But it seemed like her features and Sal’s features had begun to bleed into each other a little, blend a little in his mind, until he couldn’t be sure he was remembering his daughter correctly or not. He shook himself. This damned place with all its dust. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be back in Texas. And if they ever got out of this godforsaken desert, Texas was the first place he’d go. Hell, even when Oklahoma had been what it was supposed to be, it was not what Texas was. Not to him. But he supposed that when one was born in Texas, raised in Texas, that Texas-ness never left. It was his reality.
He spat again into his peach can. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that for too long. Reality now was endless cracked sand, skeleton cars half submerged in the dust, stripped of anything useful. Air-rippling heat, endless thirst. And the creatures… he shuddered.
The fire coyotes, with their earth-blackening flames, were the first to spring to mind, always. But there were so many more things out there, strange things, things that Jameson dreamed of so often that he tried not to sleep. The tar-like black blobs he’d seen, skittering across the sand on little pale fingers. The pale, three-foot-long worms that passed beneath the soil and built cone-shaped nests like ant lions, surfacing only to eat the scorpions or horned toads that fell into them. The shadows that rippled in between the heat waves and disappeared, waiting, into one’s own shadow, to leap up and pull a man down into the sand, down to death. There was no hope beyond the walls. This he knew better than anyone. And if there was no hope beyond the walls, what did that mean for everyone inside the walls? Was it only a matter of time? Were they fooling themselves thinking they could ever escape a place like this with their lives and souls intact? Jameson just didn’t know.
Six o’clock. Less than twenty-four hours until the duel.
Above him, the banners snapped in the night wind. It was gaudier than any Mourning Night he’d ever seen. And with the announcements blaring over the desert—“A reminder that on Wednesday evening, everyone is expected to be in attendance at the duel,” “A reminder that the duel will begin promptly at six,” “A reminder that the searchlight on the northwest side is broken, please do not fear on the night of the duel”—he was certain that all the hullaballoo had not escaped the thieves’ attention. Half of him hoped that the thieves would recognize it as the threat that it was and not dare to show their faces.
But just as that hope crystallized in his mind, the light came on. Miss Ibarra was awake. And if she was up and shouting, throwing herself against the walls, that could only mean one thing: The thieves had gotten their message. They were going to climb those walls, right in front of his rifle.
“There’s no stopping it now,” Mr. Jameson murmured, his voice heavy with disgust. Then, with a final glance up at the night sky, Mr. Jameson emptied his peach can and went back inside.
CHAPTER 12
2 MONTHS
AND
29 DAYS
REMAIN.
Outside, the pennants fluttered to and fro, faded but cheerful against the dull sky. It was so overcast that barely any sunset orange showed through. If I didn’t know any better, I might have thought that it meant rain. But I did know better, and as I stood at the window of the sanctuary, looking out, I went over the order of mine and Asa’s spells, my hands moving along with the words.
But something felt off. Was it that my dresses were tighter than usual from all the good food I’d been having? Or maybe because my hair was out of its usual braids and up into a bun to keep it from catching on fire? My penny lay against my breastbone, thrumming with magic or my nerves, or both. But this was it. There was no going back.
Nervously, I looked outside.
A poster on a nearby wall proclaimed: SAL WILKERSON VS. ASA SKANDER. 6:00 Wednesday evening.
Fifteen minutes from now.
The fight of the century! I thought, imagining the two of us with boxing gloves and him with ketchupy fake blood to squirt when I socked him in the jaw. But boxing was one thing. Magic was another. And the rest of it… the trap… only made everything more nerve-racking.