"Don't be frightened. He won't hurt you so long as I'm here."
"The hell you say," said Mia between chattering teeth. "I tell you that bird considers me in the same light as a juicy worm."
Already, the tenuous mist was closing around them. The Ormoo still spiraled upward. Cosmo saw a patrol flash by beneath them, pause like a humming bird over the patio. Another, then another streaked in from different directions.
Mia MacIver leaned over all at once, shrieked in a despairing voice: "Help! Help!"
"You little wretch," Cosmo grinned, clapped his hand over her mouth. She bit him.
He jerked his hand away. Before she could cry out again, the wool-like cloud blanket smothered them. Everything disappeared in moist white fleece. Mia slumped forlornly in Cosmo's powerful arm.
"Home," Cosmo shouted.
The giant bird wheeled off at an angle, wings beating with the rhythmic swish of waves lapping at a beach. Guided by some peculiar sixth sense, it headed by the shortest route for the Cloud Mountains.
For a while, the whish—swish of the Ormoo's wings was the only sound. It was like flying through a warm blinding blizzard.
"Does it know where it's going?" Mia twisted about in Cosmo's arm, curiosity overcoming her terror. Already her brown piquant features dripped with moisture. Her damp yellow tunic clung to her pliant figure like skin.