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“What does he look like?”

“Hey, what language are you speaking?” The Russian man stands, his brow furrowing.

“He’s a grey,” I say. “But look, I need to go.”

“Is that an international call?” He reaches across the windshield for me.

I back up.

But Quicksilver’s there.

“He’s a grey.” Kris is talking to someone else, but I’m too distracted to try and listen. “Is he mostly white?” she asks. “With a dark mane and tail?”

“Kris,” I say. “This isn’t my phone. Can you focus?”

She can’t, clearly. “But how did you find him?”

This woman’s seriously obsessed with horses, like, in a sick way. I was kidnapped, and now I’m in Russia, and she’s more interested in the horse I found than in my whereabouts. “Look, I have to go, okay? I’ll try and call back.”

“Adriana! Wait!”

But the guy’s circling the car, so I hang up.

Quicksilver’s racing toward him, actually placing himself between the rightfully irritated man and me. Like he’s a guard horse, or something.

Horses are prey, so even for a stallion, this is pretty odd.

“I’m going to set your phone here.” I hold it up, and show him that I terminated the call. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.” I set it on the ground and back away slowly.

Quicksilver looks down at the phone, and then he looks up at the guy. He narrows his eyes at him, and then he snorts.

The guy backs up a step.

And Quicksilver stomps on the phone, shattered plastic bits scattering all over.

Oh, shoot.

I grab the side of his saddle and swing up and we’re off before the guy’s shouts can turn into more. It’s surprising that the same guy who was hiding on the other side of his car is now practically attacking us, but people get crazy when their phones are involved.

“What was that for?” I lean closer to his neck. “Bad Quicksilver.”

He tosses his head and keeps running.

Within less than five minutes, I see the town that’s on the east side of the racetrack. If I stick close to the road, I can stay mostly hidden from people for almost the entire way to the east, and then swing around north, hopefully preventing people from placing any calls that will tell the authorities where I am.

As we fast-trot our way up and around, I can’t help thinking about that phone call.

Why did Kristiana get so hung up on my horse?

Sure, she’s given me lots of horses over the years. I mean, I know that on the balance sheet, I owe her. But is she really worried about me repaying her right now? I don’t even own Quicksilver. I stole him. From someone who has quite a lot of money and power, too.

And Leonid’s still following me, presumably still upset with Kris and her boyfriend for unknown reasons.

Which begs the question, can her boyfriend also shoot fireballs and zap people? Or does he know that Boris and Leonid can? What on earth is going on and who do they work for? What kind of strange government experiments gave them those powers, and why are they after Kris?

All of those would be good things to focus on, to grill me about, or to obsess over.

But no.