Domenic pitched his voice at Sharpe’s throaty baritone. “Five million people in Alderland. And you two exploded them. You were too busy frolicking or being happy or whatever it is kids do these days, and you just obliterated them in a single instant.”
Ellery snorted. Then she propped her hands on her hips and, in a bizarre accent, she proclaimed, “‘Breaking news: Everyone dies, horribly.’”
Domenic howled with laughter, wheezing so hard he had to brace himself against a nearby oak.
“What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”
“That voice! What were you trying to be, a wind-up toy?”
“I was Floyd Wilder!”
“Wow. Lucky you’re a Chosen One because I’m not sure you’d make it on prime-time radio.”
She shoved him playfully. “You’re the worst.”
“Hey, consider the bright side: if we annihilate the whole country today, you’ll only be stuck with me a few more minutes.”
They laughed more, and more, until not even the darkest jokes could cast their task as light by comparison. Then, once Glynn and Hanna settled on a route, the group trundled off through the wooded trails. Domenic swathed them in a warming spell, but it required little concentration, and in the solemn silence, again, his attention roamed. He marveled at how vivid Valmordion’sfilter could render nature, how he could now perceive a thousand shades of green and brown and silver he’d never noticed before.
Then his gaze stopped at his feet. Despite the blazing sun, he still had no shadow.
Maybe it’s ’cause you’re Summer’s Chosen,Domenic told himself. However, even if he’d conceded to believing in prophecy, like the bow tie and the designer watch, the title felt too grandiose to suit.
Then the hairs on his arms prickled. He halted.
“There it is,” Ellery said, speaking the very words about to tumble from his lips.
The alban tree stood tall and apart from the others around it, as if the forest genuflected out of respect. Its leaves burgeoned in all of Summer’s splendor, so golden and paper-thin that even the tree’s shade could be mistaken for daylight.
Hanna crouched to examine the gnarled, white roots threaded across the ground. “In every memory I found, the past Chosen Ones accessed the network by touching a tree. I realize that’s not much to go on, but it’s a start.”
“Fortifying the network could take a great deal of magical energy, and according to Hallemund’s Third Law of Magic, magical energy cannot be created or destroyed.” Glynn adjusted the bridge of his glasses, sounding uncannily like Mr. Abney, whose excruciating Continued Studies in Enchantment lecture Domenic had skipped only five days ago. “Thus we must assume that it’syourmagical energy the network will draw from. Even for magicians of your caliber, you run a risk of draining yourselves…”
While Glynn droned on, Domenic treaded toward the tree. The thought of touching it stirred one of his most distant, most fragile memories, withered from years of doubt. His hand against ghost-white bark, his skin sunburnt and crusted with dirt, his focus sharpening as if finally rousing from a dream.
“Yes, we understand Hallemund’s Third Law,” Ellery said, with a sort of weariness that made Domenic wonder how deep Glynn’s admiration for Hallemund really went. “But Glynn, even you have to admit theory can only take us so far right now. Domenic and I are as ready as we’ll ever be. So let’s just give this a try.”
Something clouded across Glynn’s face, but he nodded. “Very well, then.”
“How far away should we stand?” Hanna asked, not looking at Domenic. She’d spent the entire hike seemingly incapable of looking at Domenic.
“Far,” Domenic grunted.So if we blow up, maybe you won’t, too,he almost added. But Hanna didn’t need another reason to doubt him.
As soon as Hanna and Glynn had retreated to a distance, Domenic said to Ellery, “Well, any last words? Just in case?”
Ellery tugged on the crystalline pendant at her throat and mumbled, “We better not die. I refuse to have spent my last day alive getting lectured by Glynn in the middle of nowhere.”
He channeled his own inner Floyd Wilder. “‘Such chipper words from your Chosen One, folks.’”
“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me this is howyou’dhave wanted to go out.”
Domenic mourned several dirty jokes he knew better than to say. How onerous nobility was.
He wagged a finger. “I really think we ought to focus here.”
“Mhm, how mature and responsible of you.” Then, biting back a smile, she strode to the base of the tree. “All right. Are you ready?”
She placed her hand on the tree.
