Twenty-Two
“You have something I want,” the figure says, and though her face is hidden in shadow, the pitch of her voice tells me she’s a woman. As her cloak billows around her, a memory flashes to the front of my mind: A person in a silver cloak just like this one, standing in a road in Stanmeade and turning a man into a solid crystalline statue.
“Shield,” Violet whispers, and in unison, she and Calla raise their hands. Something almost invisible shimmers in the air in front of us. At once, the woman raises her hand. Glass shards, jagged and deadly, fly straight at us. Instinctively, my arm flies up to protect my face. But the glass stops, embedded in the invisible layer that hangs in the air in front of us.
I look behind us, hoping the guys have got Mom into the car by now, but their
