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  Omen flushed, not sure he'd liked the idea that Indee thought he was frightened. "I didn't say I was afraid," he insisted.

  Indee waved her hand at Omen in satisfaction, and turned to Caythla. "There you see, he's promised to rescue Khylar."

  "Wait a minute!" Omen protested. "I didn't say—"

  Indee turned swiftly toward him, her eyes flashing with renewed anger. Her magic lights flared around her like a halo. "Omen Daenoth! Are you going to stand there and tell a pregnant woman that you're not going to help her?"

  "What? NO!" Omen took a step back. "Of course I'll help you. I only . . ."

  A look of triumph blazed in Indee's stormy eyes, and in an instant the magic lights flurried and lashed toward Omen. But, as if he'd been expecting an attack all along, Kyr stepped in front of Omen. The flare wrapped itself like a tendril around Kyr's left wrist, and then vanished in a flash, leaving only shadows.

  "Kyr!" Omen bellowed.

  "What was that?" Caythla demanded.

  "My magic was just reacting to Omen's promise." Indee sighed heavily. "It wasn't intentional, but now it's binding." She frowned down at the boy and pursed her lips. "Not what I had in mind, but what's done is done."

  "What did you do to him?" Omen felt fury gathering as his throat tightened.

  Kyr simply stared at Indee with an accusing expression. Tyrin had scaled Kyr's shoulder and licked his ear with quick, nervous swipes.

  Omen knew that Kyr had an incredibly high pain tolerance, so even if he had been injured by the flash of magic, it was unlikely he'd give any indication.

  Tormy sat perfectly still, watching, back muscles tense. Only Fog seemed completely at ease.

  "I'm eight months pregnant!" Indee waved her hand dismissively. "You should all know better than to make me upset. My magic is unpredictable at best."

  "Unpredictable?" Caythla spat out a harsh-sounding Nelminorian word.

  "Caythla!" Indee's voice whipped at the glass, sharp with reprimand. "I do not condone that kind of language in my presence, not even from my daughter."

  Caythla's jaw tightened. She struggled to say words of apology through clenched teeth. "Will the boy be all right?" she finished, glaring at her mother.

  Indee nodded graciously. "In time . . . Are you content now?"

  Caythla sneered. "Fine! I'll send Fel'torin to Kharakhan. But don't think you've heard the end of this." A second later the fire in the glass swelled and then vanished entirely, leaving only the warm afternoon sunlight to dance on the colored tiles.

  Indee scooped up Fog, who'd climbed onto the window ledge. "Now I'm very tired, and I want to rest," she said. "You, Omen, have a rescue to plan. Talk to your mother if you need any further information."

  "My mother?" Omen stammered, wondering what his mother had to do with any of this. "What did you do to Kyr?" He started to move toward Indee, but Tormy's large front paw snaked around his ankle and held him in place.

  "We must go, Fog." Indee headed toward the back door of the chamber. "Sylvan will be wondering what's keeping us."

  "Did I fix everything?" Fog asked hopefully. "On account of the fact that I found the great hero Tormy to rescue Khylar?"

  "Yes, my dear." Indee smiled, completely ignoring Omen's sputtering protests behind her. "You're a brilliant little cat."

  "Did Caythla say a bad word?" Tyrin asked hopefully. He sat on Kyr's shoulder, head tilted to the side.

  "When's dinner?" Kyr wondered out loud.

  At a loss, Omen put an arm around his brother. "Let's go home and figure out what just happened."

  "The tide is coming in," Kyr said, as if answering back. "It is the will of the stars in the firmament. One goes along."

  Omen's insides felt as if they'd crumbled to ash. Hope dad knows what to do because I think I just let a bad thing happen.

  Tyrin loudly repeated Caythla's Nelminorian swearword.

  "Couldn't have said it better myself," Omen grumbled under his breath as they headed back toward the garden.

  Chapter 5: Home

  OMEN

  By the time Omen got home, cold unease had spread through his body. He worried about traveling to Kharakhan to do Indee's will. He worried about leaving Kyr behind in Melia. He worried about what Amar had said about the Widow Maker. "You had best keep your brother away from the ocean until we can figure out what these strange occurrences mean. The Widow Maker devours the souls of drowned sailors, and it is attracted to mystics."

  He sifted through options but could find no good solution to this thorny dilemma.

  Kyr never leaves my side . . . Keep him away from the ocean. How? Taking him to Kharakhan is too dangerous . . . But he's terrified of being abandoned . . . But I can't risk Urgolath finding him. The creature comes after mystics . . . If Kyr is a mystic . . . But I promised I would never leave him . . . I promised . . . But I promised Indee . . .

  Contradictory thoughts somersaulting in his mind, Omen entered the Daenoth Manor. He waved off the footman and watched the cats cross over the threshold into the great hall. The enchantments wreathed around the large door's frame hummed faintly as they passed.

  As the domestic spells washed over them, the cats' matching orange-and-white coats suddenly gleamed as if combed and brushed with impeccable care. His mother's tangled household spells stretched like veins throughout the gold marble of the manor, keeping Tormy and Tyrin clean and, he suspected, minor irritants — mosquitoes, fleas, houseflies, spiders, creeping curses, and mild poisons — at bay.

  Like soldiers on the march, the cat duo trotted ahead with purpose, heading, he guessed, to the kitchens where a never-ending supply of cookies and treats awaited them.

  A crinkling sound bored into Omen's ear with the speed and annoyance of a gnat on a damp summer day.

  That was his only warning.

  A wave of power hit him, lifted him off his feet and smashed him against the closest marble pillar. Omen felt his teeth grind as he bit down in frustration. I forgot again! He clamped his eyes shut, a brief piece of music filling his mind as he recalled a familiar psionic pattern, and threw up an energy shield large enough to encompass both himself and Kyr, who'd been trailing behind him through the doorway. A tall crystal vase exploded on the other side of the room, the lavender stalks it had held catapulting through the air in an indigo blast.

  "Dad!" Omen yelled. He crouched down and covered Kyr who cowered in a heap on the floor. The scrawny boy whimpered like a scared dog.

  The psionic assault cut off abruptly.

  Omen shook his head. Long copper strands of his hair veiled his eyes like a curtain.

  A gallop of padded paws thundered from down the long hall as Tormy and Tyrin rushed back to help. "Oooomy!" Tormy shouted. "I is coming!"

  "Dad!" Omen yelled again, more petulantly than he had intended, and raked the hair out of his eyes.

  7 stepped from the shadows of the far hallway; sunlight streaming through the window caught in his platinum mane of hair. Dressed in fine Lydonian leathers, 7 was every inch the lord of the manor despite his youthful appearance. He looked at Kyr, concern wrinkling his forehead. "You're fine, lad," Omen's father told the boy in a low, soothing tone he seemed to have reserved for Kyr. "Nothing happened. Get up."

  The cats crowded Kyr, sniffed at his face and poked their noses at his shoulders.

  Kyr folded Tyrin into the crook of his arm and then spied the scattered flowers strewn across the golden marble entryway. The fear melted away from his face. "Look what Omen made! It's so pretty — purple patterns."

  7 raised an eyebrow at his son. "Omen, I told you I was going to test your psionics when you returned home." 7 sounded as if he'd grown tired of his own words. "I told you I was going to attack you the moment you walked through the door. Your enemies won't give you a warning ahead of time. You've got to keep your shield up, Omen. Keep your shield up . . . all. . . the . . . time. You have to build up your stamina. Even your ten-year-old sister—"

  "I know. I know." Omen picked Kyr up by the ar
m. "I think I'm done with lessons for today. Besides it's not like I have a whole lot of enemies here in Melia. Who's going to attack me here?"

  He swallowed hard remembering the grasp of the sandlure on his ankle only hours before. That was an anomaly.

  "I want to sculpt the flowers." Kyr's eyes shone with excitement. "A giant-sized metal flower. For the garden. It would be so beautiful, Omen."

  "Later, Kyr." Omen nodded, trying to get Kyr to mimic the agreement. How can he get so distracted so quickly?

  "Pot, meet kettle," 7 murmured.

  Omen frowned at hearing the phrase he'd uttered so recently. He looked up at his father in surprise and saw both annoyance and amusement. Attacked me and read my mind all at once. How does he do that?

  "Unlike you, I actually practice." 7 blew out an exasperated sigh, and Omen realized his father was still reading his thoughts right through his hastily constructed mental shield. "You have to train, Omen. You have to. Forget about protecting yourself. What about Kyr? What about the cats?"

  *I got it.* Omen sent prickly jabs along with the words.

  7's mouth twitched. "Nice. The prickles are a good touch."

  "I'm hungry." Tormy sighed dramatically. The cats clearly had gotten over their fright and were back to their single-minded focus on snacks.

  "Come on, you," Omen said and patted Tormy's flank. "I'll make you something to eat."

  "Stop! You've been hexed!" The shrill words lashed from the second floor railing; Omen's mother stood at the top of the stairwell, staring down at all of them.

  Oh, great! Mom's attacking now too?

  Omen tensed, braced for whatever challenge his mother might have for him. Unlike his father, however, his mother would use magic — she lacked the devastating Daenoth psionics. Unfortunately, despite his failure with his father, Omen actually felt more confident in his psionics defensive abilities than he did his magical skills.

  His eyes swept up toward his mother who stood at the top of the grand staircase like a statue from a dark temple. Her sable black hair spilled over her blue gown and down past her knees like a mantle. Her eyes gleamed silver in the light.

  "Hexed," she repeated. "It already has you. Where is it?"

  "What?" Omen jumped back a few steps and patted his arms as if driving away a legion of tiny spiders. He'd been uneasy already, and his mother's words had made it worse. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

  His mother's people were fiercely superstitious, so much so that they even chose "hex" names to ward off ill luck and dark curses. The Machelli clan's peculiar superstitions about the warding power of their unconventional nicknames held sway in the Daenoth household, and woe to the fool who called her Ava instead of Avarice.

  While Omen felt no spell, no hex upon his skin, he knew his mother was rarely wrong about such things. He cursed under his breath.

  "The boy brought home a hex," Omen's mother announced, directing her words toward 7.

  Omen didn't know if she was complaining about him, or blaming 7, and it worried him that his mother sounded uncharacteristically troubled.

  She stalked down the stairs with animal grace, her silver gaze studying him with unnerving intensity.

  "Avarice?" 7 spoke her name like a caress, though Omen could hear the worry in his voice.

  Avarice mumbled foreign-sounding words and knotted her fingers in a fluid sequence.

  "Hexed? What? How?" Omen shook, a full body shake this time like a sopping wet cat.

  Creepy. Creepy. Creepy.

  Avarice took more measured steps down the last section of stairs. The whisper of her slippered feet crushing down on the soft center rug was barely discernible. That's practically stomping for her. She's angry — at me? It's not fair.

  "Omen Armand Locheden Machelli Daenoth," Avarice murmured his full name over and over as if possessed, and he shivered uncontrollably as he realized she was casting some sort of spell upon him, seeking out whatever hex she'd sensed when he'd passed through her domestic enchantments.

  He felt the cool wash of her magic move lightly over the surface of his skin, so different from the driving force of his father's psionic blast.

  Avarice stood in front of him and gently ran her hands over his shoulders and arms, all the while searching his face. "Touched by a hex," she murmured as if to herself, "but it didn't settle on you." Her words had an edge of dread. "Not the cats. No." She cast a wary eye to Kyr. "My poor lamb." She took the boy's left hand in hers, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt and revealing his painfully thin wrist. "Have you ever noticed this mark before?"

  Omen stared at a coin-sized spiderweb on the back of his brother's left hand. The lines pulsed sluggishly, their black-as-ink knits weaving into a tiny design.

  "Pretty," Kyr exclaimed and put his hand right up to his nose. "It's moving! Is it alive?"

  "It's a growing hex," Avarice spoke slowly, perhaps trying not to frighten the boy.

  Kyr seemed more delighted than scared. "It's really, really beautiful. All those colors!" Kyr turned his hand as if to see if the mark had reached his palm.

  There are no colors. Just black, Omen thought.

  "Where would he have picked up something like that?" 7 stepped closer and examined the boy's hand.

  "'Member, 'member the light," Tyrin announced.

  "Indee," Tormy blurted out. "We is just with Queen Indee . . . She is giving us our grand hero's quest."

  "You is . . . were . . . What? Omen?" Avarice spun on her son. "You met with Indee?"

  "Fog is saying . . ." Tyrin started to explain, but quieted down when Avarice gave him a sharp look.

  Kyr placed little Tyrin in his pocket. The kitten squirmed but didn't try to escape. He poked his fuzzy head out and watched with great curiosity.

  "Indee asked us to look for Khylar, who's apparently gone missing," Omen said, at a loss. "I don't really want to help, but she said—" A loud yelp from his brother silenced his words, and he spun toward Kyr in alarm.

  Kyr stared down at his hand with a look of profound confusion. He waved his hand through the air several times before he started to blow on it as if to cool it off.

  "Serpent's Scales!" Avarice exclaimed. "You've triggered the hex. Take it back! Take it back!"

  "Take what back?" Omen asked in alarm.

  "Say you want to help — say you'll do it! Now!"

  "I want to help! I'll rescue Khylar!" Omen proclaimed.

  Avarice snatched up Kyr's flailing hand and turned it over to reveal the pulsing mark. "Good, it's stopped growing, but look at this, it's burned him. That blasted witch!"

  Omen pushed past his mother and took Kyr's arm. Tiny blisters circled the strange markings, Kyr's skin turning an angry red. "Kyr!" Shock ricocheted through Omen like chain lightning.

  My fault. He felt as if his blood had turned to sand. My fault. I didn't protect Kyr.

  The boy looked from Omen to Avarice, searching, not certain what to say. "Ouch?" he pressed the word out hesitantly, and Omen's heart clenched as he realized his little brother still didn't understand how to react to pain, his tolerance so high Omen suspected he'd say nothing at all if he thought that was what they wanted.

  Seeing the look on Omen's face, Kyr hid his hand behind his back. "It's fine, Omen."

  "No, it's not, Kyr." Omen bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. He felt the touch of his father's mind brushing past him, though this time he knew no amount of shielding would keep that presence from skimming his thoughts. He looked up to see both of his parents exchanging intense looks, and he realized that an entire conversation had passed between them in the second or two that ticked by.

  "Indee said something about the Mountain of Shadow," Omen began, uncertain what he could say safely. "But that's in Kharakhan — across the Luminal Sea. . ." He trailed off, knowing his parents understood the geography better than he did, and he'd told them what Sundragon Amar had said about the Widow Maker. "I mean . . . Kyr can't—"

  "Stop!" Avarice raised her hand. "Kyr
is the one hexed — but you're both bound by it. You both have to do what you promised, or Kyr suffers. Do you understand?"

  He understood. Leaving Kyr behind, safely tucked away in Melia, was not an option. Despite himself, he felt relieved. "We don't actually know if he's really a mystic," Omen tried to reason. He looked from his father to his mother. His father was less likely to believe in supernatural bonds between sea monsters and mystics, but 7 looked worried. Avarice looked furious.

  "Can't you just get Indee to remove the hex?" Omen asked.

  "I can try," Avarice bit out. "But don't count on it. I know how she works — most likely the hex is tied to the completion of her goal. She plans these things out very carefully."

  "She said it was an accident!" Omen added quickly, feeling more uncomfortable by the moment. What if she lied? What if it was planned out? What if she meant to hex Kyr? How can I trust one word she says? He hoped that it had been an accident. He hoped it wasn't unbreakable.

  If anything Avarice looked more irritated than she had a moment ago. "Indee never does things by accident!" She wrapped an arm around Kyr's shoulder. "Let's get some salve on your burn, Kyr." Avarice hustled the boy out of the hall. She cast a molten glance toward Omen. "You are a stupid, stupid boy. Tell him, 7. I'm too aggravated. Meet me in my office later, Omen. After I've taken care of this poor, poor lamb."

  7 cleared his throat. "So, you've been had."

  "Indee . . . I didn't mean . . ." Omen broke off, not certain what was safe for him to say. If talking about the quest triggers the mark on Kyr's hand, what am I allowed to say?

  "Why would she do that to Kyr?" Omen felt his anger rising. He burst out, "Fine! If she's going to hex my brother, then I'm not going—"

  "Stop!" 7 cut him off immediately with a sharp probe to Omen's mind — like a quick jab. "Saying you refuse the quest, or even implying it, will trigger the hex again."

  Stifling a scream, Omen burned with rage. "Then I'll get the hex removed, and I'll hex her back!"

  "You're going to hex a pregnant woman?" 7 asked mildly.

  Omen felt himself deflating. "I'll wait until after the baby is born, and then I'll hex her."