as the fog poured, cold as death, through her open windows. Yelping, she hit the brakes first, an automatic response as her vision was obscured. Instead of stopping, the little car speeded up, its cheerful rubber band pinging now a machine gun's rat-a-tat . Under her hands the wheel vibrated, iced, and began to spin on its own. Though it felt like a slick and frozen snake, she gripped it, hard, and yanked. The scream of the tires echoed her own as she caught a glimpse of the edge of the cliff.
In front of her the windshield became a starburst. Ice crackling over ice. Then the stars went black. The spoon Mia was using to stir sauce for the pasta she'd made for Lulu clattered out of her numb hand. As it bounced to the floor, the vision shrieked through her head, all sound and fury. Her throat tightened as if a hand had squeezed it as she whirled away from the stove and ran. She flew out of the house, blind with panic, racing to the road on foot. From her hilltop view, she saw the filthy mist spewing behind the little orange car on the road below, and was running, running when she saw the car spin out of control and toward the cliff.
"No, no, no!" Fear blanked her mind, rolled sick in her stomach. "Help me. Help me." She chanted it over and over as she struggled to find her power through the sheer wall of terror. All she had, everything she was, she gathered. And heaved the magic inside her toward the car as it crashed into the guardrail and flipped like a toy tossed by a child's angry hand.
"Hold, hold." Oh, God, she couldn't think . "Blow air, come wind, a bridge to form. Hold her safe, keep her from harm. Please, please," she chanted. "A net, a bridge, a steady wall, keep her from that terrible fall."
Panting, her vision blurred with tears, she ran the last yards to where the car teetered on the broken guardrail, over the drop to the rocks below. "It will not have what's dear to me. As I will, so mote it be."
Her voice broke as she reached the rail. "Lulu!"
The car balanced precariously on its roof, seesawing on the crushed rail. The wind she'd conjured blew the hair back from her face as she climbed over the rail.
"Don't touch it!"
Small rocks and clumps of earth spilled off the unstable edge when she spun around at the shout. Sam leaped out of his car.
"I don't know how long it can hold. I feel it slipping, inside me."
"You can hold it." He pushed his way through the wind, climbed the rail until he, too, stood on the narrow edge. "Focus. You have to focus. I'll get her out."
"No. She's mine."
"That's the point." He spent a desperate moment to take Mia's arms, shake her. The car could go at any minute, he knew. And so could the edge where they stood. "Exactly. Hold it. You're the only one strong enough to do it. Step over the rail."
"I won't lose her!" Mia shouted. "Or you."
Her legs trembled as she climbed over the rail. Her hands shook as she lifted them. And she saw the fog begin to rise again. Saw the dark shape of the wolf forming from it. Her body stilled. Fury spiked inside her and stabbed away the fear. "You won't have her." The hand she flung out was rock-steady now. She faced the wolf, bore the weight of the magic she called on her shoulders. "You may have me, that's up to fate. But by all I am, all I have, you won't take her."
It snarled and started toward her. It could take her life now, she thought, and so be it. Her magic would hold. She risked a glance at Sam and saw, with inner horror, that he was easing a bleeding and unconscious Lulu out of the car. And the car tipped and swayed.
With a last push, she left herself open and defenseless, shoving everything toward the cliffs. And the wolf bunched to leap.
As he charged, energy shot into her, out from her. It struck him like a lightning bolt. With a furious howl, he vanished into the fog.
"Didn't count on my sisters, did you? You bastard."
The wind sucked away the mist, and she saw both Ripley and Nell spring out of their cars before she turned to run toward Sam.
He had Lulu in his arms. The