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forgotten it was daytime.
    Amara checked behind her. A woman stumbled in and hunkered by the door. Another two shapes approached. Their steady, sober gait told Amara enough.
    This time, Amara probably did grab Cilla’s arm too tightly. They turned north and ran.

olan had separated the whites and darks just like he’d always seen Mom do, keeping the patterns he wasn’t sure about to one side, and tossed the whites into the washing machine. While that ran, he’d pulled up yesterday’s laundry from the clothesline in the stairwell. Still moist. That couldn’t hurt, could it?
    He sat on his parents’ bed—better AC in this room—and tried to fold carefully, like Mom, but his movements came anxious and fast, resulting in uneven folds and sleeves that stuck out the wrong way. The faster Nolan moved, maybe the faster Amara would run through the inn, too. The faster she’d be safe.
    Downstairs, Dad talked on the phone—
    â€”Amara disappeared. From one moment to the next, she was gone, and—
    â€”Nolan grasped an undershirt tightly. This was the second time Amara had blacked out in the space of a few minutes. First in the hallway, now here, by the outhouse doors—
    â€”Nolan always got more of Amara’s thoughts the longer he stayed, until he forgot there was a Nolan at all. But even when he was there for just a blink, kept his eyes shut for under half a second, he sensed her.
    Not now.
    Nolan still saw the outhouse doors through her eyes, still felt the chilly, rusted metal of the door handles. Still smelled the stench. Still saw Cilla moving closer. Her hand fell from Amara’s, leaving behind cool air on clammy skin.
    But Amara wasn’t there. Her mind was empty.
    Move
! he wanted to shout.
    For three full seconds, she stayed at the doors, thoughts beyond reach. Then, as quickly as she’d left, she blossomed back into the vacuum at the edge of Nolan’s mind.
    Amara blinked rapidly, looked at Cilla, then at her now-empty hand. Her confusion didn’t last long. She threw open the doors, and they fled, cold blasting inside—
    â€”Nolan stared at the crumpled undershirt in his hands. Shakily, he spread it on the sheets. He could do nothing for Amara, anyway. He watched. He dealt. End of story.
    Fold the sides in. Fold it double. He pressed the fabric flat, hoping to get out the wrinkles as he watched flashes of Amara running through the streets, dragging Cilla along, their boots slamming into painted cobblestones—
    â€”
we can go inland
, Amara was thinking,
lose them in the streets like Jorn always says, hope he finds us soon
. But if she led the mages west, toward the dunes, Cilla could flee into the local carecenter. A carecenter meant healing spells. The mages might lose track of Cilla’s curse in all the magic swarming around the area.
    Amara tugged at Cilla’s arm. A moment later, they dove into an alley on their left, narrow enough that no one had bothered painting the pavement. Laundry hung from beams suspended between high-up windows. Sheets flapped in the wind and blocked the afternoon sun, choking the alley in darkness, as if night had fallen in the space of a second.
    They hadn’t ducked into the alley in time. Pain flared in Amara’s shoulder—
    â€”Nolan jerked back. He reached for his shoulder, intact under his shirt. The pain faded into a memory. It wouldn’t stay that way. Already, his eyes were dry enough to sting.
    He dropped flat on the bed until he could reach his backpack, fishing out the notebook and pen he carried with him no matter where he went. He blinked. Kept in a scream. But he had to see what happened—
    â€”Amara ran, clutching her shoulder. Blood seeped through her topscarf and into the gaps between her fingers. The arrow had only scraped her. Could’ve been worse. If it’d hit her spine, she’d be down for the count. But the cut was
deep
. It’d take at least