Let the Storm Break (Sky Fall #2)(9)

I can tell by my mom’s glare that this is definitely not over. But

she stands aside to let us pass, and I promise my parents I’ll see them

tomorrow as Os follows me outside.

“Your mother is much more attached to you than I realized,” he

says after the front door slams shut.

“Yeah, that tends to happen with family.”

I’m so sick of the Gales acting like nothing about my human life

matters.

This is my real life—sylph or not. The sooner they get that

through their windblown heads, the better.

“Yes, well, I guess we’ll have to discuss this later,” Os tells me as

he wraps himself in Northerlies. “For now just try to keep up.” He blasts off into the sky and I’m tempted to run back inside

and lock him out of my room. But I really do need to sleep. I grab a pair of Easterlies and follow, spinning the winds fast

enough to obscure my form in the sky—not that anyone’s around to

see me. Os is leading me east, to the part of the desert where no one

actually wants to go. Cactus-and-tumbleweed land, with no sign of

life in any direction for miles and miles and miles.

The sun beats down, and I’m starting to feel like a Vane-Crisp

when thin, dark shapes appear on the horizon.They look like crooked

poles, but as we fly closer I realize they’re trees.

Dead trees.

Palms with nothing left but twisted trunks and crumbling bark.

There are dozens of them, arranged in random circles, like they were

once supposed to be something. But now they’ve been abandoned,

like some sort of palm-tree graveyard.

I move to Os’s side as he starts to descend. “Ugh, please tell me

we’re not going to Desert Center.”

It’s the kind of town you go to only if you have to, and the

deserted gas station by the freeway does not look promising. “We won’t be there long,” Os promises. “It’s just the starting

point I use to guide me from the sky.”

I’m not loving the whole starting-point thing. Especially since I

can see pretty far in every direction, and other than some old, crumbling buildings, there’s basically nothing, nothing, and more nothing no matter which way you go. But Os sweeps low, landing in the

center of the most isolated circle of trees. I have no choice but to

follow him.

It smells like something died here.

Actually, it smells like lots of things died, and given the graffiti

and the scary-looking shacks nearby, I wouldn’t be surprised. “So now what?” I ask as I move to one of the crooked shadows,

taking what little escape from the heat I can get. I’m still soaked in

sweat in about thirty seconds.

“Now, we walk,” Os says, turning toward the foothills. “Whoa, wait—you mean windwalk, right?”

“No, we dare not take the winds any closer. We would only get

sucked in.”

“Sucked into what?”

“You’ll see.”

I’m about to press for an actual answer when I realize where Os

is heading.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on—that’s the freeway. You don’t walk

across the freeway—not unless you want to get splattered against

few windshields.”

“We can weave our way through tornadoes, Vane. You need to

learn to trust your instincts.”

“I’ve only known I’m a sylph for a month—I don’t have any

instincts!”

But as the words leave my mouth, I realize I do.

I remember running through the tornado that killed my family, easily avoiding the drafts and debris and keeping my feet on

steady ground. I never thought about how weird that was until

now.

Still, as I watch the cars and semis whip by at seventy-plus miles per hour, I’m glad I didn’t eat my torpedo. Pretty sure I’d be spewing

it all over the ground.

“Just watch for the breaks in the air,” Os shouts, crouching on

the side of the road like a runner before a race.

“You realize that makes no freaking sense, right?”

He rolls his eyes and reaches for me. “If you need me to hold

your hand . . .”

I know this is my chance to prove that I’m a big, brave Windwalker king and can do this all by myself. But three more semis

whizz by and I grab Os’s hand and hold on as tight as I can. He sighs. “Let’s go.”

And then we’re running. Darting forward and sideways through

the lanes like a terrifyingly real game of Frogger. I can see the breaks

Os means—wide distortions in the air in front of each car that tell

where it’s safe to step—but I don’t dare let go of his hand. And when

we finally make it across both sides of the freeway, my legs are so

wobbly I can barely stay standing.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to steady my shaking. “I’m surprised how disorienting this is for you,” Os says quietly.

“Some things come so effortlessly, like your windwalking and your

mastery of Easterly.”