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‘OK.’

‘Is there anything else you would like me to explain before we leave?’

‘Ah, yep, two things.’ His left eyebrow rises up into an arch. ‘Are you for real?’ I ask. ‘I mean, is this really happening to me? And, well, I get that my life is forfeit and everything, but … um … dude, I gotta know, will I drop dead if I refuse to walk out this door with you?’

He grins. And, man, it changes him completely. He looks younger, carefree. ‘I am very much real,’ he says. ‘And this
is
happening to you. I can’t force you to do anything, but if you choose not to walk out this door with me, I don’t know how long you would have, but likely not long.’

‘So I could get squashed by a bus right outside this hospital.’

He doesn’t answer and the silence lengthens.

‘Can I still hang out with my friends?’

‘Of course, but finding Ebrielle must be your main priority. It takes precedence over everything.’

Somewhat resigned to the fact that my life is about to take another turn, I look up and meet his eyes with a nod. ‘All right, so where do we start?’

‘In the Cedar Oakes Valley.’

‘Why do you think your angel-girl is being hidden there?’

His serious frown returns. ‘I’ve searched the Earth for sixteen years but found nothing, not even one twinkle of Ebrielle’s light, before your near death alerted us. But now that I’ve seen this valley, I understand how he concealed her. Mountains surround it on three sides, and combined with some clever cloaking magic wielded by the darkest angel of all, her light would be impossible to pick out.’

‘If you know who did it, can’t you make him talk?’

‘He denies involvement.’

‘But you still think he did it.’

‘We all do, even our High King.’

‘So, dude, exactly who are you talking about?’

‘He’s called Prince Luca. He was once a high-ranking noble of Avena. He believed himself greater than all, greater even than the High King. A third of all the angels followed him and he fought to become High King.’

‘And they lost, right?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Aw, good one! What does that mean?’

‘Concessions were made, a treaty signed, give and take from both sides.’

‘But, dude, he was outnumbered two to one.’

‘His supporters were
all
warriors.’

‘So what happened?’

‘He was stripped of his name and evicted, along with those who fought against the realm. He made his own kingdom in the uninhabited fourth dimension, where his
followers call him king, but angels of light will never honour Prince Luca with a king’s title. To us he will be known for ever as the Dark Prince.’

The door opens and Lillie timidly pokes her head around, waving a paper bag in the air. ‘Your meds have arrived.’

Nathaneal pulls open the door for her. ‘Thank you, Lillian. If you don’t mind, Jordan and I will be leaving now.’

‘All right then, and as we arranged, I’ll collect the rest of Jordan’s things, bring them up in a couple of days and check how everything is going.’

She comes over and hugs me. ‘Take care of yourself, Jordan. I’ll see you soon.’ She puts the painkillers in my gym bag, has a final word with Nathaneal and leaves.

The instant the door closes behind her, Nathaneal says, ‘Are you ready, Jordan?’

Put it down to my screwed-up life. I could just do with more proof, something tangible, something I can see with my own eyes. OK, I get it,
he’s
proof. But he looks so … human.

Since he’s waiting by the door, I lean down to pick up my bag. My sleeve rides up and I notice my angel tattoo. Apparently Mum was right after all.

I close my fingers around the handle and lift, only to have pain spear through my ribs and into the upper half of my chest from front to back.

This is bull! How am I supposed to find this missing angel with my insides ripped apart?

Nathaneal is beside me faster than I can blink, lifting my T-shirt. I shrink back. ‘Hey, dude, if we’re going to be spending serious time together, we need to set some ground rules first.’

He cracks up laughing. ‘I’m sorry, Jordan, I keep forgetting how distrusting you humans are. May I?’ he asks. ‘I might be able to help.’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re a doctor in your world.’

‘I am, actually, though I haven’t taken up my position formally yet.’

With that eyebrow of his arched up high, he stands motionless, waiting.

‘OK, go ahead, but keep the touching to a minimum.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ he says, trying not to laugh.

When he sees the red-raw, puckered-up imprint of forty-something stitches marking out a cross on the flesh of my abdomen from chest to navel, he goes quiet and shifts his eyes up to mine. Silently he places the flat of his warm hand directly over the area where the two rows of stitches meet. Almost immediately, the weirdest thing starts happening. I feel movement inside. Fluttering is the best way to describe it, like when your muscles spasm lightly. The fluttering moves along with his hand, which heats up my skin at the same time.

I close my eyes and my mind slips into a state of peacefulness. I could stay in this state all my life, except Nathaneal lifts his hand away and the feeling subsides.

‘Now we can go,’ he says.

Nathaneal’s hand is glowing and I can’t stop staring at it. It’s not bright or anything, but yep, it’s definitely glowing, while my stomach is still resonating. I glance down and see only a shadow of a pink cross on my chest. Even inside me feels different, as if I’m stronger somehow. I stretch my arms
over my head, move them in a wide arc and feel no pain. It’s then I look up. ‘You healed me.’

Astounded, I follow him out the door. Right now I would follow this dude absolutely anywhere.

I listen for sounds of Amber on horseback. She’ll be on the road between our farms so she should be here in a few minutes. I still have a couple of stalls to clean, but then I’m free for the day. A good song comes on the radio – I always have music piping through the barn when I work – and when I stop to listen again she’s just outside, tethering Pandora to a gatepost.

She walks in smiling and holding up a backpack bulging at the sides. ‘Lunch,’ she says.

‘I’m almost done.’

‘I’ll come and help, as long as it’s not shovelling dung. I’ve had a shower already this morning.’

‘Shame,’ I joke. ‘I was saving that for you.’

‘Forget it, hon.’

‘Well … I suppose there are some rugs that need changing.’

She grins and disappears inside the tack room. A moment later a song she loves comes on the radio and she turns the volume up.

Just as the song winds down, I hear Amber scream. I freeze with the last of the rugs in my arms, not sure what to
make of it. A wolf spider is probably crawling across the tack-room wall. They always freak her out. But something in the tone makes me hurry out, locking the stall gate behind me.

As I spin around, I hear the tack-room door bang and ricochet off the wall, followed by Amber’s footfalls charging down the hall.

One look at the terror in her eyes and I know something is terribly wrong. When she reaches me, I grab her shoulders and make her stand still. ‘What happened?’

‘The house!’ she gasps, her eyes enormous. ‘Ebony, your house is on fire. I saw it from the window. Hurry! I’ve already called for the fire brigade, but it’s going to take them twenty minutes to get here because of an accident on Taylor’s Bridge.’

We run outside and I stop in shock. Smoke has engulfed the top floor, where pockets of flames are breaking through the roof in a couple of places.

‘Call them again! Tell them twenty minutes is too long.’

She looks at me then. ‘Ebony, where are your parents?’

Breaking free from the initial shock, I start running again and shout over my shoulder, ‘And call your dad.’ I haven’t answered Amber’s question. Dad rises with the sun most mornings, but today he knew I was looking after the stables, and since there are no riding lessons on Sundays he took the opportunity to sleep in.

‘Don’t go in there, Ebony!’ Amber calls out. The distance between us lengthens quickly as I make my legs move faster than ever, and she hollers again, ‘Do you hear me, Ebony Hawkins? Don’t you go inside!’

But that’s exactly my intention.

The front door is locked. ‘Damn it!’ Remembering I exited through the kitchen this morning, I race around the back and find the doors exactly as I left them, so I slide them across and am blasted by a gush of blistering-hot wind and smoke. ‘Mum! Dad! Are you in there?’ I pull my jacket up over my mouth and nose and go in.

The fire is spreading fast, with curtains and some of the architraves in flames. I race upstairs to find the heat and smoke heavier at this level, so I yank my jacket right over my head and make my way practically blind to Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I can’t see anything through the smoke and I call out to them. Opening my mouth is a mistake. Coughing, I turn towards my bedroom, but the smoke in the hallway has intensified already. I’d be stupid to go further.

I drop down to my hands and knees and crawl to the stairwell, finding some breathable air closer to the floor. The middle two stairs are on fire. I get a sudden panicked feeling. But with no other choice, I scramble to my feet and leap.

Amazingly, I clear the stairs and land on my feet, surprising myself with how far I jump. I want to check the lounge and dining rooms before I leave, but the fire is spreading at a colossal speed.

As I gaze into the lounge the spitting, crackling and whirring sounds soar to a deafening crescendo. This fire is feeding off itself now, shifting around the living areas like a ballet dancer, leaping and twirling with a sick kind of beauty, and all I can do is turn towards the kitchen.

Behind me a hissing sound builds, setting my heart pounding. I spin around just as a massive flame with a startling blue edge roars down the stairwell with the sound of rumbling thunder. It sets the entire space ablaze in a split second.

Coughing and struggling to find breathable air, I stumble out the kitchen doors and fall straight into Amber’s arms. ‘Ebony! Ebony, are you all right?’ Amber shakes her head, so upset she can hardly talk. ‘You shouldn’t have gone in there. You could have died! You scared me half to death!’

A coughing fit has me doubling over and vomiting. She groans, and when I’m done she speaks to me as if she’s talking to a child. ‘Come on, hon, we’re too close here.’

We go around the front. Amber makes me step back another few metres. Suddenly everything seems to go still and we look at each other warily. A moment later the upstairs windows blow out across the lawn.

The force of the explosion hurls us backwards. I sit up with blurring vision and ringing in my ears. ‘What was that?’ I murmur. Amber’s behind me, flat on her back. ‘Amber! Amber? Are you all right?’

She doesn’t respond. My heart feels as if a giant hand is squeezing it. ‘Oh no, no,
no
!’ I take her shoulders and gently shake her. ‘Amber? Amber!’

Her eyes open and the tightness around my heart slowly eases. I help her sit up, then drop down beside her and hold her warm hand.

‘It’s spreading so
fast
!’ she says. ‘I just happened to be staring out the window of the tack room when I saw something odd.’

‘What was it?’

‘Some roof tiles were fluttering over your parents’ bedroom. Then black smoke suddenly shot out, blowing a heap of them into the air.’

I peer at her. ‘An explosion?’

‘Uh-huh. That’s what it looked like.’

As I watch fire destroy my home, wondering what might or might not have started it, a wave of helplessness hits me, quickly followed by a surge of anger. ‘Where’s the fire brigade? Amber, are you sure you called them? And where are your parents? Is nobody going to help us?’

Amber pats my arm. ‘Mum and Dad will be here soon.’

She climbs to her feet and looks around. I follow and watch her. ‘What is it?’

‘I need to bring you some drinking water.’ She turns to me then and gently touches my face. ‘You’re scorched. Your face is all red and breaking out in blisters.’

‘Do you think they got out in time?’

She knows I mean my parents and her eyes drop. ‘Do you think, even if they were still sleeping when the fire broke out, they would have woken with the alarms? Maybe they ran downstairs, jumped in the car and drove straight over to your place. They wouldn’t have wasted time checking my bedroom, would they? They knew we were going riding …’ I fight back tears. ‘I couldn’t check my bedroom or the bathroom or … Amber, I missed so many spaces.’

Tears spring to her eyes.

‘Oh no, don’t! Please, Amber, don’t cry.’

She wraps her arms around me and I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. The fire brigade are taking for ever. I
listen for sounds of a siren, or wheels of a fire truck coming, but hear only the revs of a four-wheel drive accelerate so quickly out of Teralba Road it scatters loose pebbles into the paddocks on either side. ‘At last!’

Amber raises her eyebrows.

‘Your parents are here,’ I say.

She glances at the road; seeing no sign of her parents, she looks at me quizzically. I shrug.

And then out of the blue she says softly, ‘I knew you were a fast runner, but, you can run
really
fast. Did you know that?’

Just then, the Langs’ big silver four-wheel drive roars into the driveway and swings on to the lawn, pulling up right beside us. They jump out and, drilling us with questions, race to the rear of their SUV and drag out two fire hoses that we quickly attach to outside faucets.

When they learn Mum and Dad are still unaccounted for, and how fast this fire has spread, they exchange a worried glance. I almost fall apart then, but the sound of two approaching fire trucks distracts me enough to hold on a little longer.

The fire fighters jump off before the trucks come to a complete stop. They quickly grasp the extent of the blaze, and before they have said a word to me, I can tell from their grave looks their arrival won’t alter the outcome by much.

Two firemen quickly don breathing equipment and crawl into my house on all fours, while others connect their much more powerful hoses in place of ours. Minutes pass without word. The fire fighters inside seem to take for ever before they return and speak to the captain, who comes
over. ‘They found no sign of John or Heather, but some areas were impossible to check at this stage.’