Therefore . . . if they weren’t mated yet, could that work with others she cared about? She hadn’t really tried, as it was only in the past few days she’d really mastered the inner door, which both protected her own thoughts and those of the other person.
She settled firmly on the perch, and closed her eyes. She knew that of her friends in California, Joey was the expert in this kind of communication. Also Mikhail. Who was a wonderful person, as true as you could get. But also kind of . . . austere. Joey was more accessible.
So she called up a vivid memory of Joey—
Jen?
She let out a squawk and almost fell off the perch. It was like he was standing next to her!
In haste she righted herself, took a deep breath, and concentrated again. Joey, I’m trying to learn how to control this kind of speech. There’s trouble here. I need to reach Cleo.
Joey’s response was immediate, friendly, and encouraging. You did right. If you know Cleo, do the same as you did with me, and you should find her.
He was gone again.
Heartened—determined—she resettled herself and called up her memories of Cleo. The most vivid one was Cleo sitting at Bird’s table, her face alight with enthusiasm as she talked about her bus ride.
Jen reached . . . and bounced, as if slapped back.
Pain panged through her head. Was she failing because she was a phoenix? No—in some ways her mental speech was clearer when she was a phoenix. It was as if all the dis
tractions that claimed her attention while she was human were gone.
She tried again, but this time, very carefully. The first time, she’d done the mental equivalent of going down a row of doors, banging and shouting. And she’d gotten a door smacked into her face.
This time she did the equivalent of drifting along, nothing to see here, la la la, mentally watching out of the corner of her eye.
And she caught . . . something. She forced herself not to leap at whatever it was. One slamdunk had been enough. Instead, she slowed even more, and this time she “watched” out of the corner of her eye and “listened” sideways.
There it was again. So brief, it was easy to miss. It was Cleo’s emotions, but distant. Not in miles. Measuring in physical miles didn’t mean anything on the mythic plane, as Jen had just learned with Joey. He was practically on the other side of the world, but he’d been as clear as if he were sitting right next to her.
No, there was something between Cleo and Jen. It felt like an infinite wall of ice, mixed with toxic waste. Acrid, almost a stench, if you could actually smell something mentally. Poisonous.
Jen made herself as small as she could, a floating dot in the air. And passed by even slower. There it was . . . Jen had to force herself instincts to stay hidden in her dot as Cleo whimpered like a bewildered, lost puppy.
Jen had been denied the chance to be a mother, but all the instincts were there.
She opened her eyes, and thought through everything Cleo had said at breakfast. Ariadne—a cook.
On Medusa’s yacht. But Cleo had promised not to go near there. If she was visiting Ariadne, that meant the cook had to be staying somewhere else.
Jen searched for Nikos, and instantly found him—he was with Mateo, searching for . . . Keraunos was in the castle?
She shivered. No way was she going back until the lightning-wolf shifter was caught or driven out. Why not go scout? Clearly Orelle and Ezios had had no luck. But they weren’t mind-speakers.
If Jen could just find Cleo, she could let Nikos know, and he could send the entire pack of hetairoi to the rescue. Yes. She would actually be helping, rather than waiting around uselessly.
Jen opened her eyes and peered at the luminous clock on the bedside table. She still had a couple hours until dawn.
She launched off her perch and arrowed through the window. Mindful of her luminosity, she zipped down the mountain on the side away from the harbor, all the way to the shore. Then, gliding so low that the waves plashed nearly under her feet, she flew along the coast and approached the harbor from beyond the promontory that formed one of the horseshoe ends. This side was too rocky for buildings and so was completely dark, except for a few fishing boats rocking out on the quiet Aegean waters, with no lights aboard as the fishers slept.
She flew quietly, holding that dot in her mind like a compass. And, yes! As she moved, it moved. Either she was getting closer, or else Cleo was on the move. Either way, she was learning how to locate someone in the physical world.
When she glimpsed the lit buoys out in the water, she slowed, then perched on a barnacle-covered rock sticking up on the shore. She reached for Nikos to report, and found him in the middle of action—another wave of Medusa’s invaders, all flying shifters, had come up from the back side of the mountain. All the free hetairoi not actually guarding something or someone had been called in, including Ezios and Orelle.
Jen’s feathers ruffled all over. She’d just missed running into the invaders!
All right. Find Cleo—actually get eyes on her—then report. She skimmed along the empty boardwalk below one of the inns, the least expensive one, she’d been told. It was more likely that a cook would stay there. Keeping her dot firmly in her mind, she glided low, below the dark windows, and then, as nothing stirred and she didn’t sense Cleo, she tried rising.