Immobilized by panic, I force myself to think. I need to hide us. In a split second I know what I have to do. I must Conjure the camouflage Whit used to hide our village from the outside world. Or, as he explained it to me back then, to protect us from the brigands when he Read they were coming. This was his most difficult Conjure—camouflaging the whole village and keeping it hidden until danger passed. But I need to reproduce it. I have camouflaged myself before, but have no idea if I can expand it outside myself to include the car and even the cabin if possible.

I try to remember what Whit did, and realize that the totem he used to Conjure the metamorphosis was the snowshoe hare feet. The one I tossed into a fire just days ago.

It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. You don’t need Whit’s material crutches to Conjure the Yara. You only need your faith in your link with it. I think of the powerful connections I’ve experienced since I stopped using totems, and know I can do this. But I will need to push aside the fear and grief of the last few hours in order to concentrate.

I focus on slowing my racing heartbeat and spread my arms wide. I direct my mind to contact the Yara, and feel the lightning bolt of power when I connect with it. I call on the energy that flows through all things and imagine myself changing . . . transforming into the colors around me, which in this case is a uniform reddish dirt brown. I look down and see that not only my skin but my tank top and jeans have taken on the desert’s brown. I blend in perfectly with my environment.

Now the car, I think, and imagine the Yara stretching out from me like a net and wrapping around the car. A dot of earthen red appears on one door, then spreads quickly to envelop the whole thing. Miles’s car fades into the background and disappears.

My confidence is grounded. I can do this. I focus the Yara’s energy on the cabin. I wait. Nothing happens, and the car is getting closer, maybe even close enough to see the cabin. And if they see it, they might stop to check it out and discover the pool of blood—evidence of how recently we were here.

My heart races, and I fight to maintain my calm. Metamorphose! I urge, and I feel a spark of electricity burning through my veins like flames. And as I watch, the shack disappears. We are now, for all practical purposes, invisible.

As the car approaches, I recognize the man riding in the passenger side. It is Murray Blackwell, head of Blackwell Pharmaceutical and father of the boy lying dead beside me. He must have mobilized this search party as soon as he discovered his son abducted me from his own house, where he was keeping me prisoner.

And all for a drug, I think. All because he wants to know the “formula” for the elixir—Amrit, as he called it—that I use to perform the Rite. He and whoever kidnapped my clan are desperate to get it. “Another example of violence spawned by capitalism,” I can almost hear Dennis say—one of his favorite refrains in our Past Civilizations lessons. Now the infernal machine wants to suck us into its cogs and wheels, and I’m the only one left to fight it.

A burly man sits behind the wheel beside Mr. Blackwell, and the two security guards who kidnapped me from Salt Lake City are in the backseat, craning their heads to survey the barren landscape. The car moves so slowly that it seems like an hour before they pass us and are following the dirt road over the crest of a ridge.

I don’t dare breathe. The Conjure weighs heavily on me. I’m pouring with sweat now, my clothes clammy against my skin. I flex my fingers and roll my head to both sides to avoid freezing up completely, and wait. In a couple of minutes, the car reappears at the top of the ridge. Its passengers scan the horizon, searching for what is right in front of them.

This time the car passes mere feet from me. Mr. Blackwell’s eyes meet mine for just a second, and although he can’t see me, panic scorches a jagged hole in the pit of my stomach. He looks away, and I can once again breathe. I wait until the car is out of sight, once more just a plume of dust on the horizon, before I let go of the Conjure. The car, the cabin, and I slowly infuse with our true colors. I lean back against the car, trembling from the effort and residual fear. They were so close.

But I had done it. I worked a major Conjure, and did it without a totem. A flash of hope bursts through me. I am capable of more than I imagined. My father’s words come back to me, “You’re a prodigy in the Yara, Juneau. Just like your mother was.”

Whit kept so much from me, claiming that he was waiting until I was older. Until I had undergone the Rite myself. But I don’t need his permission anymore. I don’t need his questionable expertise, cobbled together from other belief systems and trial and error. I am ready to explore the Yara on my own terms.

My battle against my clan’s kidnappers is just beginning. But instead of apprehension, I feel excitement. I’ve had a powerful weapon at my fingertips my whole life, and I’m finally learning to wield it. I feel unstoppable.

4

MILES

I AM BEING DRAGGED ALONG A CURRENT, FLOATING in a wide river with tall trees on either side. My body is pulled under and pops back up as if I were nothing but a twig floating on the surface of a stream. I am unafraid, my senses bathed by the sound of the rushing water and the touch of the cool liquid. Only the smell of the sparkling pure air in this dream world is missing—absent because I do not breathe.

Someone is next to me. I can’t turn my head, but I know it’s Juneau. She rides the river beside me. From somewhere far away I hear music. Singing. An exotic tune, the words of which I can’t quite capture, but their purpose is clear. The song, like the silent girl beside me, accompanies me. Wraps me in its security. Its confidence. Others have been here before, and the song accompanied them, too.