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“I swear I’m not doing anything.”
And before I know what’s happening, she doubles over in pain, screaming on the ground.
“Okay, Annette,” I say at first. “This isn’t funny.”
But I realize it’s not some misguided human joke. She looks to be legitimately in pain, rolling over uncontrollably.
I jump in to try to help her as she twists her body through the leaves and dirt, ruining her favorite dress. But as I reach toward her, I feel my hands collide with something invisible.
I can sense her energy leaving her as the pain overwhelms her. Soon, she’ll be reduced to nothing at all.
“Annette? Please tell me how to help you, Annette!”
But I’m not even sure she can hear me anymore.
I touch the barrier once more and begin to pound on it, to no effect. I need to think.
I squint my eyes, looking around me. Everything has a trigger. I can sense the souls of invisible beings. Whatever the root cause of this problem, it must have a source.
Peeling my eyes across our trail, I look over every inch of the ground, even kicking aside leaves. I look at the trees.
I’m about to give up when I manage to find a very small, sparkling red gem fragment on the ground. It shakes and contorts wildly. I touch it, then grab it reluctantly, before realizing that it’s connected to something unseen.
I pull as hard as I can, trying everything I can, and find with a satisfied tug that I’m able to free the gem of its attachments. I only hope that I haven’t worsened the situation.
I look at Annette, who lies still with her eyes closed. She has stopped screaming and looks to be recovering.
She sits up. “What in all of Protheka was that?”
She rubs her temple, and I see that her eyes are bloodshot.
I’m puzzled by her confusion. “Something magical, I think.”
She shakes her head, eyes still shut. “Could you elaborate?”
“I think there’s something, or someone, in this forest,” I explain. “And I think they don’t want to be found.”
I help Annette up, and we find a safe clearing for me to treat her minor wounds. It doesn’t appear as if whatever happened affected Annette too much. She has cuts and scrapes from rolling on the ground, but they’re fairly minor.
But my morale is utterly broken.
“I’m sorry, Annette,” I say to her in the clearing, while squeezing the juice from an herb onto her scrape. “I feel like I keep failing you.”
“So you keep saying,” she says. “But I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
I hesitate.
“I think maybe magic can elude my powers,” I say. “And I feel like somebody is toying with us.”
She looks up at me, her concern prominent in her features. “You think the reason you can’t find them isn’t some kind of a personal block on your part? Whoever we’re looking for is hiding from you on purpose and knows what they’re doing?”
“I think there’s somebody out there who knows what I am, who’s protecting killers while killing innocents. And I think I haven’t seen it going on because it’s a type of magic different from my own, one I’m not able to see or interact with.”
“That’s a bold theory,” Annette says. “What do you propose we do about it?”
I shake my head. “I think you need to stay here and recover. I’m going to try to figure out what’s going on.”
Annette laughs as I turn my back to leave. “You never learn, do you?” she asks pointedly.
