human nose—so inadequate it didn't even have whiskers—told her nothing more than she already knew. She frowned at it, in such intense concentration she didn't realize she was no longer alone.

"Jess!" Mark said, lunging after the gun just as she grew bold enough to explore its various moving parts. He snatched it from her, and she was so startled she sprang away from him, eyes wild, ready to bolt.

"Lady," Carey said evenly from behind Mark, command in his voice; she huffed, relaxing back into her more human reactions.

"Why?" she asked pointedly.

"It's dangerous," Mark said, pushing out the middle part of the gun and shaking out the pointed cylinders within. "Jess, we've got two of these things in the house now. I want your promise that you won't touch them."

Why could they touch them but she was not allowed? Though the question instantly came to mind, Jess swallowed that small rebellion and instead asked, "Promise?"

"It's easier to tell you about breaking promises," Mark said. "If you tell me you'll never touch this gun, and then you wait until I'm gone and you pick it up, that's breaking a promise."

"It's a Rule," Jess offered uncertainly. "Carey teaches me no kicking, and I don't ever kick. You tell me don't touch, and I don't ever touch. If I say I promise, then I mean I'll follow the Rule."

"That's about right," he said, which should have given her a sense of accomplishment for having mastered yet another concept of this perplexing world. Instead she wasn't sure she wanted Mark to have this power over her. She wanted to argue, and swish her tail, and paw her front hoof against the ground; one bare foot came up and rested briefly on its toes, tapping ever so slightly.

"Mark—" Carey started, looking at that foot, but Jaime's arrival cut the warning short.

She dumped her knapsack by the suitcase at the foot of the stairs, stared at the gun in Mark's hand, and said shortly, "Where'd it come from?"

"Why didn't you tell me Derrick had been here, and would recognize you?" Carey shot back at her.

Stunned at first, Jaime quickly realized the implications of the question. She covered her face with both hands, massaged her temples, and sat gracelessly on the bottom step by the suitcase. "I just didn't think about it," she groaned, pushing loose strands of hair away from her face and back toward the thick barrette that clipped it into a ponytail.

"Well, it turned out okay," Mark said, looking at the gun. "Wonder how he keeps coming up with these things?"

"His little weasel-bait friend," Carey growled. "Same place he got the drugs he used on me. He found that guy within two days of our arrival here. I guess there are some things our worlds have in common."

"Slimeballs. Great," Jaime said tiredly. "Just what did happen?"

Carey shrugged, and no longer seemed interested in making an issue of Jaime's oversight. "He came looking for the spell. He didn't get it."

"We found a great place to hide it, though," Mark said. "Stuck it back in the crawl space under the porch." Then his eyes lit up. "He got it open, Jay, did a spell on that seal and it peeled right off! Magic does work here!"

"At least, I can draw on Camolen's magic," Carey allowed.

"You can do spells?" Jess demanded. "You can take us back home?"

Carey looked at her for a long moment, openly studying her. "Is it so awful, being human?"

Jess was just as thoughtful. "No," she said. "But it is hard not being a horse."

Mark put a comradely arm around her shoulders, the unloaded gun dangling casually along her arm. "We'd miss you, human or horse."

"Can you?" Jaime asked bluntly. "Get yourself home, I mean."

"I doubt it," Carey said. "But I'm going to study the spell anyway. It's better than sitting around waiting for Derrick's next try."

* * *

Jess wondered if they'd noticed. For although she suspected it was skirting the edge of the rule, she didn't hold herself to a promise they'd discussed but she'd never given. She did, however, decide that the gun must be a dangerous thing; she needed to understand it before she made any final decision about it. Maybe she would decide it wasn't something she wanted to handle—but somehow it seemed very important that she come to that conclusion on her own.

Which is why she went with Mark and Carey to the far edge of the paddocks, back by the tree line where they'd earlier hauled some rejected, moldy bales of hay. Armed with a pad of paper, a pencil, and a whole page of words to practice writing, she settled down cross-legged while Mark explained the gun to Carey, and replaced the pointed cylinders he called bullets. As she carefully formed the letters of her name, mentally identifying each one, he held the gun out before him and pulled the trigger.

Jess and paper exploded into motion. Blank pages fluttered, airborne, while Jess scrabbled away, not waiting to get to her feet before attempting speed.

"Ninth heaven!" Carey said, his voice holding the edge of anger that meant he, too, had been frightened. Then, quickly, he regained his composure and called, "Lady," a mixture of command and assurance.

She exerted control over her reflexive flight and stumbled to a stop, spinning to face both the threat and Carey. It was the gun. It was the gun. The gun, and not any direct danger. Carey held out his hand and she slowly returned to them, determined to override the equine instinct with human reasoning, although her legs weren't quite convinced and trembled uncertainly beneath her. She reached Carey and he touched her arm, holding it in a brief but pacifying contact.

"Sorry, Jess," Mark said sheepishly. "Even got Carey with that one."

Carey shook his head. "I've heard the noise on your TV, but I had no idea it would be so loud."

"The gun," Jess said faintly, and then cleared her throat and stood a little taller, declaring firmly, "Too loud."

"Yeah," Mark agreed, eyes widening at some sight behind her. "Better get your papers before they blow away."

Jess jerked around, well aware of the havoc the perpetual mid-Ohio winds could cause. She ran after the loose papers, playing a little, rounding them up like a stallion gathers his mares. By the time she'd gotten them all and found the pencil, Carey had the gun and was pointing it at the target on the hay bales. Clutching her papers, Jess waited for the thunderclap of noise, and couldn't help but flinch when it came. But she didn't run. And when Mark led Carey up to the target, she was right on their heels.

"See?" Mark said, poking his finger into the hole that was there. "That was the first shot. I don't know where yours went," he added somewhat apologetically to Carey.

"I can't believe it moves so fast," Carey said.

"The bullet comes out of the gun, and makes a hole in the paper?" Jess asked, looking closely at the target.

"It makes a hole in whatever's in its way," Mark replied grimly. "Including people."

Maybe this gun wasn't something she wanted to touch, after all. Jess retreated to the long grass and smoothed her paper out on her knee. She watched the two men as she nibbled wood away from the broken pencil point to expose the lead, and went back to work. But she watched and she listened, and letters weren't the only things she learned that afternoon.

* * *

Carey checked the clock over the kitchen sink as he rinsed the last of the dinner pots. Not his favorite chore, but he wasn't being picky these days. Everything—his own personal whims and needs included—was second to returning to Camolen, with the spell safely out of Calandre's greedy little hands. So if Jaime asked him to do dishes, he did dishes. But he'd rather be out in the barn, caring for the horses. Lady would just now be finishing up with their evening meal, while Jaime worked with an advanced student who'd trailered her horse in for the lesson. If he hurried, he'd catch the last half of the hour lesson, and whatever his mixed feelings about being here, he was rabidly interested in Jaime's riding and teaching techniques.

He slung the dish towel over the oven door handle and hurried out to the barn, past the open hay stall and Lady—and then reversed his tracks and peered in at her. "Lady?" he questioned, unable to figure out why she was on her stomach on the upper level of bales, her arms and head hanging off one end of the prickly mattress, her knees bent and feet bobbing loosely in midair over her bottom.

"Kittens," she said, somehow perceiving the meaning behind his inquiry.

He stuck his head into the stall and found there were indeed kittens, young creatures wobbly on their feet, waving unsteady paws after the enticing stalk of hay Lady waved above them.

"I always liked the cats in the barn," she said, almost dreamily. "I was a good horse, wasn't I, Carey?"

"Usually," he said, coming around to her head, crouching to pick up one of the kittens. It batted feebly at his fingers, purring.

The hay stem stopped its twirling, as Lady looked up at him. "What will happen to me when we go home?"

"Happen?" he repeated, not quite understanding.

She wrinkled her nose impatiently. "Will I be Jess, or will I be Lady?"

Oh, that was it. "You're still Lady," he said gently. "You always will be. And when we return home, I'm pretty sure you'll be Lady on four legs again."

"Am I Lady now?" she asked, more of a contradiction than a question. "I make my own rules now. Lady wouldn't."

"Magic can't change what you are." Carey laid a hand on her thick dark sand hair for a moment, then let it drop away. "You'll be fine."

She accepted the caress, but shook her head in disagreement. "I miss what I was—but to be Lady again, I would have to give up Jess. And now sometimes I think . . . I think maybe Jess is a nice thing to be."

"And not go on the runs anymore? And what about the courier competitions—do you remember coming along with the Dun Lady when you were a yearling? She took second overall in those games. You were my choice for this year."

"Was I?" she asked with interest. "That would be fun. Is that why you took me down Arlen's stairs last fall? Were we practicing for a strange game?"

Carey blinked at the unexpected question, not eager to admit that somewhat dangerous prank was merely macho silliness. "No," he said, through a cough, "that was just . . . a learning experience."

"I had a lot of those," Jess said somewhat remorsefully.

Carey smiled, well caught up in memories that revolved around the dun filly he'd raised and trained. "How about that stuffy guy who tried to buy you once—the only courier of some lowling wizard, out to get a backup mount. I'd just started you under saddle, and didn't have any intention of selling you, but . . ." He shrugged, still crouched down in front of her, watching the memory rather than Lady. "Had to go through the motion, you know, for Arlen. So I let him saddle you up, and you'd stepped on his foot three times before you even got out of the barn cavern. And when he mounted, he dug your ribs with his toe, the clumsy oaf—you went straight up in the air, hopped twice, and took off with him—" And though the memory was still clear, Carey got no further, distracted by Lady's laughter. She'd rolled over on her back and was giggling almost uncontrollably, no doubt remembering the creek in which she'd dumped that unfortunate courier. He found himself smiling, then chuckling, and when she twisted her head around to look at him upside down, he was lost, and they were both hopelessly caught up in laughter, set off anew each time they caught one another's eye.

When they finally wound down, gasping for breath, suspended in a moment of complete ease with one another, Carey suddenly found himself wanting to reach for her and hold her close, to feel the lithe lines of her body against him. With a shock, he snapped back into proper perspective, where this dynamic creature was a horse, and not someone he could ever really call his—not if he wanted to be hers, as well.

His smile faded, and he stood, saying, "I want to see the rest of this lesson." And then he left, but he could feel her puzzled gaze following him out of the stall and, even though it was impossible, all the way down the aisle to the indoor ring.

* * *

It seemed like the learning never stopped. If it wasn't reading and writing, it was new words, or learning how to go to a nice restaurant and not embarrass herself, or even riding—although the riding was more like a reward, after both dinner and Jaime's early evening lessons. While Carey sat on the stool and stared with growing frustration at the spell he'd been meant to deliver and now counted on to take them both back to Camolen, Jess spent time on Sunny, making large circles around Jaime while she did stretching and relaxation exercises at the walk, trot, and finally the canter. As Jess' vocabulary and the evenings grew longer, she was given the freedom of the entire ring, while Jaime stood in the middle and called out instructions. Derrick faded into an unpleasant memory, one kept alive mostly by the sound of Carey's target practice.

Although Jess was more than satisfied with the flow of her life, Carey was harder to please. Mark's lunchtime comment that Derrick must have given up and gone home earned him a glare of the highest order, after which Carey stalked out of the kitchen and into the basement to retrieve the spell, which he still secured each and every time he was through studying it.

"If only the job had been done," Jess said somewhat mournfully, looking after him as he passed back through the kitchen on his way outside, into the steady rain of the grey day. "If he could know for sure what has happened at home . . ."

"Or if he was a wizard instead of a courier," Jaime added with some asperity. "But he's not, Jess. Sooner or later he's going to have to accept that."

"Did you think the same about me, when I wanted to find him?" Jess asked, adding, in case they hadn't gotten it, "I did find him."

"True," Mark said. "But that was a little more within reach, Jess." He stood and grabbed the light jacket that hung on his chair. "Well, ladies, I gotta get to work early today—gotta overlap Dayna's shift so we can deal with some paperwork."

Jess watched his breezy exit, but her thoughts were on Carey. "He seems so different," she said wistfully.

"What?" Jaime asked blankly. "Have you startled me in the middle of a thought, Jess?"

"Carey," Jess said. "I know I saw things . . . differently before I came here. But not so different as this."

"He's got a lot on his mind," Jaime offered.

Jess shook her head. "I know. He wants to do his job, for Arlen. He wants to get us back home. But I miss him."

Mystified, Jaime asked, "What do you mean, different? How?"

A shrug. "More . . . open," Jess said, searching for the words that would go along with the man who had cared for her. "Easier. Now he closes his eyes and walks along his trails very fast." She clenched her fists, closing her eyes and put her most determined expression on her face. Then she looked at Jaime and said, "You would like that other Carey better, I think."

"He's got an awful lot on his mind," Jaime repeated, then sighed. "And I've got an afternoon of lessons to get ready for. Had to get them out of the way early this week, so I can leave early for the show."

"You still want me to stay home?" Jess asked wistfully.

"I'm only taking Sabre," Jaime replied, patiently considering the number of times she'd answered this particular question. "I don't really need a groom, but I do need someone here I can trust to exercise the horses. None of the other students can do it this time, and Mark's working this weekend."

Neither of them mentioned Carey. Jaime had seen him ride, had been openly impressed, but had unspoken reservations that Jess could clearly read in her significant silences. It was no wonder, she thought, for Jaime had only seen this one side of her master-now-friend, the headstrong, determined side—not the side that knew how to speak in the diplomatic language a horse could understand and accept. Jess sighed, loudly.

"Did I mention," Jaime said casually, "that I want you to exercise Sunny and Sarah under saddle?"

Jess responded with the ear-perked head tilt that was well part of her now, and Jaime laughed. "You can free-longe the others—Mark'll have time for JayDee, and Leta's owner will be riding this weekend herself, so don't worry about them."

Tossing her thick dun hair, Jess said airily, "I wasn't," but they both knew it was bluff. It didn't matter. She was to ride Sarah, on her own!

"I'm going to get JayDee from turnout," Jaime said, amused affection still in her voice. "Would you make sure her grooming tote is out where Cindy can find it?"

Jess nodded and picked up both of their lunch plates, but never made it to the sink with them. A blast of thunder reverberated through the barn and house, chasing itself around the spacious confines of the arena until it rumbled into silence. The shatter of the plates on linoleum was lost in the angry sound, and an instant of silence followed it; then the clamor of frightened horses rang out from the barn, as hooves smashed against solid plank walls to punctuate the shrill screams of terror.

"My lord!" Jaime gasped. "The horses!" They ran from the house and Jess passed Jaime in the rain, sprinting through the long aisle and into the arena, where she knew—she knew—Carey had tried to work magic. Behind her, Jaime ran from stall to stall, peering anxiously at each of her charges and murmuring ineffective reassurances.

Carey was in the center of the ring, sprawled in a twisted, broken-doll pose, facedown in the dirt. Jess didn't slow until she reached him, and then fell over herself to stop in time, her throat filled with the terrible fear that he was dead. She wanted to grab him and shake him, but somehow restrained her touch, and instead gently laid first her hands and then her head against him, lost in the not-knowing of what to do. So still. So limp.

But then he stirred, and groaned, and said, barely audible, "Oh, shit," a curse with a precise counterpart in his native tongue.

"Carey," Jess said breathlessly, straightening to look at him. There were no marks on him, no blood anywhere; as he got himself sitting upright, his legs sprawled before him and his arms propping him from behind, he looked no more than stunned. "Carey, what did you do?"

He squinted at her, shook his head with a tiny, puzzled gesture. "What?" Then his eyes widened, and for the first time Jess saw the thin sheaf of smoldering papers centered in the ring; a quiet line of smoke spiraled up and lost itself in the rafters as they both stared, agog, at what they had fought so hard not to lose. "I didn't—" he started, and frowned, shaking his head again, continuing anyway. "I only wanted to do the very first part," he whispered. "I wasn't really going to try anything . . . not here, with the horses. I just wanted to feel the magic."

Jess ran a hand down his arm, feeling its intact solidness and, moderately reassured, withdrew to entwine her arms in a self-hug. "Magic," she said, and shivered. "For Arlen, Carey."

"I couldn't not try, Lady," he said, agonized, staring at the blackened paper. Then his features cleared a little. "I'll bet Arlen set some kind of protection on that thing—it could have been the magic itself that triggered that reaction. It doesn't mean I had the spell wrong."

Jaime appeared at the gate, surveying the arena anxiously—but only until she saw Carey was apparently unharmed. Then the anger blossomed. "We've got a hell of a mess," she said, her voice so tightly controlled that Jess shuddered inside. "If I could kick you all the way back to your damned Camolen, I'd—" she stopped, jaw clenched. "We've got to take care of these horses. I've checked them all—no one's doing any heavy bleeding. Carey, look in all the stalls for glass—every damn window in this building is broken. Jess, get Sabre out of his stall, bring him in here, and talk him down—and check him over, every inch, you hear? I want to know about every ruffled hair on that horse's body. I'm going to call the vet—we've got at least one horse that looks shocky—and then I'm going to take a closer look at the others." She stared at Carey, hard, and shook her head before turning on her heel and stalking away.

"What did she say?" Carey asked, his voice low, his eyes on the spot where Jaime had been. "My ears are ringing so hard I can't hear a thing."

"Check all the stalls for glass," Jess said. "She wants you to do that." She scrambled to her feet, fear for the horses overcoming her concern for Carey. She had never seen Jaime so wrathful, and she suddenly dreaded what she might find in the stalls.

* * *

It was hours before the vet left, leaving behind several horses with stitches and two treated for shock. It was longer still before the barn regained any semblance of order. While there was no interior glass to pick up—the windows had blown out—there were many minor wounds to inspect and treat; almost every horse had leg injuries, self-inflicted during the panic. Jaime sent Carey inside when she saw his white, strained face, but she had extra help from Cindy who'd arrived for her lesson, seen the chaos, and immediately pitched in to help. They'd pulled stray shards of glass from the window glazing, cancelled the day's lessons, doctored the horses, and closed the barn up so there would be little or no intrusion from the outside world. Quiet dulcimer music played over the barn's sound system while the distressed horses retreated to their favorite corners and watched, worry-eyed, for anything that looked like another threat. Jess spent the whole time with Sabre, for the big horse was deeply shaken, and he sent anxious, pealing neighs after her each time she tried to leave the arena.

Finally, late in the afternoon, Cindy left. Jaime walked slowly into the middle of the arena, where Jess sat with Sabre. She kicked the small pile of ash nearby and regarded her anxious champion, quietly offering him a sugar cube. As he nuzzled it, knocked it out of her palm, and ignored it, tears for the whole afternoon finally found their way down her cheek. "God, I wish I could make him understand."

"He understands that you are here to take care of him," Jess said, quietly but firmly.

Jaime searched her eyes for a long moment, then wiped her cheek. "You know, don't you? You really know. But you can't tell me what this will do to him. The ego, the edge—the special spark that makes a top-level horse like Sabre—it's so fragile."

"He is still himself," Jess said, more of a guess than her last assurance, though she didn't let it through to her face.

"No show this weekend," Jaime said with a little laugh. "No way. You ready to be pampered, big fellow?" she asked, gently slapping his neck. "For the next few days you're going to think you're in heaven. Longeing tomorrow, maybe a light workout day after that."

"Yes," Jess said. "Do the things he likes, that he does best. The passage. He is so proud to do that with you." And, seeing the pain in Jaime's face, she stood, and they quietly held one another.

"I'm sorry." Carey's words were hushed, the voice faltering.

Jaime pulled back from Jess and looked at him, nothing more than that, while Carey stood and took the unspoken judgement without protest.

"Do you have any idea of what you might have done to me this afternoon?" she said at last. "Do you know how often a horse like this comes along?"

Carey's eyes flickered to Jess, then he looked down. "I think so."

"Did you see the look on Dr. Miller's face when I told him the barn was hit by lightning? He didn't buy it, and neither will my boarders—all of whom love their horses as much as I love Sabre."

"I know." Just as quiet.

"What do you mean, you know? You don't know, or you never would have done this."

"I didn't have any idea this would happen," Carey said, an edge creeping into his voice.

"You did," Jaime contradicted flatly. "You did, or you wouldn't have come out here to do . . . whatever you did, instead of staying in the basement. Well, we're going to get a few things straight. Frankly, I was—am—one word away from booting you out." Her gaze softened, momentarily, as she glanced at Sabre, stroking his neck while he crowded her, seeking solace—and turned into flint when she looked back to Carey. "Jess is the reason you're still here. The only reason. And it's not that I don't want to help you. I just think your judgement sucks, which means I can't trust you."

For a long moment, Carey said nothing. He watched Jaime, gave her the chance to add to what she'd said. And he looked at Jess, his expression becoming a mixture of remorse and wistfulness. "I don't blame you," he said, his gaze still on Jess. "You're right. I let my need to get home become more important than the safety of the horses. I just—" And he stopped and clenched his fists, his jaw working. Jess' heart went out to him, for she knew he wanted to go home as badly as she'd wanted to find him, and she remembered how much it hurt. It was a bittersweet feeling, this thing that tugged at her, and she didn't completely understand it.

"No more magic," Jaime said firmly. "Not here. Go out to the woods, go stand on top of the Waldo Levy, go out to the middle of Delaware Lake, I don't care. Not near this barn." Then she added, "Not that you have any magic left to do."

Carey snorted. "I've had that thing memorized for a week. I'll keep working at it."

"You can do some work around here, while you're at it. I'm thinking about selling JayDee—she's too temperamental for a lesson horse. But she needs tuning, and she needs to be reminded she doesn't choose when she listens to her rider. You can do that for me, I think."

Carey nodded, almost absently. "All right."

"For now, you can treat us to dinner. Pizza sound good to you, Jess?"

Jess nodded, enthusiastic in her relief. The two people she cared for most were no longer in direct opposition, and that was all that mattered for the moment.

* * *

"Good, Jess!" Jaime said, watching Sunny come up into the bit, moving nice and round beneath his perfectly relaxed rider. "Let's do some walk-trot transitions, every ten strides, and keep him in this frame."

On the other end of the arena, Carey sat on JayDee, working on his own. Jaime had given him a week of lessons, and discovered there were, perhaps not unexpectedly, some similarity in the riding theories of their two worlds—although Carey's interest was naturally in rendering his mounts more agile and responsive in rough territory, not in the highly controlled exercises of the ring. But he had good, giving hands and a remarkable seat, as well as a firm gentleness she would not have credited him with, judging from his sometimes too-confident behavior on the ground. For the first time, she really understood Jess' devotion to him, and she wondered if only the stress of his mission drove him to the edge of the intractable hard-headedness she usually saw. He reminded her of a racehorse with blinkers on, striving madly for his goal with no awareness of the world around him.

She knew it puzzled Jess. She would catch her friend—for Jess had grown into a friend, no longer just a lost soul dependent on Jaime's goodwill—staring at Carey, looking a bit bewildered—and a bit hurt, for Carey seldom did anything to indicate he thought of Jess as other than his former courier mount. Stupid man.

Jess was deep in concentration, riding with an intuition no one in this world could hope to match. Jaime sighed as she glanced at her watch and discovered she'd run out of time if she wanted to get more grain before the feed store closed. She watched her pupil for another few minutes, enjoying the sight of horse and rider working in simple but complete accord, and she was about to call a halt to it when she noticed Carey was walking JayDee on a long rein, his attention on Jess. She had the feeling his slight frown had nothing to do with Jess' riding, and she would have given anything to have read his mind as the frown faded to something . . . sad, something she couldn't quite identify, before his face closed up again. Now what was that about?

"Jess," she called, "you had a really nice ride today. Cool him out on a long rein and then turn him out in the west paddock. I've got to get to the feed store, so you're on your own."

Jess nodded, obviously reluctant to accept the lesson's end. As Jaime stood up from the lawn chair at the arena gate, she glanced back at Carey. He was riding JayDee through some simple lead changes across the ring diagonal, with no sign he had ever been distracted.

* * *

"Thanks for coming along, you guys," Eric said cheerfully as he handed Carey a seining net and Lady two buckets. "It'll be a lot easier this way—and more fun, too."

Fun. Carey had never called fishing fun, but he supposed it might be when you could pick up a full meal at the grocery store if you didn't catch any fish—only Camolen's larger cities had comparable establishments. In this world—or at least in this country—people were so far removed from the basics of finding food, of how their natural world worked, that he and Lady were about to help Eric catch enough river creatures to create a display in the nature center at Highbanks Metropark, where Eric volunteered. At the very park, in fact, where he and Lady had entered this world.

He caught Lady staring doubtfully ahead as they walked across the very green spring grass of the park lawn, looking at the river, the Olentangy, that awaited them. He could see only a glint of bright sunlight off water, for the river was bordered by a generous band of trees and brush, but Lady had fixed her gaze on it, and he could tell by the stiffening nature of her walk that she was remembering how much she hated putting her feet in a river she didn't know. He couldn't figure out how, barefooted, clad in a pair of Mark's worn, torn cutoff shorts and a too-short t-shirt, she could still remind him so much of the mare he'd raised and trained. For today's adventure her hair was pulled back and tied off, and from behind it looked like nothing so much as the tail that belonged on Dun Lady's Jess.

They walked the short path through the trees and paused at the edge of the river, where Lady toed the water briefly and stepped back. Eric was unrolling his own net. "You guys done this before?"

"I have," Carey said, amused.

"Oh, yeah—right." Eric laughed at his own mistake and held the net stretched out between his open arms. "See, Jess, the two of us stand downstream from you, and all you have to do is stir up the river bottom. All the little river goodies get carried right down into our nets. Got it?"

"Stir up the river bottom?" she repeated, clearly uncertain about her role.

"You can hold one of the nets if you want to," Eric offered.

Carey knew that wasn't the problem. He tightened the laces of his sneakers and walked, splashing boldly, out to the middle of the river. The water came up just past his knees, well below the shorts he'd been advised to buy along with the sturdy jeans he appreciated so much, and he stood in the moderate current as casually as possible. "It feels good," he said indifferently, dipping a hand into water that was in fact a little chilly. "Good footing, too."

Eric seemed to sense what he was up to, for he followed Carey into the water and deployed his net. "Half the time all you have to do is stand here, and you get some sort of catch." But he gave Carey a questioning glance, and then looked back at Lady, who had still not committed herself to the water.

"Most horses are afraid of putting their feet somewhere they can't see," Carey told him in a low voice. "Lady's no exception. I was surprised when she agreed to come along."

"She came to be with you," Eric said, as though it were obvious, giving Lady a thoughtful look.

Carey tucked his dripping net under his arm and moved upstream. "We can do it with just the one net," he suggested. "Any time you decide to come in, Lady, we can use the help." And he proceeded, with great fanfare, to kick and shuffle his way through the sand and rock of the river bottom, stirring up great clouds of silt that sluiced through the current channels downstream. Eventually Eric held up a net full of crayfish and hellgrammites and a few flopping minnows.

"Need the bucket," he said, and Carey watched with a smile as Lady, her curiosity overcoming some of her trepidation, came into the water up to her ankles, dipped the bucket in the river, and held it out to Eric. He splashed over and jiggled the contents of the net carefully into the bucket, sloshing away without a backward glance. Lady set the bucket on one of the plentiful flat rocks and stayed in her safe part of the river.

The second time they came up with an empty net, and Eric suggested, "We need to move upstream a little bit, though . . . we could try it here with two nets."

Carey looked at his undecided companion, and his mind's eye translated what he actually saw into a horse hovering at the edge of the deeper water, one hoof pawing the air over the surface. Then he blinked and saw only Lady with her dun/black hair pulled back, her toes curled protectively around the rocks at her feet and a thin line of dusky skin peeking through where the t-shirt fell short of her cutoffs. Carey held out his hand. "C'mon, braveheart," he said, in the same voice that had wooed her into countless rivers.

She took the plunge. Scooting through the water, slipping on the rocks she traversed too quickly, she ended up right at his side, trembling a little at her own boldness.

"Hey, all right, Jess!" Eric hailed her, and she smiled uncertainly at him.

"Good job." Carey slipped an arm around her waist, offering but not forcing the support, and together they kicked up another cloud of silt. Outwardly he was matter-of-fact but inwardly he smiled and thought there was, perhaps, a little more satisfaction to convincing this free-willed creature than to bluffing one of his horses.

He wasn't surprised when, before long, Lady had soaked all of them with her enthusiasm. Once she trusted the footing, she entered into the game with abandon, and Carey knew that they'd been out there long after Eric had his quota for the nature center aquarium. If Lady noticed that he was discreetly releasing as many creatures as he kept, she pretended not to.

But it was Lady, as engrossed as she was with kicking around the Olentangy River bottom—or Old-and-dingy, as Eric called it—who noticed they had company. Although she'd ignored the occasional hiker who'd stopped to exchange a few words with Eric, who was wearing his volunteer's armband, this time she flung her head up; her nostrils flared and Carey knew she was laying her ears back. It was a warning . . . to Derrick.

Nine hells. "You must waste a lot of time keeping track of me," he said, so that Eric, who had not been tuned into Lady's signals, jerked his head up from where he bent over one of the buckets, nearly turning it over in his surprise.

"It's not that hard," Derrick said, watching them from the riverbank. "And don't forget, right now you're the only thing I've got on my mind. You and that spell, I mean."

"I figured you'd given up on us," Carey said—though he hadn't, really, despite Derrick's long absence. His gaze skipped over the trees along the river. "Where's your friend Ernie?"

Instead of answering, Derrick said, "No, I never gave up on you. Ernie and I have been busy with one of his projects." Derrick casually nodded back toward the nature center parking lot. "He's back in the car—he prefers pavement under his feet, I think. Besides, I'm not here to make trouble."

Carey did not deign to respond to that one. Of course Derrick was here to make trouble—a point Derrick himself proved by leering at Lady, who was looking less gamine—and more defensively threatening—by the moment. Carey stepped slightly in front of her, a message to both her and Derrick.

"She's done better than my chestnut," Derrick said, idly snapping a twig from one of the sycamore saplings on the river's edge. "That fool didn't take well to a new body. Ran off and left me—and you—in those woods; didn't take him long to run out in front of a car. But your mare, now—she came looking for you." He fingered the fresh pinkness of the healed bite on his cheek. "Why was that, Carey?"

"Go burn," Carey said, a particularly coarse remark almost hidden in his pleasant tone of voice.

Derrick shrugged. "Doesn't matter, I suppose. Just . . . interesting. But not what I wanted to talk about."

Carey put both end poles of the seining net in one hand and put the other on his hip, a bored-looking stance. "Yeah, right. You want the spell. Well, I've learned a saying here that seems to fit just right: Get real, Derrick."

"I'm not here just to take," Derrick protested. "I've got something I know you want—and I want to trade."

Carey snorted. "For my spellstones, right? I don't believe it."

"You want to go home, don't you?" Derrick asked, sounding reasonable.

"And so do you. You're not about to just give up those stones."

"They won't work for me. Unless you were lying when you said the recall spell would take us home. It reads like an empty stone to me."

"No, I wasn't lying," Carey said, shaking his head. He was suddenly aware of the chill in the water that rushed past his legs and he waded to the shore—a less vulnerable position in any case. Now he was close enough to see that Derrick was doing well in this world. Probably armed, as Carey had been, with the gold that was fairly plentiful in their world but worth a great deal in this one. He was keeping himself clean, and his dark hair was handsomely styled. He'd even—and Carey confirmed this as Derrick tried out an affable smile on him—gotten his teeth cleaned. Probably done in the interest of blending in, it nonetheless had the effect of making him seem more benign—which Carey knew he definitely was not. "No, I wasn't lying," he repeated, although he hadn't been telling all of the truth, either. "I was hurt and drugged—do you think I could have lied to you?" It was just a small matter of not mentioning the correct spell was keyed into his new stone—not the regular onyx recall that Derrick would have tried to trigger.

"No," Derrick said, "I don't think you could have. And that leaves me with a useless path home, and without the spell. You want to go home? You give me the spell, and I'll give you your spellstones. I'll take my chances at getting home—they won't be any worse than they are now."

"You lie!" Lady said, still standing in water up to her knees, tossing her head back to once again lay back those nonexistent ears. "You would never let us go like that, and be stuck here."

Carey smiled at Derrick, but it was without humor. "Even Lady can see through this one, Derrick," he said. "I don't know what you're up to, but I'm certain it won't mean anything good for Lady and me. You keep the spellstones, I'll keep the manuscript." Maybe only in my head, but it's still mine.

Derrick shrugged. "I just thought it would be easier this way—for both of us. I'm willing to do it the hard way—though you might not think so much of it."

"I think you might as well settle in here, Derrick," Carey said, as though he was offering serious advice to a friend. "Don't waste the rest of your life chasing after that spell. It doesn't really matter anyway."

Derrick frowned, for the first time losing the thread of the conversation.

"It doesn't matter," Carey continued, "because life is going on in Camolen. Do you think they're all in stasis back there? Arlen's already sent another courier—I'm not the only one, you know—and I wouldn't be surprised if the checkspells are in place." Meaning none of them would get home unless Arlen, in some fashion, came looking; a recall spell based on magic that had been checked was worth no more than a recall spell in Derrick's pocket.

To his surprise, Derrick laughed. "You're right, at that," he said. "Life goes on in Camolen. But don't forget that Calandre, too, is part of that life. There was a strike set for Arlen's little hole in the hills—it should have gone off about the same time we ran you down."

This time it was Carey who frowned, and Derrick who offered enlightenment.

"We've had one of his recall spells for a year, now," he said. "You remember that girl who disappeared on her first run?"

Carey remembered well. The young woman had been sent on an easy run, with an insignificant message. They'd put her disappearance down to accident, not ambush. But if Calandre had truly engineered her disappearance and had one of the recall spells that would gain her access to Arlen's little fortress . . . "Those recalls go to a shielded holding room," he said; only he had a two-layer recall that would take him within the hold, if he made the extra effort to trigger it. "Magic won't get her out of there."

"No, but she can work magic within the room . . . and stone can be moved." Derrick's expression was slyly pleased, and almost unbearable.

Carey mustered his temper and shrugged. "It could have gone either way," he said, and kept his sudden, deep worry to himself. "Give me the spellstones and I'll take you back with me—but the manuscript is mine."

Derrick laughed again, apparently well pleased with the overall effect of his negotiations, despite his failures. "It was worth the trip just to see you try that one out on me," he said. "Of course the answer is no. But don't worry—I'm sure we'll be talking again soon enough. Until then." He made a brief, courtly obeisance to Lady, and walked back onto the open park lawn.

Carey looked at Lady, and found her shivering in the water. Eric looked no happier and he himself felt the bright sunshine had somehow dimmed. It was certainly no longer enough to keep him warm.

* * *

Jess sat in the hayloft amidst the cutting-season hay shed overflow, her body arranged over several levels of bales. She was supposed to be tossing them down into the aisle, several days' worth that would be stacked in the stall below her—but she hadn't even started the task yet. Not that it mattered. Jaime was riding Sabre, who'd for the most part recovered from his shock, and she wouldn't notice Jess' inactivity for some time yet. And Jess was feeling out of sorts. Some of it, she felt, was due to the shorter days of this world compared to a Camolen day, an observation Carey had recently made. But most of it was her deep distraction with the movie she'd seen the evening before.

There were lots of things about the movie that she loved. The characters' Aussie accents, which helped her to realize that lots of people talked differently, and that her own still-faltering syllables were nothing to be ashamed of. And the tough little mountain horse who raced, without hesitation, over terrain that reminded her of some of her own runs, and who wasn't so different from her own deep dun color. But when the wild stallion had been intimidated and rounded up, she wasn't sure she considered it the happy ending everybody else did. And she was mightily puzzled over the significance of pressing faces together. Kissing, Jaime told her.

Jess rolled over on her back and wiggled against the hay, letting its scratchy roughness find all the itches between her shoulder blades. Then she lay there, closed her eyes, and took herself back to the times of running with Arlen's small breeding and working herd of courier horses. She could pretend that was freedom, but in reality, she'd belonged to someone. The stallion hadn't; he'd been free and magnificent and, in the end, conquered. And she thought she should feel unhappy about that, but she couldn't quite manage it—because the part about being a horse that her mind most often strayed to, the memories she unconsciously caressed and savored, were those moments she and Carey had worked together, had been in such accord that she read his every thought through the mere tension in his muscles. And the stallion, wild, would never know such partnership.

A sigh; a few more wiggles for that one, hard to reach spot. Being owned wasn't such a bad thing for a horse, she decided. But she wished Carey would realize she wasn't just Dun Lady's Jess anymore.

Abruptly, she sat up and hopped down off the hay and, with a quick check to make sure Keg wasn't lying in the aisle below, began shoving bales out of the loft. Ten more minutes had them stacked neatly in the stall, and she meandered out of the barn into the rising temperatures of the early summer morning. Mark's abandoned soccer ball lay in the shade of the house, and she toed it closer, nudging it along in a desultory way as she wound through the obstacles of the picnic table and lawn chairs.

"Too warm for soccer, Jess," Mark yawned from the back doorway. "Geeze, last night's shift was a killer. Had all the guests for a wedding, must've been some kind of biker thing. They really know how to party."

Jess, typically straightforward, asked, "What is kissing for, Mark?"

Mark blinked, did a deliberate double take. "Whoa, Jess—you hit me broadside with that one. You sure you don't want to ask Jaime about this?"

"Jaime is busy," Jess said, pushing blithely onward. "Every time we look at the TV, there are people kissing. Why?"

"Um, because it feels good," Mark said, stumbling only a little.

"Show me."

He put both hands over his face and drew them down slowly, so that his eyes peeked over his fingers, full of misgivings. "Well, Jess, that's usually something two people do when they like each other."

Jess frowned. "I do like you."

"In a special way. You know, love, getting married, having a family—two kids and a dog, the whole works."

She did, then, understand a little of what he was driving at. Special, in a way that she'd almost deliberately avoided dealing with, because it was simply too much when added to the other things she'd had to assimilate. "I have to understand," she said slowly. "If Carey takes me home, there will be no more chance to learn. If I have to decide, stay or go, I want to know all the things I'm deciding about."

Mark bit his lip, staring at her, hesitating. "All right, but . . . Jess, people kiss for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes just because it does feel good, but usually because they love one another. I can show you how it's done, but . . . it won't be the same."

Jess nodded, and waited, and he closed the short distance between them, gently touched two fingers to the side of her chin, and gave her a soft but definite kiss. He drew back to look at her, and this time it was she who blinked, considering. Warm. Nice. But nothing wonderful. She drew her teeth over her bottom lip where she could still feel the contact, and gave him a quizzical look.

"Didn't make your hair stand on end, huh," he said. "I'm not surprised. It's different when—"

"Do it again," she said abruptly and, at his raised eyebrows, added a contrite, "Please."

"Again," he repeated, and sighed, but didn't offer any argument. Instead he simply kissed her, tasting slightly of bacon and coffee, lingering, giving her the chance to respond. And she found that she did, that there was some small stirring deep within her, and that there was more pleasure when she kissed him back. She began to understand the point to it, and when Mark stepped back to look at her, she just stared at him, touching her mouth, and thinking that a horse's mouth wouldn't do that.

He grinned and opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it closed along with his eyes as the grin turned into a grimace. Jess only then heard the footsteps she should have noticed long ago, should have swiveled her ears to catch, and to know it was Carey. She suddenly felt as discomfited as Mark looked, although she wasn't sure why, and she turned to face Carey as he stopped by the lawn chairs, his hazel eyes dark with anger.

"What in nine hells do you think you're doing?" he snapped, the anger in those eyes turned on Mark, a few unconscious steps taking him all the way up to Jess in a protective posture. "You might as well take advantage of a child—"

"I asked him," Jess interrupted, and had to repeat herself to be sure he'd heard, and taken it in. "I asked him. I wanted to know."

He stared dumbfounded. Stumbling over the words as though she'd somehow lost her tenuous knack of shaping them, she said, "I see people kiss in the TV stories. I saw you kiss women, in the empty stall next to mine. I wanted to know, Carey—why does that make you mad?"

Mark cleared his throat, filling in the gap of Carey's flabbergasted silence. "I told her," he explained quietly, "that it was something for people who had special feelings for each other. But there's nothing wrong with getting her first kiss from a friend, Carey. Lighten up. Better that she asks and knows about it before someone does try to take advantage of her."

"You could have asked me," Carey told her, the storm of anger fading to puzzled hurt.

"I—" she started, stopped short by the utter inability to voice that she couldn't have asked him, because that would make it matter too much. And then he had her by both arms, a possessive grip that drew them close, and when he kissed her there was no time for analyzing the feel of having him close—she simply was, centered on the pressure of his lips and the fire that made her heart thud almost painfully in her chest. He released her mouth, gave her lips one last gentle nibble nothing like the ardent touch he'd just relinquished, and stared directly into her dark, widened eyes.

"Is that what you wanted to know?" he asked, a rough, low question.

"Yes," she whispered. And he stepped back, deliberately released her arms, gave Mark a hard stare, and left them there.

She watched him go, barely feeling the pat Mark gave her arm. Through the haze of her emotions, she heard him say, "It's all right, Jess," but it wasn't—for she suddenly knew that if she followed her newly discovered, very human heart, it would take her to Camolen with Carey—where she would lose it to an equine form.

* * *

"My, you certainly do devour these books," the young librarian said, smiling at Jess. "You haven't been reading very long, if I remember right."

"Not long," Jess agreed, fingering the spine of The Magician's Nephew. She could still feel Carey's embrace; it was so real to her that she had to remind herself—often—that there was no outward sign broadcasting the encounter to others. It was that encounter that had driven her to ride into town with Mark, where he dropped her off at the library. Jess knew she could lose herself—and the emotional anguish that plagued her—in the next installment of the Narnia series, for there were so many things in the tales that she could utterly believe in—even though the books were called fantasy. She saw nothing strange with traveling between worlds and talking to animals.

She retrieved her library card from the woman and smiled her thanks, then took her treasure to the comfortable stuffed chairs in the reading section, where she would linger as long as she could, wrapped up in the adventures of Digory and Polly.

At nine o'clock, one of the librarians apologetically ushered her to the door and locked it behind her. Jaime wouldn't be here until after her last lesson, another 45 minutes. Jess stood in the slight chill of the night air, a warm day gone drizzly, and heaved a sigh for the loss of her refuge. There was nothing to keep her mind away from the new strength in her need to be with Carey, an odd sweet twist she had never felt before. Perhaps because it was nothing a horse could feel. What was the point, then, in returning with him, if she would only lose that feeling which had driven her to be with him? Except—if she didn't, she would be stuck with it, without him, and she had a hunch it would be a hundred times worse than the pain she'd felt when she'd been first separated from him on this world.

There was only a scuff of warning, enough time for her to straighten in alarm, raising her head to cast futilely for scent in the slight breeze—and then he was behind her, grabbing her arm in a tight grip that did less to stop her reaction than the cold, hard feel of metal at her neck—because where instinct screamed for her to duck her head and throw this attacker off, the biting, newly familiar scent of gunpowder made her freeze instead.

"It's been a long wait," Derrick said in her ear, "but I think my luck has changed."

* * *

"You leave Carey alone!" Jess demanded, sitting on a torn, dusty couch in an old house behind something Derrick had called the whyemceeay.

Derrick exchanged an amused glance with Ernie. "It's you that we've got," he said.

"To try to get him," she insisted. She was angry and hard put to sit still, but she was very aware of the gun Derrick now held casually in his lap. At the same time, she had the strangest feeling that although Derrick was not one who could be trusted, she was, in some strange way, safe here—as long as she followed their rules. They'd made it plain enough that the current rule was sit still.

"No," Derrick corrected. "To get the spell."

She frowned at him, trying to figure out this bizarre human game, finally shaking her head in exasperation.

"You really were his horse, weren't you," Derrick mused, another turn of mood Jess couldn't quite follow. He left the gun on the seat of his shabby chair and approached her, leaning over her, one hand reaching out to control the tilt of her head—though he hesitated at the warning that flashed in her dark eyes.

"Be professional, Derrick," Ernie said, bored amusement in his voice. "This is business, not playtime."

Derrick shot him a dark look. "I'm not paying you for preaching. If you believed what I've told you, you'd be a lot more interested in this woman."

"I'm interested in the money you've promised me," Ernie said, bitingly candid. "Although I admit you've provided a little amusement as well. And here I thought my forced little interlude away from Columbus heat was going to be boring."

Derrick didn't bother to answer; he might not even have been listening as he stared thoughtfully at Jess. Then, watching for her reaction, he said, "I'll call your master in a few minutes. I think he'll trade the spell for you, don't you?"

Would he? For a woman he considered to still be a horse? Jess shook her head, feeling stubborn and glad that the true answer was one that could confound him—which it did.

"No?" Derrick said in surprise. "I saw the way he looked at you at the park. Very protective, he is. It's going to occur to him that there's no point in holding on to the spell when he can't get it back to Camolen, anyway."

"Neither can you," Jess pointed out, perplexed and a little suspicious that that obvious fact had escaped him.

"Can't I?" Derrick asked, his expression turning truly smug, and making what should have been an attractive face detestable. "Just because I'm adept with the physical aspects of my role, little mare, doesn't mean I don't have other skills. It's true I could never come up with this spell everyone wants, but I think I can eventually use it to return home—although, as I told Carey, by that time, Calandre will have accomplished her goals through other means."

"If you can not make the spell yourself, you will never get home," Jess said, willing to do almost anything to wipe that look off his face. She well remembered it, through different eyes, from the moment when Derrick had stood in his stirrups and released an arrow at Carey. "The spell is gone."

He laughed. "You have learned a lot from your time here. Nice try, but I don't believe you."

She wanted to kick him. "I tell the truth! Carey tried to use it and it blew up!"

His amusement died away, his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'it blew up'?" Then, as the greater significance hit him, he grabbed her shoulders and asked, "You mean he accessed magic from this world?"

She was too startled, too angry, to do anything but fight his touch. She instantly kicked out at him, and would have squirmed from his grasp if he hadn't snatched the hair at the back of her head with an iron grip, forcing her head back, forcing her to stare at him.

"None of that," he hissed. "I can handle a woman as well as a horse, missy—and it can hurt a whole lot more than this."

She stared back through the involuntary tears that smeared her vision and allowed herself to be a horse again. For that one moment, she let herself feel the acquiescence to rules, to the hold on her head that wasn't so different from her training halter, albeit a more painful one.

Slowly, he released her, never removing his gaze from hers. When she did nothing but sit, not even so much as a toss of the head, he relaxed. Let him take it as submissiveness, instead of the subterfuge she was practicing for the first time. Let him think of her as too much the horse—just as Carey did—while she waited for the right moment to act. With effort, she kept her eyes from shifting to the gun on the chair behind him. Let him forget he had Jess instead of Lady, while he carried a gun that she, too, knew how to use.

And would use, with the fierce protectiveness of a mare guarding her own, unhindered by any veneer of civilization she'd acquired in her short time here.

* * *

Jaime followed the movement of horse and rider around the ring, nodding in approval, a slight smile on her face. "Good job, Kate! You feel the difference in him when you push him up into the bridle?"

"It's hard work!" her student replied, but there was no complaint in her voice as she rode by the gate to the aisle.

Jaime's smile abruptly faded. When Kate and her mount cleared the gate, Carey was on the other side, unhooking it and slipping through. Jaime felt a growl of annoyance fighting to come out; he knew the rules about interrupting lessons.

But the growl, too, faded, as he walked through the soft footing with long, hurried strides, and stopped before her, his face broadcasting a message of trouble while his mouth seemed unable to manage it.

"What on earth has happened?" Jaime asked, trying to keep an eye on Kate, whose light lovely trot was disintegrating into a rein-tugging match between horse and rider.

"Lady," Carey said.

"She's at the library," Jaime said, annoyance creeping up again. "I want you to do some walk-trot transitions, Kate. Twenty strides each." Then, to Carey, "She wouldn't tell me what upset her today, but I know you were part of it—she only gets that look on her face when it has to do with you. She's run away from it—and you—and I'll be leaving to get her in fifteen minutes, when this lesson is over." She pointedly turned back to her student, but Carey didn't take the hint.

"Derrick has her," he said.

"What?"

"He got her when she left the library. He wants to trade her for the spell."

"But—" Jaime started, and couldn't go any further with it. The spell was gone, and they'd never fool Derrick with a fake, not in this world of printer paper and ball point pens. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then called, "Kate, something's come up. I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to leave. There won't be any charge for the lesson."

"Is everything all right?"

Jaime shook her head, too worried to stick with the facade of reassurance. "No, but it's a long story. Can you get Turner loaded up okay without help?"

"No problem," Kate said. "I hope everything turns out okay, Jaime."

Not much chance of that. "Thanks. I'll see you next week, then." She looked at Carey, who preceded her out of the ring with the same ground-eating strides with which he'd entered; Jaime had to jog a few steps before she adjusted to his gait. "What are you going to do?" she asked, as they walked out into the night. Then she'd wished she'd waited, for she couldn't see his face when he stopped and answered, and the ragged quality of his voice was not what she'd expected.

"He's calling back in a few minutes. I'm going to agree to the trade, and then I'm going to go get her. I've already talked to Mark—he wants to go with me."

"So do I," Jaime blurted, her fear for Jess outweighing all sensible factors.

"We've only got two guns," Carey said, his blunt response driving home the danger. "Derrick is sure to be armed, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has his friend with him."

"Give me one of the guns," she said, unswayed. "I may not be very good with it, but the only other thing we've got is Derrick's bow, and I know I can't do anything with that."

"That's what Mark said." Carey's voice held a hint of dry humor. "He said you'd want to come. That's the reason I almost didn't tell you—"

"But you needed a ride into town," Jaime supplied.

"Yes." He didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "And I couldn't talk him out of calling Eric, either. He thinks we're going to want someone there waiting with a car. For a fast retreat, which we'll probably need." He started walking again, leading her into the house. "Put a dark shirt on. If things work out right, I'd like you to stay out of sight—surprise reinforcement."

"You knew I'd come, too," Jaime said, almost an accusation.

They'd made it to the kitchen; he stopped and looked at her. "I was pretty sure," he said. "You've meant a lot to Jess. I think she means a lot to you, too."

She didn't answer; she didn't think she needed to. But she thought again that she'd missed something significant earlier in the day, because Carey's expression wasn't quite the cool, matter-of-fact determination she'd come to expect from him. It wasn't cool at all.

* * *

At the LK, Mark left the desk in the hands of a sleepy, curious coworker, and slid into the suddenly crowded front seat of Jaime's pickup, holding out his hand. Carey placed one of Derrick's appropriated guns into it, and then dumped a generous fistful of ammunition into the other hand.

"Dayna's coming, too," Mark announced, and Jaime stopped in mid U-turn to lean over the steering wheel and aim a questioning look past Carey to her brother. He shrugged. "I was surprised, too. But she was over at Eric's place when I called, and she refused to stay behind. Didn't even mention calling the cops."

"No," Carey murmured. "We can't do that."

"We know," Jaime said grimly. "You think if we didn't, we'd be doing this dumb-ass hero act? Good lord, look at us. We put Clint Eastwood to shame."

"No choice, Jay," Mark said simply, and for a brief moment, she was swept by affection for her brother. And then it faded, and she pulled out of the U-turn and straight into the sparse traffic.

"The YMCA," she muttered. "What a place for a showdown."

"It's as good as any," Mark shrugged.

"He said he'd be in the lower parking lot," Carey told them. "It doesn't mean anything to me."

"Easy," Mark said. "Two lots behind the building, and one's about eight feet lower than the other, has a short drive connecting the two. The lower one's the furthest from the Y, so that gives us a good chance at sneaking Jaime in against the building. Eric's meeting us out front, but I think he should kill his lights and roll down into place between the two parking lot entrances. Once we pull in, Derrick's not likely to notice a car coasting dark."

"I still don't know how you think you're going to get Jess safely away from him," Jaime said, shaking her head as she stopped at the light in front of the courthouse, an impatient foot riding the clutch while she waited out the red.

Carey's voice was full of confidence. "The fake'll throw him for a minute. He never saw the real thing, and Mark said the parking lots aren't well lit. All I need is that minute."

"I don't think," Jaime said quietly, "that Jess will be very happy if you get killed doing this." Despite the silence, she felt some kind of communication pass between Mark and Carey, and she suddenly realized that Mark knew whatever it was that had happened earlier in the day.

As if to confirm her thought, Carey said, "I'm not sure she's too happy with me right now, anyway. It doesn't matter. What's important is getting her out of this. I'd give Derrick that damn manuscript, if I had it."

To her surprise, she believed him. But she didn't have any more time to think about it, because the light was green and they were one turn away from the YMCA.

"Dayna can take the car. I want to be out there with you," were Eric's abrupt words of greeting as Jaime double-parked the pickup beside his little hatchback.

Carey's response was immediate. "No. There'll already be too many people in that parking lot, considering Derrick expects only me."

"Then let me be one of them," Eric insisted.

No, Jaime pleaded silently. Not Eric, whose soul was too gentle to mar with the guilt of shooting someone. "Carey—" she started in protest, but he was ahead of her.

"Can you shoot better than Jaime?" he asked.

Eric looked away. "No."

"Then drive for us."

A sigh. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

Jaime's attention wandered as Mark relayed their half-formed plan; her hand drifted down to the automatic that lay on the seat beside her leg, glad for it but dreading the fact that she might actually have to use it. Lost in thought, she was surprised to find Mark standing outside her door.

"Hey, Jay, you out in the ozone or what? I'll take the truck from here. You follow the building around and wait next to it until you've spotted Derrick. Then get as close as you can without being seen—that gun won't be accurate from any distance—and keep an eye out for Derrick's pal. He may be pulling the same trick you are."

"Great," Jaime said without enthusiasm.

Mark propped his elbows on the truck door and leaned in the open window. "You don't have to do this," he said quietly. "Eric can handle it, if that's what you want."

Jaime took a deep breath. "No. I'm fine. Just wish I'd thought to change out of my breeches—Derrick'll probably smell me coming."

Mark snorted, punched her softly on the shoulder. "Keep your head down."

"Yeah," Jaime acknowledged, climbing out of the truck, hesitating on the running board where she was, for once, taller than Mark. "Be careful." She gave him a rare, sisterly kiss on the cheek and, hefting the gun, left the pickup behind.

The brick YMCA was bordered by shrubs and small trees, tempting her to hide and wait while she listened for signs of company. But she was too driven by the fear that the guys would get into trouble before she even made it around to the back, so she moved quickly from shrub to tree, and finally to the back corner of the building, where she had a clear view of both parking lots. The only light came from two floodlights on the back of the Y and a few sporadic yard lights in the run-down housing that pushed up against the parking lot, but it was easy enough to spot Derrick. He stood boldly in the center of the lower lot, visible to her from only the chest up. Next to him was Jess, a gun shoved against the bottom of her jaw. She stood quietly, and Jaime hoped she had the resources to continue doing so—and then to move when the time was right.

She heard the truck doors slam, one after another, and Mark and Carey walked into the upper lot, almost casually. To her left, Jaime heard the soft tire noise of Eric's car; it stopped at the entrance to the upper lot, unnoticed by the others.

"I told you to come alone," Derrick called to Carey. "Alone and unarmed. You didn't do either—is that all that you care about this pretty little thing?"

Jess twitched in his grip, managed to turn her head enough against the pressure of the gun to look at Derrick; Jaime could well imagine the glare. She took advantage of the confrontation and, going down to a crouch from which she could no longer see Derrick—and hoped he couldn't see her—she crept forward, angling left toward the street, intending to get a clear line of fire.

Carey lifted the strung bow in a shrug. "The problem is, I don't trust you. I want Lady, all right, so I'll give you the spell. It doesn't really matter. You can't get home."

"Yeah, well, I don't trust you either. Especially not since the mare is so insistent the spell's been destroyed by some foolishness on your part."

"You are the foolish one," Jess said, her voice barely audible to Jaime. "You come after him again and again. I will kill you when I can."

A chill ran through Jaime as she recognized the utter intent in Jess' voice. She no longer worried if Jess would move when she had to—she worried that she wouldn't wait, wouldn't realize there was more to this than just Mark and Carey. She stretched up, just enough to get her bearings before she crept forward again. The sound of her own movement nearly obscured Derrick's laugh. Good. He thinks he's already won.

"She's spunky. I can see why you used her on that run. Too bad I didn't get the chance to ride her myself." Then his voice changed. "The spell, Carey. First put that bow down—no, give it to your friend there. It'll keep his hands full. Then bring the spell here—slowly. As soon as I'm satisfied, I'll let your little filly go."

Jaime could see the man now, and got down to her hands and knees, sinking to the pavement each time Derrick seemed to glance her way. Then she was at the edge of the two lots, on her stomach, and not ready to go any further.

Carey took the quiver off his shoulder, held it and the bow up so Derrick could see them clearly, and handed them to Mark.

"Hold them out," Derrick said as Mark's hands fell to his sides and, reluctantly, Mark did so. He and Carey exchanged a quick look before the courier stepped out away from him, holding out their hastily concocted fake, the other hand palm up in placation. He slid down the short, steep bank between the lots without seeming to notice it was there, and stopped a few feet away from Derrick and Jess.

"C'mon, c'mon, let's see it," Derrick said impatiently, snaking his gun arm around Jess' neck to keep that threat alive while he reached for the paper. Jaime held her breath, waiting for Carey to pick his moment—but it was Jess who moved. As Derrick snatched the bogus spell, Jess twisted her head and sunk her teeth into his hand, exploding into offensive elbows and feet.

Derrick yelped as Jess ducked out of his weakened grip and whirled around, but not to run—to attack. Carey was there first, grabbing at the gun. Seconds passed in a scuffle too close for Jaime to identify either man, and she jumped to her feet and slid down the bank, stopping with the gun held out in both almost steady hands. "Derrick!" she screamed, trying to startle him, succeeding only in startling Carey and giving Derrick the opening to slap his gun across Carey's face.

Carey staggered back, stumbled, fell to his knees. Appalled, Jaime tightened her grip on the gun and shouted in best TV cop fashion, "Drop it!"

It didn't work; he didn't even seem to hear her as he brought his gun to bear on Carey, who was still stunned, wobbly, and trying to get to his feet. Oh my God I'm going to have to kill him—but suddenly she didn't think she could.

She never found out. Jess was there, wresting the automatic from her grasp, shoving it against Derrick's chest and pulling the trigger not once but three times, creating an oddly muffled noise that matched the jerking of Derrick's body. He fell with the peculiar wet thud of dead meat; Jess stared at the gun in her hand, holding it away from her as if it was a week-old road kill, then deliberately dropping it to the pavement.

Jaime snatched it up and handed it off to Mark as he ran up; he took it almost absently as he knelt to check Derrick's body. It was only a moment more before both Eric and Dayna were there, too, gaping at the man Jess had killed, but Jess seemed oblivious to all of it as she crouched by Carey, touching his face where the blood ran freely. When he finally responded to her, dazed but reaching out a reassuring arm, she dropped her head into the hollow of his shoulder and kept it there, shivering but silent.

Dayna didn't gape long. Ever practical, she said, "We've got to get out of here. The porch lights just came on all the way down the street."

Carey didn't seem to hear her. He gently disengaged from Jess and made it to Derrick's body without ever making it to his feet, feeling around the man's neck. With a small satisfied sound, he pulled out a chain strung with small stones and crystals. As he sat back, his fingers closing around the gems in possessive relief, he glanced up at Jaime and said, "We can go home now."

"Not if the police get here first," Dayna warned.

"She's right, Carey," Jaime said, reaching for Jess, who was still curled up into a shoulder that was no longer there.

"Not even the police can stop me if I invoke this," Carey said, but he drew himself together and stood, wiping the back of his hand across his face, where the blood from his split and puffy brow still ran. He took a deep breath, bent and touched Jess, and drew her upright. "I'll take Derrick," he said almost absently as he carefully brushed a hand over Jess' cheek, clearing away the parking lot grit that had stuck to her tears, but leaving traces of his own blood. "That way no one here can get in trouble over him."

Dayna was gathering the guns, wiping them thoroughly on the tail of her shirt. "You won't want these going back with you," she said. "We'll dump 'em in the reservoir. Carey, I don't want to sound heartless, but if you're going to go, dammit, go."

"No," Jaime protested without thinking. "All his gear is at my place, and the gold—"

Carey shook his head. "She's right—"

"We can't stand around arguing about it," Mark said abruptly. "Eric, take this guy's hands; I'll get his feet. We'll throw him in the back of the pickup and talk about this somewhere else."

Eric complied with a swiftness that bespoke his worry, although Jaime decided they'd already been too long, that the police would have been here if they'd been called. The shots were muffled . . . she picked up the bow and quiver Mark had dropped, and they all moved in procession, led by Eric at the head of Derrick's body. While Mark and Eric manhandled Derrick's body into the truck—thank goodness they could just hose the bed out—Carey removed his arm from Jess' shoulders and swung her around to face him. "I think you should stay here, Jess," he said softly.

"Here?" Jess repeated, bewildered. "You don't want me?"

"You called her 'Jess,' " Jaime said in a low voice. Not Lady. Jess.

Carey spared her only a glance. "Once I told you that you would always be Lady—that magic couldn't change the nature of who you were." He stared into her eyes, used his thumb to wipe away the last traces of grit beneath her eye, and then lightly kissed the spot where it'd been. "Maybe magic couldn't—but you did. There's more to you than there ever was to Lady, and if you come back with me, you're going to lose it all."

"I don't want to leave you," Jess said, her low and occasionally husky voice now thick with new tears. "There is no rule that can make me leave you."

"But, Jess," Carey said, and to Jaime's ears he sounded stunned, "if you come, you're going to lose you."

"Now that is just too sweet."

The voice startled them all, and Mark quickly slammed the truck cap door closed, while the rest of them searched for the new participant in their little drama. Jaime closed her eyes when she recognized Derrick's pal Ernie. He was leaning casually against a tree that bordered the parking lot, but there was nothing casual about the silenced gun he had trained on them. "Figured I was out of a payroll when she nailed Derrick," he said, nodding at Jess. "And then I heard you say something about gold. I'm interested. Real interested. In fact, I think I'll want to keep a couple of these ladies with me until one of you gents brings that gold back to me."

"Whatever he was paying you, it was too much," Carey said. "It didn't go too far toward keeping him alive, did it?"

Ernie shrugged, unoffended. "I was watching her," he said, tipping the gun at Jaime. "He said he could handle the trade. I guess he was wrong."

"No more wrong than you, if you think we're going to trot off and bring you back gold." Carey's voice was hard, and it suddenly made Jaime consider how different his life must have been from hers, and that his past must hold the experience that hardened that voice. And though she wanted to protest his reaction, fearful it would simply set Ernie off, a small voice told her to let him handle it.

"Oh, I think you will," Ernie said easily. "You know, it's not true what they say about silencers. They don't really silence the gun. It's a popping kind of noise—about the same kind of noise it makes when a bullet hits a kneecap."

Jaime couldn't believe her ears. Where had Derrick found this guy in little Marion, Ohio?

"That one, I think," Ernie said, pointing the gun at Jess. "Everyone seems to be so concerned about her. And she's such a pretty thing. Be a shame to see her hobbling around on a leg that doesn't bend anymore, don't you think?"

Jess made a sound in her throat that both Jaime and Carey recognized as the threat it was; Carey stepped in front of her. It was meant to restrain and not protect her, but Ernie's false affability vanished. The gun bucked slightly, and Eric yelped as the glass door of the truck cap shattered, spraying him with shards.

"Even if the police aren't coming, I don't want to hang around here all night," Ernie said in annoyance. "I want the women to move back into the parking lot, and I want you to go get that gold." His voice rose to an abrupt shout that startled them all. "Now!"

Jaime wasn't sure just what happened next, as Dayna took a first hesitant step toward the parking lot. Suddenly they were all moving, and Jess flashed past her, but she jerked up short as someone swung her around, trading places—the gun popped, there was a cry of pain—and then Jaime was caught in a crushing grip, unable to even call out to the freeze frame of her friends around her. She was yanked and twisted and wrung out like dirty laundry, then dumped, gasping, onto ground that in no way resembled the parking lot of the YMCA.

* * *

The ground was damp and bare, covered with prickly stemmed, low growing plants. It smelled . . . spicy. Jaime dared to open her eyes and quickly closed them against bright sunlight. But . . . she couldn't hide forever. She rolled over and pushed herself to her knees, opening her eyes once and for all.

The area was littered with bodies in various states of disarray; only Carey was, like Jaime, slowly climbing to his feet; he pulled himself up on the tailgate of the pickup, a vehicle that was totally, almost hilariously out of place. Jaime stumbled over to him, trying to voice some coherent question, when suddenly she thought, Jess. She whirled, a move turned clumsy with her yet-uncoordinated limbs, and searched the prone figures for one that matched Jess. Instead, off to the side, she found a dun mare, stretched flat on her side and adorned with the rags of what used to be clothes.

"Jess," she whispered, horrified, and turned to Carey. His eyes were closed, but the pain on his face left no question that he'd seen the mare.

The others were stirring, and Carey's eyes opened, hard again, the pain safely tucked away. He walked, almost steadily, to Ernie, pulling the gun out of the other's loose grip, then wobbled a few steps backward so he could take in the whole group at the same time. The surprise and dismay on his face was Jaime's first clue that there was something else going on here, something she'd missed. Dayna's cry of alarm drew her attention to Eric's still form, and she felt something deep within her twitch in horror.

"Eric!" Dayna wailed, crawling closer to her friend, trying to turn him over. Carey took a few impotent steps forward and then stopped, looking away from the scene that Jaime had not . . . quite . . . The gunshot. She remembered the gunshot, and the cry of pain, and she dove for Eric, helping Dayna turn him.

There was really very little blood. It was Eric's blank eyes and slackly hanging jaw that looked so terribly dead, the way his arm flopped to the ground as they turned him. Dayna tentatively touched his face, and her brief moment of disbelief turned to a flood of grief as she threw herself over him and wailed.

When Jaime looked up, still too stunned to feel anything but the initial dread, she found Mark crawling, horrified, to join them. He reached a trembling hand out to confirm that what he saw was real, but didn't quite—couldn't seem to—touch Eric's body. Jaime finally did what no one else seemed capable of, and closed Eric's wide-open eyes.

"Just stay right there on the ground," Carey said harshly, a voice out of synch with their grief, and close enough to the edge of reason that Jaime turned to see what he was talking about. She found Ernie, flat on his back on the bare, rocky ground and carefully compliant. But then his mouth opened, and once started, he couldn't seem to stop the words that poured out.

"Where the hell are we, huh? Take me back, man, take me back! I won't give you any more trouble, I don't even know you and your damn gold exist. Derrick wasn't anything to me—take me back, and I'll make sure nobody ever bothers you, and I mean nobody. I've got connections—"

"None of 'em will do you any good from here," Carey said coldly, cutting off the panicked rush of words. He absently wiped the slowing trickle of blood from his face, trauma left over from another world. "We can't take you back. I wouldn't if I could. You've killed a friend, and now you're going to get a taste of this world's justice."

"Carey—" Jaime started, but when he looked at her, she couldn't do anything but shake her head. She suddenly felt she couldn't stomach any more violence, not even retribution. Carey watched her a moment and must have deciphered her unspoken thoughts. He lowered Ernie's gun so it was no longer a threat.

"Okay, Jaime," he said. "It doesn't matter anyway. Let him learn to survive here—that's punishment enough." To Ernie, he said, "You got questions? Figure 'em out for yourself. But I don't want to see you while you're doing it."

Ernie sat, his wild glance going from Carey to Jaime and back again; he couldn't quite believe any of it yet.

"Go," Carey said, softly dangerous. "Before I change my mind."

Ernie scrabbled to his feet and ran, stumbling, looking back more than he looked ahead.

"He'll die out there," Jaime said, more to herself than anyone else.

But Carey shook his head. "He'll survive. His kind always does." He looked at the huddle of friends, considered them, and finally turned to Jess.

Or maybe, Jaime thought, maybe now it was Lady again. She tore herself away from Eric's side, where Mark had gathered Dayna into his arms, and moved over to Carey and the dun mare, much steadier on her feet now. Carey crouched by the animal, running his hands along her side; she stirred, flipping her nose off the ground a few times before she gave a chillingly human groan.

It did what Eric's death couldn't. It drove home all the sorrows of their situation, and Jaime suddenly found that tears were running down her face, that a sob choked her throat.

"No," Carey murmured, though she wasn't sure to whom, until he took her arm and shook it. "Not now, Jaime—help me get her to her feet."

She stared blankly, pulled up the bottom of her shirt to wipe her face, and blinked at him.

"Remember Sabre after the magic?" he asked, short, clipped words in a strained voice; he snatched a remnant of Jess' jeans and threw them aside. "Remember the other horses? They didn't understand, and it was more than they could take."

Shock can kill a horse. Her fears from that day echoed in her mind, and her tears miraculously vanished. Hands and knees, she moved to Jess and joined Carey in freeing her from the leftover clothes. Then, with Carey pushing from behind, she moved to the mare's head and urged her to get up, starting with pleas and quickly deteriorating into an absurd tug-of-war, her hands entwined in the dark, thick mane behind black-tipped ears.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Jaime panted, pausing to readjust her grip. "Maybe we should just give her some quiet, some time to adjust—" She broke off at Carey's unyielding expression.

"No," he said firmly, a denial touched with anger. "I know her. She's got to get up, get moving . . . get distracted." He stared down at the muscled rump before him and gave it a sudden kick.

"Carey!" Jaime gasped, although he'd turned his foot so he was not digging her with his booted toe.

He ignored her. "Get up, Lady, burn you! Get up!" He punctuated each command with another kick, and the dun stirred; Jaime danced back out of the way and back behind the horse, bending over to add her own, less violent incentive—thumbs over sensitive ribs. Lady gave a grunt of pure annoyance and in one quick heave, was on her feet. She shook herself off and then stood dully, her head down so far her nose almost touched the ground. Carey quickly moved to her head, crouching down and touching her forehead with his. "Don't you dare," he whispered to her. "Don't you dare give up, Jess. I know you're in there somewhere. You've got to be." He stood and gently tugged her head up with her forelock. "You got anything in the back of the truck I can use as a halter?" he asked Jaime, never looking away from his . . . horse.

"Maybe," she sighed, a noise of fatigue—and the realization that they had only begun to tackle their problems. "I'll check."

She was rooting around in the truck, trying not to touch Derrick's body, when Dayna's first shriek rent the air. What now? Turning awkwardly in the confined space, she discovered Mark holding the small woman back, while Dayna, in the strength of her anger, was proving almost impossible to restrain.

"You bastard!" Dayna screamed across the hard, scrubby ground, looking after Ernie. Jaime scooted her bottom across the tailgate and hopped to the ground, only then able to see that Ernie lingered at the fringes of a small patch of brushy woods. She ran to Mark's side, grabbing at Dayna's twisted shirt, interposing herself between Ernie and Dayna's fiery wrath—with no effect on Dayna. "You bastard!" she repeated, jerking herself out of Jaime's grasp at the expense of several buttons. "I'll kill you! You're going to die for this!"

Suddenly Jaime felt a pressure, as though a transparent force field had traveled through her body and left her behind; she jerked around to look and saw nothing . . . except Ernie, staggering out of the woods and falling to the ground.

"Stop her!" Carey shouted. "Stop her, Mark!" He left Lady and sprinted toward them, not slowing as he tackled Mark and Dayna together and brought them all to the ground. All except Jaime, who stared first at the tangled mess of her friends and then at Ernie, who had struggled to his feet and disappeared into the woods with no time wasted.

"What was that?" she whispered to the air—Camolen air.

"Magic," Carey panted. "Raw magic."

* * *

They regrouped at the tailgate of the truck while Carey, using a halter made of old baling twine, pulled Lady around the truck, breaking into sporadic jogging until she finally submitted to the tug and trotted around with him.

"That's my girl," he said, running a hand down her neck as he stopped them by the tailgate. The horse lowered its head and shook vigorously, and then stretched out her head to sniff the truck.

"How much . . ." Jaime started, and had to clear her throat. "How much of Jess is left, do you think?"

Carey shook his head. "I don't know. I keep hoping she's in there, but . . . I just don't know enough about magic. Sometimes it's far too thorough. Have you paid attention to your words?"

"Our words?" Mark repeated, as an odd look crossed his face. "Not English," he murmured, looking at Jaime. Not English. And the air was filled with the spice of hot rock and vegetation, and the sunlight was somehow whiter—

"Who cares?" Dayna said dully. "I want to go back home."

Carey looked at the mare for an overlong time. Finally, still looking at the neck he stroked, he said, "I can't get you there. The stone was only keyed for two spells. If you really want to go home, you're going to have to help me find Arlen."

"If he's not already dead," Mark said pointedly.

Carey looked at him then, a sharp glance. "Right," he said. "If he's not already dead."

Jaime scrubbed her hands over her face. "All right, Carey. We need to find Arlen. But first, we have to do something with—for—Eric. And you need to tell us something about where we are—in relation to where we're trying to get. Where is Arlen's place from here? Where's Calandre, or this Sherra person you've told us you were trying to reach?"

"And why was Dayna able to play around with magic?" Mark inserted, looking at their friend.

"I wasn't playing," she muttered darkly. "And you shouldn't have stopped me."

"I didn't stop you because of him," Carey asserted, just as darkly. "I stopped because of what it might have done to you. You haven't been around for most of our discussions about magic, but just ask Jaime. She knows what can happen if you fool around with it and you don't know what you're doing. That magic could have come right back on you—it could even have killed us all."

"Oh," Dayna mumbled, her anger dissipating into pale-faced understanding.

"I don't understand how she was able to manipulate magic in the first place," Jaime frowned, looking at her friend. Dayna, the highly structured? Dayna, the organized and inflexible? Jaime had supposed that magic required great sweeps of imagination and creativity.

Carey shrugged, his attention wandering back to Lady as she investigated Derrick's body, hesitating at the scent of blood on his shirt. "Arlen could tell you, or even Sherra." He looked from the truck to Eric, and then out at the hard, scrubby land around them. "We need to get away from the open ground, get this truck under cover. I think we should dump this guy and put Eric in the truck—and drive it as far from here as we can get."

"Headed where?" Jaime asked pointedly. "Look, there's a mileage notebook in the glove box. Why don't you draw us a map or something—anything to give us the lay of the land—and especially which directions we want to avoid." When he seemed about to protest, she added, "We might get separated. We might have to fumble around on our own. I'd rather not do it blind."

He shrugged, and in a moment he had handed the tough thin hay-twine halter lead to Jaime, while he hunched over her little notebook and sketched them a rough map. "We're just over the border from Anfeald—Arlen's domain; that's the direction the truck is pointed now," he said. "You can't make it very far that way driving, though—there's a steep climb that turns into woods at the top. This whole area isn't heavily populated—the bigger cities are northeast of us. Sherra's Siccawei is behind the truck—pretty much straight south."

"And in Camolen, in which direction does the sun rise?" Mark asked, his tone so neutral Jaime couldn't tell if he was serious. But Carey took him seriously enough.

"East," he said. "But I'm not sure what the language translation will have done with directions." So he drew a quick compass on the map and labeled the points.

Jaime shook her head when she saw that East and West had flip-flopped, and suddenly had to look away from the perverted map. Somehow that simple difference drove home the fact that she wasn't home anymore, and it was almost too much to fathom, never mind handle. After a minute she cleared her throat and said, "Good catch, brother. That could have landed us in trouble fast."

"Sherra's is past the dry riverbed—I know it's a gorge here, but it bottoms out to the right, there, and I think you can get the truck over it—unless you don't think the truck'll manage over this ground."

"Drive it till it gets hung up," Jaime shrugged, her moment of overwhelmed disorientation shoved aside for practical matters. "Or goes dry. Though I'm not sure why you're so concerned about the speed. No one knows we're here, and there sure doesn't seem to be anyone around to spot us."

Carey straightened, frowning. "Think in terms of magic, Jaime. Anyone with any skill at all felt us arrive."

"Ulp," she said lightly, in pure contrast to the dismay she felt.

Carey said dryly, "Right," and pointed back to the map. "Sherra's hold is at the edge of a lake in another huge tract of woods. She's got quite a little village sprung up on the other side of the lake, cleared land and everything there. The paths are clear and you won't have any trouble finding it."

"And Calandre?" Mark asked grimly.

Carey pointed off to the right of Arlen's direction—between Sherra and Arlen. "Erowah is that way."

"Great," Jaime muttered.

"Closer to Arlen than Sherra, but further out," he said. "It's a pretty area, hilly sheep country. The people are good folk, and try to ignore the fact that she's there." He pushed the map toward them. "Got any questions?"

Jaime looked at the sketchy lines before her, lines that would have meant nothing without the commentary that came with them, and shrugged. "I suppose we can ask, if we lose our way."

"As long as you're sure you know who you're dealing with," Carey reminded them. He looked toward the old river and sighed, "I'm thirsty enough to suck on river pebbles, on the off chance there might be some water left in them."

"I wish you hadn't said that," Jaime said ruefully, immediately aware of her own thirst, and the fact that they were standing in the noonday sun. A large carrion bird circling overhead completed the picture nicely.

"That's the same river where Jess—Lady, I mean—and I fell. I suppose she told you about that."

"As best she could," Jaime allowed.

"Let's go," Dayna said abruptly. "I don't want Eric to lie out there any more, and I don't like this place."

"I'm with you," Mark said. He put a hand on Derrick's ankle, hesitated, and then gave a resolute tug. The stiffening body came reluctantly, leaving a trail of clotting blood behind. As Jaime regarded the dumped body with dismay, Dayna crawled in the truck and did her best to wipe the blood up, warning them off with, "Eric's not lying in this."

Lady investigated the body with a few impersonal whiffs, and a brief brush of her sensitive muzzle whiskers, then roughly pulled Jaime over to Eric, where she carefully went down the length of his lanky body, nudging, her eyes grown round and anxious. Jaime found her own eyes tearing up again, and gently tugged the lead until Lady followed her back to the truck, where she exchanged a look with Carey. He shrugged, completing the short, silent conversation. How much was Jess, and how much was just wishful thinking on their part?

"You just want to . . . leave him here?" Jaime asked in a low voice, changing the subject to Derrick and not particularly eager for Dayna to hear. Her glance went up to the bird, where it continued its lazy, spiraling glide in the thermals of the hot riverbed.

"We can't take the time to bury him," he replied in an equally discreet voice, his hazel eyes holding the same faint regret that she felt. "We've been here too long already." Then, as Dayna crawled out onto the tailgate, disdainfully dropping a bloodied rag on Derrick's body, he asked, "Ready?"

She nodded, and looked at Mark, who was already standing by Eric. Carey joined him and, together, carefully, they picked him up. Jaime took Dayna's hand and drew her off the tailgate, trying to make some contact with her tightly withdrawn friend—but Dayna's hand felt cool and distant in hers.

Carey closed the tailgate with relief plain on his face. "Let's go," he said. "It'll take them a while to figure out the tire tracks, but once they do, the trail'll be too damn clear."

"You really think they'll be here," Jaime said, climbing in behind the wheel while Carey squeezed in beside the gearshift and Mark filled the other half of the passenger side, Dayna on his lap. No one suggested that there was more room in the back.

"They'll be here," Carey said with assurance. "At the most, they're half a day away. If they're coming from Arlen's, less that half of that. Put this thing in four-wheel drive and get it moving, Jaime."

"Right," she muttered. "Wouldn't Chevy just love to base a commercial on this one."

"Jaime, you're nuts," her brother said, a brief moment of normalcy that did much to bolster her spirits. She glanced out the passenger-side mirror to see that he had a good grip on the halter lead, and that Lady didn't startle too badly when the engine turned over, and then let out the clutch, trying to move at a good pace while watching the rough ground, the direction ahead, and Lady's reaction to their progress. The mare trotted easily beside the vehicle, and soon she concentrated only on the ground before them.

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Framed