Page 45 of Summer L.A.W.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her when she becomes conscious?”

“What are you going to do with her?” Sahara asked. “Give her coffee intravenously?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Joell said. “But no. I’m going to sit her in a comfortable chair in our magical library and see if we can figure out why she’s not responding.”

“Oh, good idea,” Sahara said, and then she helped Joell lie Crystal along one of the sofas.

Candles guttered in their sconces as the mansion shivered. “That’s a surge,” Joell snapped, stabbing a finger at the glowing map spread across the library table.

“I think she’s between planes,” Sahara said, as she quickly filled the scrying bowl with water and placed it on the table.

Magda crouched beside the ley-line diagram chalked on the map. “It’s like a ripple of displaced current. A pocket dimension made of seawater and magical intent.”

Lioness leaned against the doorframe; sketchbook balanced on her knee. “Translation for the art majors?”

“Trap,” Magda said flatly. “And she’s the bait.”

Sahara closed her eyes, palms hovering above a bowl of water that vibrated without touch. “The current carries more than her signature. Something rides inside it. Something warm-blooded.”

“Not possible,” Joell said. “I think?” Her tone made it a question.

Sahara’s lashes fluttered as she scried in the dark water. “Human. Male.”

Lioness’s pencil snapped in two. “Oh, hell. He didn’t.”

The central mirror over the mantel flickered, misting like breath. Slowly, it cleared to reveal a blurry image: headlights carving through fog, a solitary car barreling down a deserted highway.

Joell rubbed her temples. “Mason. Of course.”

“Guy’s got commitment issues with safety,” Lioness said, grabbing another pencil. “I could draw him a map labeled Don’t Go There, but he’d still go exploring.”

“Focus,” Joell said. “The compass he found weeks ago… if it’s resonating with her, he’s basically driving along a ley line straight into our coordinates.”

Magda looked up. “Then he’s going to arrive whether we like it or not.”

“Exactly,” Joell said grimly. “We need a soft net, not a hard barrier. I want him alive, not vaporized.”

Sahara rose, water sloshing over the rim of her bowl. “The mansion already feels him. It’s shifting to meet his trajectory.”

Outside, thunder rolled once, even though the sky was clear. The floor vibrated. Lioness started drawing an opening in their driveway. One just large enough for a person.

Joell spread her hands over the map. “All right, ladies. Let’s catch ourselves a sailor.”

“And hopefully, nothing else,” Lioness added.

By the time Mason hit the Tennessee state line, the compass was humming audibly. The mountains rose like black walls against the stars. He’d lost all radio signal hours ago, but he didn’t need it. The needle guided him like radar.

When he turned onto the dirt access road, the fog closed in again. Not normal drifting fog. Intentional fog. It moved around the Jeep, thick as milk. The engine sputtered once, then died.

Mason stepped out into silence. The air felt charged, full of static and humidity. His boots sank into soft ground that shimmered faintly with concentric circles, like the surface of a hidden pond.

“Okay,” he whispered. “This is officially weirder than Afghanistan.”

The compass needle locked straight ahead. He followed. The forest gave way to a clearing, and there it was… the L.A.W. mansion. Massive. Elegant. Every window was blazing gold as though a hundred candles waited for him inside. The fog glowed silver around it, breathing in time with the low thrum he felt beneath his feet.

He took one step closer, and the compass in his hand flared white-blue.

Then a voice rang out of the mist, crisp and unmistakable. “Don’t move, sailor. You just crossed a boundary you can’t see.”