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conversation. He looked over at me. "You standing triumphant with us against 40
    Stacey Klemstein
    Nevan."
    "Yeah, okay. Listen, the next time you guys decide on your prophesied savior, you might want to check your facts first. Because there's no way that I–"
    He reached over and closed his hand over my wrist, his long fingers overlapping one another. "What are you–" I started to ask. The jolt of electricity took me as much by surprise as it had the first time. It felt like the fillings in my teeth were sizzling. My vision and hearing disappeared, and I could no longer feel my hands on the wheel. Instead, I felt the tiny bones of a wrist inside my grasp, and someone else's fear prickling at my skin. Then a nauseating, throbbing pain in my back filled me until I thought it would burst through my body and leave me a shredded heap. And in the midst of that chaos, images appeared, disjointed and fuzzy. Crouching outside in the dark, listening to the noise, like a million voices speaking at once. The smell of human refuse all around me. Then bright lights, cold metal biting into my wrists, and the sharp hatred of several around me. A short human female with skin so pale it almost glowed and red gold hair pulled back from her face approaches me. I've seen her before, many times, but never in front of me.
    But before I can speak to her, I hear another voice in the distance. The thoughts of one close to madness press in. The rage in him seeps out, flowing in her direction, surrounding her, though she does not feel it. I warn her, but she does not believe. Then there is no more time. A weapon is pointed at me, so close the acrid smell of smoke makes my tongue pull back. I see the terrified look on the woman's face the instant before I pull her to the ground beneath me.
    Abruptly, the strange images and ideas stopped. My hearing returned, and my sight cleared in time to see Caelan removing his hand from my wrist and gesturing toward the windshield. I looked up, hands still locked in place around the steering wheel, to see a 41
    The Silver Spoon

    large tree approaching us. Actually, we were coming up on the tree and fast. After a second of fumbling–I hit the gas pedal by mistake first–I squashed the brake pedal to the floor and cranked the wheel hard to the right.
    The world spun and then settled into place with a teethjarring crash that I suspected was the side of the rear bumper slamming into the tree. The seat belt kept me from hitting the steering wheel, but my ribs screamed in protest.
    "What the hell are you doing?" I gasped, doubled over. My mind reeled with the pain from my body and the shock from what had just happened, what I'd seen. The woman in that vision, for lack of a better word, was me, but the familiarity was not that of seeing my own image, but of someone else recognizing me. For those seconds when he had touched me, it had taken me out of myself. "And why did you do it when I was driving? You could have killed me...us." I managed to sit up enough to shove the gearshift into park. Good thing this car was too old for air bags, or I'd have probably been in worse shape.
    He remained silent, slumped against the passenger side door.
    "Caelan?" I said. "Are you all right?" Clutching my ribs with one hand, I unbuckled my seat belt with the other, then reached gingerly across the seat to shake his shoulder, expecting him to turn those silver eyes on me again. But instead his head just lolled back. His eyes were closed to mere slits, and a nasty red bump was rising on his temple.
    "Oh, shit." I scooted closer to him on the seat, so I could get a better look in the dim light. If he were dead...I felt a stab of fear at being alone out here with Nevan still around. After struggling for a moment with pushing the button from the opposite direction, I released his seat belt. Remembering his warning not to touch his skin, I grabbed the shoulder and back of his jacket to pull him toward me for a better look at the knot on his