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way, I guess. Shane said all the horses on the island …” She let it trail off. Miranda seemed suddenly upset. “What happened? What’s wrong?” Cam urged.
    “Nothing,” her mother insisted. “The heat of the day. I’ve been out here since … early afternoon.”
    “It’s about Epona, isn’t it?” Cam guessed. “He was a little high-strung at first, but he settled down quickly. It was okay. I’m fine.”
    But even as she tried to reassure her mother, a wave of nausea rocked her. Her head began to pound. The pounding became the sound of a horse’s hooves galloping toward her. Instead of Epona, it was a red horse that came charging. His body was wet with sea foam and as he approached, his coat bled into the strange colors of Shane’s spell. His wild mane remained red but his legs grew green and his body a translucent gold.…
    “The death horse galloping out of the sea,” Miranda was saying. Cam didn’t know how long she’d been lost in her vision, but her mother was standing now, looking troubled. “In legends, he is sometimes red, sometimesblack, and sometimes strangely colored. His mission was to pull the chariot of the sun god across the sky each day.”
    The sun god. Apollo. The one she’d been named for, the one that held the key to her earliest powers.
    “And then to carry the dead across the water —”
    Cam squinted up at her mother, trying to understand what Miranda was talking about.
    “But perhaps your friend didn’t know that particular legend. And, of course, they’re not all about death and chaos. There are so many tales and myths of the magical power of horses,” her mother quickly backpedaled. “Stallions tamed are said to become talismans of strength and virility. Some believe that the imprint of a horse’s footprint is a symbol of power. Another superstition has it that to possess a horseshoe is good luck, that it means you are under its protection —”
    A horseshoe — like Shane’s crystal pendant…
    Miranda picked up her gardening tools and walked with Cam back to the house to get ready for dinner. As they passed through the massive doors, Cam thought she heard her mother say, “The time has come to tell them. Ileana is going to have to cut her vacation short.”
    “Tell who what?” Cam asked without thinking.
    Miranda seemed startled. “I didn’t say anything,” she said.

CHAPTER SIX
    BREAKING THE RULES
    Alex had made a rule. She would not break into Cade’s head. She wanted a real relationship with him, a normal relationship. Which meant no mind reading. Except in an emergency.
    She owed the baffled boy an explanation for her bizarro behavior, something believable and forgivable. What she didn’t know was exactly how freaked he was, or if he still wanted a relationship with the wacko he now probably thought she was.
    The quickest way to his heart, she rationalized, was through his brain. If this didn’t qualify as a 911, what did?
    Immediately after promising Michaelina that she’d give the persistent pixie one last chance at friendship,Alex had biked back to the Heights, to the imposing house where Cade was hanging for the summer.
    A thirty-something woman wearing pearls with her silk sweater set and color-coordinated slacks met her at the door. “Alex?” the utter stranger said, her hand rushing to her throat as if to choke off the next line on her mind, which was,
This can’t be the girl Cade has been brooding about.
    Alex looked at herself. She hadn’t stopped to consider what she must look like. After two long bike rides in one humidity-drenched day, she was not a pretty sight. Her shirt was sticky with sweat. She ran a hand through her hair, confirming the worst — lavender-streaked layers were in a total tangle. As for the eye makeup she never wore — except for today when she’d raided Cam’s cabinet — it had undoubtedly smeared and left her with rank raccoon eyes. Alex tried to swab away the mess, then mindlessly wiped her mascara-smudged