a half hour. The makeup Mother Karen had put on me smelled as if it had some kind of sunscreen in it, so at least my face would be okay for a while. The tops of my ears and my nipples, maybe not so much.
Where were we? I turned to survey the landscape. At first glance, I thought we were in a junkyard planted randomly in the middle of a vast expanse of flat scrub, but then I realized the twisted metal frames were the wreckage of various types of smaller aircraft, from gliders to crop dusters to small commercial jets. I even saw the stripped, sun-bleached bones of a dragon. Farther in the distance I could see abandoned, intact aircraft; apparently their pilots had coasted to safe landings.
Or mostly safe: some had broken wings and fuselages, and I could see dark, muddy fuel spills beneath them. Why hadn’t they exploded or even burned? And what had made them crash? Clearly we were in a magical dead zone, but planes didn’t need magic to stay in the air. Or if they did, the airlines sure weren’t advertising it.
Cicadas were a steady, feverish buzz in the scrubby mesquites scattered among the wrecks. The earth was a mix of exposed crumbling limestone and dry caliche dotted with tufts of brown arrowgrass, purple-blossomed nightshades, ragweeds, and horse crippler cacti.
“Hey, guys, I think we’re in Texas.” I shrugged off my backpack and dug out a disposable lighter.
“Texas?” The Warlock was running his purple healing crystal over a nasty scratch on his face as he limped through the straw toward me. The wound was sealing, so the crystal was still working. His gaze rested on my bared breasts for two heartbeats, then slid away to the airplane wreckage. “What makes you think this is Texas?”
“The weeds, mostly. And the general landscape.” I flicked the lighter several times and didn’t get so much as a spark off the steel. Huh. Planes probably didn’t need charms, but they definitely needed internal combustion. Apparently someone—or something—had nixed fire as well as spoken magic. I blinked through all the gemviews; my ocularis seemed to be working properly. Whatever was squelching our spells didn’t seem to affect enchanted items.
The Warlock ran his fingers through his sweaty curls and scratched his scalp. “But it’s so … flat. Where are the mountains?”
I laughed and started digging my street clothes out of the backpack. “You’ve seen too many Westerns; you’re thinking of Montana. Hollywood thinks it looks more like cowboy country than the Lone Star State. Or maybe it’s just cheaper to film up there.”
Cooper joined us. “Not that I don’t love talking about movies, but maybe we should be talking about this spectacular trap we just randomly fell into?”
I wiggled into my sports bra. “Trap, yes. Random, no.”
The Warlock frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the trap part is obvious.” I slipped on my Hello Kitty T-shirt and gestured at the hay mountain. “That or this is the shittiest theme park attraction I’ve ever seen.”
“Did you know this was probably a trap when you had Pal go through?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah, I had an idea.” I started taking my boots off so I could slip on my dragonskin pants. It was way too hot for them, but at least they’d provide a bit of protection if we got attacked. I couldn’t bear the thought of putting on the dragonskin jacket, even though my arms were getting pink from the sun. For all the stuff I’d packed, I’d forgotten sunscreen.
“You knew this was a trap?” The Warlock looked like he was ready to pay me back for the broken nose I’d given him. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking we were facing certain fiery death if we didn’t go through the portal.” I stepped into the pants and pulled them up with my flesh hand; immediately my legs started sweating uncomfortably under the leather. “And since the portal didn’t seem to lead into outer space or a live volcano or Rush Limbaugh’s underwear, it seemed like the better of two lousy choices.”
I was getting faint flashes of the dragon’s death as the leather clung to my damp skin. If I closed my eyes, I could feel Moorish steel slashing my long neck and belly as I belched fire at the impudent raiders. But the death-imprint was old, faded, hovering just at the edge of my perception. I could get used to it, probably tune it out entirely after a while like a mild