Jess crouched along the outside wall of the squat, brown-painted nature center, not quite willing to sink down to the wet ground. Around her the park offered the very picture of happy nature—the rain stopped, the songbirds out in force, and just enough sunshine to make diamond sparks off the bright green leaves.
It'd been a long time since she'd been this miserable.
Even now, the park naturalist stood alongside the green Metroparks pickup truck in the small parking area before the nature center, talking to the ranger behind the wheel; both of them glanced her way with alarming frequency.
She knew they meant to be kind, that they were worried about her . . . a woeful woman waiting for her friend to show up, every word out her mouth making her seem odder than the one before, every passing moment increasing her worry . . . surely her friends would know to come look for her here. Surely they'd made it to the main parking lot safely once she'd distracted the ranger and they had had the wet nature trail to themselves. Surely they'd somehow gotten Ramble under control . . .
She shivered, trying to remember if she'd felt this sick after the first time the newly crafted world-travel spell had brought her here. Probably . . . she just hadn't known it. Hadn't known what this human form was supposed to feel like. That it shouldn't tremble like this, and that her vision shouldn't grey out when she stood up. That even weak human limbs shouldn't be rubbery beneath her.
With a tug to pull her sweatshirt sleeve down over her hand, she caught it in her fingers and rubbed the back of her covered wrist over her brow, trying to ease the ache there. When she looked up, the naturalist was heading toward her with purpose, and with the ranger on her heels.
"We've been talking," the woman said; her name tag, now that she'd removed her poncho, was readily visible. Mary Carter. Jess stared at it, strangely mesmerized, her thoughts foggy and drifting. Mary Carter crouched down to Jess's level; the ranger stood behind her, thumbs hooked into his belt, one moment too uncomfortable at the impending conversation to look directly at Jess, the next raking his gaze over the rain-darkened color of her hair, her larger-than-normal irises. The woman's skin around her eyes wrinkled more deeply, and she said, "We're not comfortable with the fact that you can't give us a contact number, and that you don't look well. We'd like to take you to a hospital."
Jess shook her head. "This is where my friends know to find me."
"It would be easier," the ranger said, "if you could tell us where to find them."
She could only shake her head again, trying not to let them see her shiver. Not shivers from being damp on this warm, humid spring day. Shivers from within, from a body too harshly wrenched from one state to another. If they thought she was truly sick, they'd never leave her alone. She said, "We are new to this spot. I don't know what road inn to use."
They exchanged a glance, and she wondered what she'd said that wasn't quite right this time, even knowing the way she formed her words alone might bring those expressions. "But this Mark fellow lives here," the ranger said. "That's what you told us. Don't you even have a last name? We'll look him up in the book."
She remembered the hugely thick book of thin pages and tiny print, and shook her head yet again. Caution, this time. If they found his name in the book once, they could find it again. They could find him. They might try to check up on her . . . they might tell someone else. They—the local peacekeepers and guards—might stumble across Ramble. And she knew from her early days here, from what had happened to the chestnut gelding turned red-headed man, what they'd do if they discovered Ramble.
They'd take him away. They'd put him in a small, closed-in space with no way to communicate with him, or to understand what he really needed. She shivered again, this time purely from memory. The chestnut, dead in the street . . .
"Jessie," said Mary Carter, "you aren't leaving us much of a choice. Your friends will know to check the hospitals when they don't find you here."
"No," Jess said, unable to hide a hint of panic this time. Her heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears, fast and uneven and somehow stealing the breath from her lungs.
The ranger reached down and took her upper arm, not an unkind grip but enough to draw her to her feet. "It's best this way . . . Mary and the park volunteers will be here for the rest of the afternoon—if your friends come looking, they'll learn you're at Marion General."
They'd ask her questions she couldn't answer, they'd find all that was strange about her, they'd take her to that iron-barred place where they'd kept the chestnut—
"No!" she cried, trying to yank herself free, not caring that several people near their cars—locking doors, shucking raincoats, loading up with binoculars and water bottles—looked over to stare at her.
The woman said, "Bill, maybe we should let the police handle this—"
True panic gripped her even as she struggled to think through it, knowing if only her heart would stop racing and her legs didn't feel so weak she wouldn't be so scared and unable to stop herself from pulling against him—just like the horse she was, an astonishing revelation that made her laugh out loud with the absurdity of it all—something she shouldn't have done, she saw that right away. Saw the doubt flee from Mary Carter's face, and felt the ranger's fingers clamp more firmly on her arm. The laugh turned to a sob.
"Jess!"
A sweeter voice she'd never heard, instantly recognizable in spite of the time since she'd last heard it. Deep and easygoing and always sounding like there was a smile behind it. "Mark!"
She found him by following the gazes of the naturalist and ranger, too rattled to place him on her own. There, striding across the parking lot, more breadth to his shoulders than the last time she'd seen him but still with a carefree quality in his movement, even facing two uniformed park officials with a squirming handful of nearly hysterical—
"Jess!" he said again, not so loudly this time, just making the point. He opened his arms slightly and the ranger looked at the naturalist; she gave the slightest of nods and Jess was free, sprinting gracelessly to throw herself at him with such force that he staggered, laughing.
But it was a quick laugh, and he ran a hand across her back and said, "Easy, there, Jess, everything's fine," in a way that told her everything was, that the others were safe—though he didn't neglect those two uniformed park officials, both of them coming across the brief strip of grass to join him. "I'm sorry," he said. "She's . . ." and he hesitated, finally adding, "a special child, if you know what I mean."
"She seems like more than that," Mary Carter said. "She seems ill. Not to mention barefoot."
"Lost the shoes again, eh?" Mark buffed the damp sweatshirt across Jess's back; she rested the side of her face against his windbreaker and—just like the horse she was—let herself rely upon his strength and confidence. "She's just scared," he told the naturalist. "She gets that way. I thought she was with a friend, or I never would have taken so long to get here."
"Mmm," said Mary Carter, not sounding entirely convinced.
But not arguing. Not talking about taking her to official places where people would ask questions and Jess wouldn't be able to answer them. Not stopping Mark as he guided her around in a clear intent to leave.
And as she let Mark lead her away, calling back thanks to the unconvinced naturalist and ranger, as she trusted in his feet to take them the right direction and his knowledge to reunite her with Carey and Dayna, some small part of her started thinking again.
Thinking about Ramble. That he had no one to trust, and no one to follow. He was here in this strange world at the behest of people he didn't even know . . . and he was truly alone.
Carey took an impatient glance inside the stall where Ramble slept off the effects of travel and changespell . . . not to mention a heavy dose of Valium. Unlike Jess, who had a sweetness in repose even when at her most horsey in nature, Ramble's strong-boned recalcitrance somehow came through despite his slack-jawed position in the fresh and deeply bedded stall. He lay as a horse on his side, twitching occasionally as though his fear and uneasiness had worked its way through the drug.
Thank the guides Mark had been able to bring the tranquilizer—and even that his mix-up in the timing between here and Camolen had made Dayna's somewhat panicked phone call from the park a necessity so he could grab the old dental visit prescription on his way out. By then Ramble had become irritated and balky, and Carey had twice twisted his ear to bring him back into a state of better manners, feeling a supreme wrongness about the need to do so to another man. He very much doubted they'd have gotten Ramble into Mark's battered vehicle without the drug, which had hit Ramble's stressed system fast and hard.
Now they just needed for him to wake up, so they could start working with him . . . so Carey could get a sense of just how long it would take before Ramble could convey something of what had happened to him. Jess was using single words within days, he'd been told, and very simple sentences soon after. But along with whatever boost the changespell had given her, Jess had had the benefit of a human-intensive upbringing . . . and Carey had had the habit of talking to her on the trail.
He doubted very much this changed palomino had any such advantage. For a moment, looking at the long, ragged flaxen-and-orange-streaked hair of the man inside the stall, looking at his rugged frame and exotic skin tones—more of a golden tan than Jess's smooth toasted brown skin—he very much doubted they could overcome the disadvantages the palomino's basic training gave them.
For a moment, he believed Jess had been right from the start . . . their journey here was nothing but folly.
But it was a short moment, brought on by stress and worry . . . Jess, gone off somewhere with the park naturalist, sick from the change and no doubt frantic with worry. Mark hadn't even gotten out of the car as Carey and Suliya dragged Ramble out; he'd peeled back out of the driveway with the tires spitting gravel, on his way back to the park to try to find her.
Dayna came down the barn aisle—a wide, airy aisle built to Jaime's specifications, with the indoor ring attached on one end and huge double doors facing the old farmhouse on the other, ten stalls on each side with several of them a huge, double stall such as the one Ramble now occupied. Clean white paint made it bright, and hunter-green trim turned it cheery. The hayloft and storage stalls filled the place with the scent of hay, and even without cleaning spells, Mark and his crew of manure movers kept the place fresh. Jaime's pride and joy, whether she was in Camolen with Arlen or pursuing her career here in Ohio. Carey had once blown out all the windows and panicked the horses into shell shock with a bungled spell . . . a decision that kept Jaime from ever fully trusting his judgment again.
In retrospect, he couldn't blame her.
In retrospect, he'd do it again.
And maybe he just had.
Dayna glanced around, double-checking the hay bales stacked across the aisle to block Ramble's end stall from view; Mark had already pinned a cheery sign on the other side to waylay boarders' questions: Hay Overshipment! Sliding double doors at the end of the aisle provided the only access to Ramble, and they'd already installed a chain and lock. She nodded satisfaction, then looked at the sleeping palomino. "Good thing Jaime has this thing about dentists—we'd never have gotten him here without that Valium." She sounded as wrung out as Carey felt. "God, I feel like I've run a marathon. Suliya is in the house sleeping it off. I don't see how Jaime does this so often."
"I don't think she does," Carey said. "The only time anyone used the first version of the spell was for the first travel here and back, and that first time out . . ." He trailed off, lost in the memories of the wild courier ride, the fall from the dry riverbed trail that had made him trigger the spell in the first place, wounded and already leaving Lady's saddle. No wonder he recalled little of his arrival here.
Dayna followed his thoughts. "Well, you were hardly in any shape to remember the details."
He gave her a look of exaggerated surprise at her understanding. "Better watch it. You're getting easy."
She rolled her eyes, entirely Dayna-like. "I'll have you know that phrase means something entirely different here, so I'll thank you not to use it when anyone else is around."
But Carey barely listened to her—focusing instead on the sound of tires crunching gravel. Mark. And—he fervently hoped—Jess. He headed for the open barn doors, wincing at the unusual complaint of his body at the sudden movement after standing too long, and the sudden realization that neither Ohio nor world travel had been kind to his permanently damaged body.
But after a few steps his movement smoothed out. And the important thing—yes, as he came around the corner of the barn to the curving horseshoe driveway, he spotted Mark's car—and two people inside. He broke into a jog, and when Jess spilled out the door of the passenger side, he was ready to catch her.
"Ramble," she said, at first making as if to barge past him and then looking from the barn to the house, uncertain which to head for. She gave him an anxious look, her hair in her face like a wild child and eyes to match. "Where is he? Did he calm? Did you all make it here all right? Is he well? I want to see him—"
He'd never seen her like this. Never.
"Jess," he said, barely garnering her attention before losing her again, her gaze going from house to barn to Carey himself, her hands gripping his arms with increasing urgency. He put his hands up, pushing her hair back and capturing her face in the same gesture—and holding her. "Jess."
She fastened her gaze on him, looking from one eye to the other. Searching. For what, he didn't know. Firmly, he said, "Ramble is sleeping. He's fine. We're all fine. Suliya is sleeping. Dayna is in the barn watching Ramble. We're all safe, Jess—including you."
She whispered, "I thought they were going to take me away."
He hadn't known. He hadn't realized what he would put her through, bringing her back under these conditions.
No. He had. He just hadn't wanted to admit it.
He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her, rubbing her back. Ninth Level fool.
And still he wasn't so sure he wouldn't do it again. Jaime was right, he thought, to withhold from him that last bit of trust. "Easy, Jess," he said, automatically falling back to her words. "Easy, braveheart. We've got you now, and you're not going anywhere."
He wasn't sure which of them he was trying to comfort.
By the time Ramble began to emerge from his drugged sleep, Jess was yawning herself awake from a short nap and Suliya had introduced herself to the wonders of the microwave while Mark flirted outrageously with her.
Dayna took the first chance to poke him in the arm, while Suliya retreated to the room she and Dayna shared to rummage through her bag for a lighter-weight shirt. "She's young enough to be your—"
"Kid sister?" Mark suggested. "I'm not exactly an old man, Dayna. You haven't been gone that long."
"Long enough," Dayna said, hearing the usual tones of asperity Mark brought out in her, even if—as Jaime had said—he'd grown into himself since she'd seen him nearly two years earlier. Sturdier, a little brawnier, holding down his responsibilities here at the Dancing Equine as well as part-timing at the LK hotel where they'd once worked together. "And she's young enough. If not in years, in mind."
"You used to say the same about me," he told her, as blithely untroubled by her comments as ever.
"If you don't watch it, she'll get a terrible crush on you and it'll just be a giant syrupy mess when we leave."
"Naw," Mark said. "Suliya's in this for Suliya. I can't give her anything worth a giant syrupy mess, and meanwhile, a good flirt is a helluva lot of fun. You're just ticked because I'm not flirting with you."
And then he grinned at her, irrepressibly Mark, until Dayna buried her face in her hands and groaned.
When she looked up, Jess stood in the arched opening between the kitchen and the living room, giving her a curious look—but all in all looking more like the woman she'd grown into, and not like Jess fresh from being a horse all her life. Dayna removed her hands and gave Jess a wan smile, making eyes at Mark—enough of an explanation for Jess, who no doubt took this kind of byplay between Mark and Dayna for granted. She switched her gaze to Mark and said, "Do you have soda? With bubbles?"
"For you," he said, "extra bubbles."
The slightest of wrinkles appeared between her eyes as she looked at him, the vaguely puzzled curiosity of someone not quite awake. Mark explained, "That's the new, improved, flirtier me."
"I liked you fine before," Jess said, but she thought about it a moment longer—watching Mark grab a glass from an upper cupboard, fill it with ice from the automatic ice dispenser in the refrigerator door, and pop the top on a cold Mountain Dew—and added, "This is nice, too."
He gave Dayna a triumphant grin, whereupon she threw up her hands, just as glad for the interruption when Carey came in from the barn, spotting Jess with relief.
"Jess," he said, stopping an arm's length away with an odd awkwardness as Jess took her first sip of soda and made her inevitable scrunchily pleased face at the carbonation. "Are you feeling better?"
She nodded. "Not right, but . . . not like my thoughts are flying apart anymore."
He gave what Dayna thought was a quiet sigh of relief. She wasn't sure; she couldn't tell what was going on in his head anymore. She'd always thought of him as the kind of guy who would do what was necessary, when it was necessary, and not look back . . . but it seemed to her that he was already looking back—and they hadn't even finished going forward yet.
Now he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder back in the direction of the barn. "He's just starting to move around. I thought you might like to be there when he wakes—what's that?" His gaze shifted from Jess's face to over her shoulder and beyond, where Mark emerged from a pantry with soda cans to restock the fridge. Dayna twisted around to see what had caught his attention, and found a wipe-off board on the back of the open door.
Mark didn't hesitate as he opened the refrigerator and shoved the new six-pack in place. "Jaime's message board."
"From Camolen?" Carey asked, moving a step behind Dayna as she headed for the board.
"Yep, that's the one." Mark straightened. "Looks just like a regular one, doesn't it? I've got a few spellstones left if you need to send anything her way."
"We brought more with us," Dayna said, giving the poorly cleaned board a critical eye. —ame lo-king for Arle— it said, as if written by a marker going dry or a message cleared with a single careless swipe of the hand.
"Came looking for Arlen?" Carey said from behind her. "When did she send that?"
"What?" Mark joined them, frowning at the board. "Wow, that looks bad. They usually come through a lot clearer than that."
"It's new, you mean?" Dayna looked from the board to Mark, and caught his absent nod.
"Strange one, too. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would she use a spellstone to tell us someone came looking for Arlen?"
Jess hiccuped over her carbonation, a desperately muffled sound, and followed it with a very practical, "Because she thought it was important."
Someone came looking for Arlen. Dayna frowned, caught Carey doing the same. He said, "I think we have to assume that it is important. Some aspect of it. There may be a lot more to the message than we see."
Quite matter-of-factly from her spot on the border of the conversation, Jess said, "It's not working right. That's why the travel was so hard, and my change. The magic's not well."
Dayna felt a little frisson of the rightness of it, and gave a sharp shake of her head anyway. "That's ridiculous."
"Dayna," Mark said, a reproving tone with an immediate effect on her. Startling enough in its own right, never mind that he'd done it at all, but when she saw the hurt on Jess's face she knew why.
It took a deep breath, a chance to get perspective, and then she was able to say, "I didn't mean you were ridiculous, Jess, it's just that magic is . . . magic."
"Not to mention," Carey added softly, "that we're in real trouble if she's right. Camolen is in real trouble."
"We knew that," Dayna said. "It's why we're here in the first place. But I don't think we should jump to conclusions based on two incomplete pieces of information."
"Three," Mark said, giving the board a long look before wiping it clean with the edge of his hand. "We could ask her to repeat."
"I think we'd better," Carey agreed.
"Better what?" Suliya said from, to judge by the sound of it, halfway down the hall and coming toward them. "It doesn't sound good by your voice."
"Just a garbled message from Jaime," Dayna said, not ready to alarm Suliya along with the rest of them.
"I'm going to Ramble," Jess said. "He shouldn't be alone."
Carey half-turned, looking back at the board with obvious reluctance.
"Go," Mark said. "Both of you. I'll be out when I'm done."
"He's awake?" Suliya said, appearing in the doorway as she fastened her impossibly lively hair back with a fashionable latching comb from Camolen.
"Getting there," Carey said shortly. "Come on, then."
Jess left her half-finished soda on the counter and headed for the barn with long strides Dayna couldn't hope to match; she gave up and trailed behind, squinting in the bright sunlight as they passed briefly into the sunshine between house and barn. Carey paced her, apparently in no hurry . . . or, even with his longer legs, not willing to keep up with Jess? Dayna gave him a scrutinizing glance; she thought his misinterpretation of it was deliberate.
"She's worried," he said, nodding to where Jess had found and now peered between the bars of Ramble's assigned home. After a hesitation, he added, "I'm not sure she's not right to be. He's not doing well with the change so far."
"Don't wuss out on me now," Dayna muttered. Suliya, uncharacteristically wise, remained silent.
"Too late for that, isn't it?" Carey said dryly, easing to a stop just within sight of the stall—Dayna thought he could probably see the changed palomino over the height of the barred half-door, but she certainly couldn't. She started to move closer, but he put out a hand, shaking his head. "Give them some room. And no, I'm not wussing, to use your silly-sounding word. But I'd be foolish if I didn't have concerns after the way we had to drug him. This could take a lot longer than any of us counted on—and if we're right that something big is happening on Camolen, then that time could make a big difference."
"We'll do better with him than we did with Jess," Dayna muttered. "We know he's a horse . . . she didn't have that advantage, not until she'd practically become one of us. And we didn't have Jess."
Carey lifted his chin, a quiet gesture to draw her attention to Jess herself, who had opened the door and slipped into the stall. With a great floundering stumble, Ramble came to his feet, finally visible to Dayna. Even so, she drew closer, and this time Carey came with her.
Jess waited inside the door. She didn't look directly at the palomino; she didn't even face him. She kept her body turned slightly while Ramble lifted his head, nostrils flaring, body stiff and tense.
He would clean up nicely, Dayna thought, realizing it for the first time. He'd been so difficult, so full of struggle . . . and then so crumpled by the drug—that she hadn't seen it. He wasn't her type, not with that hard look about him—head to toe, rugged and not quite crossing the line to coarse. But the hair alone would do it. Strikingly, stunningly blond.
Hair that was at the moment in his face. He shook his head in annoyance, and made a snorting noise, relaxing.
"That's what she was waiting for," Carey said, while Suliya nodded understanding. "An invitation."
If he said so.
He must have been right, for Jess moved slowly forward, keeping herself at an angle, hesitating once and receiving some invisible-to-Dayna signal that encouraged her to continue even as Ramble seemed to draw himself up into something bigger than he'd been, something more eloquent of line even with his rangy physique, his attention riveted on Jess.
It was a focus she returned, Dayna realized, noting Carey's sudden tension beside her. Not worried for Jess. Not with that look on his face, the glower in his eyes and that muscle twitching in his jaw. Jealous. Guides, he's jealous.
Jess eased right up to the palomino, and just when Dayna expected her to stop—she certainly wouldn't have gotten any closer to a man she didn't know—Jess moved up until their faces were only a breath apart—and stayed there.
"What?" Dayna whispered.
Tersely, Carey said, "All horses greet new herd members this way. You've seen it. They take in each other's breath. It just looks . . . different when human faces try it."
"I'll say," Dayna muttered, taking a sideways glance from him that silenced further words.
Ramble gave an unexpected bob of his head, startling Jess into lifting hers—an expression Dayna did know . . . Jess uncertain, Jess tilting back ears that wouldn't tilt in this form. And somehow he grew even taller, and—Dayna glanced away in embarrassment—obviously aroused. He did something then—she wasn't sure what, whether it was another bob of his head or if he actually nudged her with his shoulder, but it made Jess stagger back slightly, either in surprise or from the nudge itself. In an instant she whirled, ears definitely back with that tilt of her head, and let go a kick that missed completely.
Was meant to miss, Dayna realized, although Ramble started back wildly just the same as if he'd been hit, recovering to a much more subdued posture. Jess didn't hesitate; she walked away, right out of the stall and down the aisle to stand at the barn doorway, looking out.
Dayna would have followed her, but Carey clamped a hand on her arm. "No," he said, releasing her only when she acquiesced. He slid home the latch Jess had left undone and said, "Give her a moment."
And after a moment, Jess gave herself a little shake and returned to them, a more casual walk than the brusque strides that had taken her away. She looked at Carey, and then she looked into the stall where Ramble tugged at his clothing, doing a slow and unself-conscious examination of his own body, his expression of such exaggerated puzzlement that Dayna felt her first stirrings of compassion, if not doubt.
Jess gave her head a little toss, a restless gesture left over from Lady. "He is as I said. He hasn't been brought up well. He's been stall-kept, not pasture-kept with mares, or even pasture-grown. He doesn't know his manners even when he's not trying to be rude. It's not his fault. But . . ." She trailed off, shrugged.
"But he'll be hard to deal with," Carey finished for her. "Suggestions?"
She didn't take her eyes from Ramble. "He needs to understand what has happened to him. He needs to know how to communicate. We need to understand his Words and Rules, so we can give him the support he is used to." She hesitated. "If he is like me . . . then he has been hearing language all his life. Some of it is there in his thoughts, waiting . . . now that he is human, it will begin to make sense."
"It didn't take you very long to get your meaning across," Dayna said, remembering the morning after Jess had arrived in her house and her first faltering attempts to tell her new friends that she was in fact a horse. That they hadn't understood or believed had been their failing, not hers.
Jess turned a dark look on her. "I was brought up to turn to humans for help. And I thought I could get what I needed from you."
Carey. Right from the start, she'd only wanted to be reunited with Carey; with all their misunderstandings, that had always been clear from the start. Dayna, too, turned her attention to Ramble; he was halfway out of his loose tunic and not the least bit interested in his audience. "I guess we'll have to find something he wants. Some incentive to learn."
"We have something he wants," Jess said bitterly. "To be a horse again. It will be his first thought once he understands why he no longer has whiskers, or ears to point and a tail to flick. When he tries to run and can barely stir the breeze. And when he understands, he will hate you for what you've done."
Carey flinched. But as Dayna scowled at him, he gathered himself and said, "We'll just have to hope his desire to be a horse again is stronger than his hatred. Because cooperating with us is his only chance for that to happen."
Even Suliya looked unhappy, as if suddenly realizing in what she'd become involved. "It's not so bad, being human," she said in a low voice, not quite looking at Jess. "You spend most of your time that way now."
"Not so bad," Jess said. "Because I have a choice."
Carey rubbed the heel of his hand against the side of his thigh, his expression masked by fatigue. "Just see what you can do to help him along." The words sounded dragged out of him; Dayna realized anew that he hadn't rested after the rough transition between worlds. She'd haul him into the guest room to rest if she had to; they needed to be in top form to get through this. All of them. Ready for anything.
Jess answered by reentering the stall; the palomino instantly stopped his struggle with the tunic, letting it settle back into place. Having been chastised once, he didn't quite puff himself up as before, but watched her from the back of the stall with a certain wariness, clearly working up to redisplaying his magnificence for her.
She changed the angle of her head, turned, and lifted her leg just enough so only her toes touched the bedding. Instantly sulky, he subsided.
"Burnin' poot," Suliya said, wonder-struck tones entirely at odds with her youthful slang. "It's just like watching two horses, clear as anything."
"That," Dayna said, looking at Carey, "is exactly the point."