Tears stream down Vane’s face as he struggles forward, but Raiden kicks him again, this time in his side. I hear the crunch of bone as Vane collapses and doesn’t move. The sickly winds binding him have turned him pale—and when I turn back to Gus I see he’s already passed out.
“Please,” I beg the Westerlies when I feel them crash down again. “Please fight harder. Please help us.”
Three of the winds don’t respond. But my loyal shield sweeps to my side, coiling around me, easing the pain of my wound with its cool breeze. I close my eyes, and as I sink into the calm, I feel two words burn my tongue.
Get help.
I shout them and the draft races away, gathering with the others before they whip into the sky.
“Looks like your winds have abandoned you,” Raiden whispers in my ear. “Such is the folly of giving them a choice.”
He pulls his windslicer away—cutting me one more time in the process—and tangles me in his wicked winds. The sharp, draining drafts drag across my skin and I feel my energy fade. My ears start to ring and my vision turns dim and I’m about to surrender to the darkness when a clap louder than thunder erupts all around, rocking the ground so hard, Raiden loses his grip on me.
I collapse to my knees, coughing from the cloud of dust that burns my eyes as I fight to breathe. The thick brown air blurs everything, but I can make out a dark splotch on the ground nearby and scramble toward it, feeling my first real hope when I see that it’s Raiden’s windslicer.
The earth shakes again and I realize it’s the Westerlies. Dozens of them—maybe even hundreds—crashing in unison and kicking up so much sand the sky turns black. I hear coughing and screaming as Raiden and the Stormers command their broken winds, but the ruined drafts only swirl the dust and debris more.
I wriggle in my bonds, twisting until I free my right hand. I can barely bend the wrist, but I manage to grab the hilt of the windslicer and tilt the blade up enough that when I lean against it, the winds binding me unravel in a puff of smoke. Then I grab the windslicer and stumble to my feet, groping through the blinding dust, unable to tell if I’m moving toward Vane or away.
My progress is slow, and twice I bump into Stormers and barely duck the sweep of their blade. I shout for my loyal shield and the draft rushes to my side.
When it drapes itself around me, I can finally breathe and see again, and I take off running, searching for Vane and Gus—hoping the Stormers haven’t dragged them away. I find Gus first—cast aside like a pile of trash. His head falls limply as I move him, but when I sever his bonds, his eyes flutter open—and then immediately close from the dust.
I call another Westerly and beg it to shield him. The draft doesn’t want to obey, but it finally agrees to coil around Gus’s face, clearing the air enough for him to breathe.
“Where’s Vane?” he asks when he’s done coughing and hacking.
“I don’t know.” I pull Gus to his feet and he reaches for Raiden’s windslicer. My training screams for me to resist, but I remind myself of what happened when I attacked Aston. Better to have the weapon in the hands of someone capable of killing.
“Please,” I whisper to my Westerly shield. “If you know where Vane is, help me find him.”
The draft doesn’t respond, leaving Gus and me on our own.
Gus grabs my hand so we can’t get separated and we wade into the thickest part of the storm.
“You and Vane are bonded, right?” he shouts as we run. “I didn’t imagine that part?”
My face burns as I nod, but I hear no judgment in his tone when he says, “Then can’t you feel where he is?”
He slashes at a Stormer who crosses our path, and I close my eyes, trying not to think about the spray of red. “The pull of our bond weakens when we’re this close to each other, but I’ll see if I can feel it.”
I ask my Westerly to leave me for a minute so I can search for Vane’s trace.
The dust is so thick it coats my tongue, but I force myself to concentrate, searching for a hint of warmth or some sign of contact in the other winds. I feel like I’ve swallowed half the desert before I finally feel the electric tingle I need.
I tighten my grip on Gus’s hand and we take off running, him slashing anything in our path and me following the heat in the air until I crash into a bare chest.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Vane says as I wrap my shield back around me and call one for him.
I wait for the Westerlies to blanket us like second skins. Then I fall into Vane’s arms and cling to him as tightly as I can.
Vane squeezes me back, but his arm bumps the gash in my side, and I hate myself for wincing.
He pulls away, staring at the blood on his hand. “I’ll kill Raiden.”
“No—he’s mine,” Gus insists.
“Actually—you’re both wrong,” Raiden calls, parting the dust enough to show where he’s been hiding. He’s coated in sickly gray winds and he looks pale and green from their effects. But they seem to let him breathe in the storm. “Once again, you’ve managed to impress me with your powers. But it’s time to stop these foolish games. Call off this ridiculous haboob and I promise I’ll let you all live.”
“Or we kill you now,” Gus says, holding up Raiden’s windslicer.
“Try it, see what happens.”
I put my hand on Gus’s shoulder to stop him. I’m sure Raiden isn’t bluffing.
The Westerlies crash again, but Raiden doesn’t even flinch.
We won’t be able to get away from him—not unless we do something new. And that’s when I realize that my Westerly has changed its song again.
Every verse now ends with the same word—like it’s begging me to listen to the clue. The command doesn’t make sense, but this draft hasn’t failed me so far.
I tighten my grip on Gus and Vane and shout, “Fuse!”
The Westerlies shift direction, collecting together, swelling thicker and stronger. I’d thought the storm was chaos before, but now it’s an impenetrable wall of choking dust that traps all the Stormers—even Raiden—in the heavy air that Gus, Vane, and I are allowed to move through with ease. Our Westerly shields must be telling the other winds to let us pass.
We run as fast as we can, not looking back as the ground gets steeper. And the higher we climb, the more the air clears until we’re finally able to gather the winds we need for a pipeline.
“Wait,” Vane shouts, adding a Westerly to the mix before I give the final command.
Then he takes my hand, grabbing Gus with his other as he shouts “Enhance!” and the vortex expands around us, blasting us out of the valley.
CHAPTER 27
VANE
I can’t believe we’re alive.
Well . . . for now.
I don’t know how long that crazy wind-sludge stuff will trap Raiden in Death Valley, but I’m betting it’s asking too much for it to last a few hundred years. Odds are, we have a couple of hours. Maybe less.
The vortex spits us out into the open air, and I do useful things like scream and flail while Audra unravels the pipeline and Gus gathers Southerlies and tangles them around us to slow our fall. At least I remember to release the Westerly shields. We owe our lives to those weary drafts. They deserve to be free.
The winds around Gus and me zip into the gray twilight sky. But Audra’s shield tightens its grip, and from the smile on her face I can tell she wants it to stay. Only Audra could make a Westerly her new pet.
“Where are we?” Gus asks when we touch down in the middle of yet another desert. I’m starting to wonder if that’s all there is in this freaking state when I realize we’re not actually in California anymore.