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Ethan growled his displeasure. “Everyone okay?”
“Fine here,” Catcher said, helping Mallory sit up. There was a streak of smoke on her face, but her limbs were still connected, which she confirmed by patting down each arm and leg.
“Well,” she said, then huffed. “The source of the city’s delusions is kind of an asshole.”
As if that source were insulted by the statement, a gust of icy wind sliced across the lawn, carrying with it the same chemical scent that had marked the others who’d heard the delusions. The smell surrounded us like a fog.
And this time, as we sat in the middle of downtown Chicago on a blanket in the snow, I realized how familiar that smell was.
No, I thought. Not smell. Smells.
It wasn’t really industrial, or chemical. It was industrial and chemical. It was exhaust and people and movement and life. It was river and lake and enormous sky. It was Chicago, as if the city had been distilled to its essence, to an elixir that carried hints of all the things that existed inside its borders.
Or inside the alchemical web Sorcha had created, the one that had stretched out from Towerline like a spider’s.
I thought of what Winston had painted in his small, tattered notebook, and the painting of what even Winston thought had been rows of teeth—jagged and uneven—from the mouth that had screamed his delusions.
They weren’t teeth, I realized, looking back at the uneven line of buildings to the east. He’d drawn the skyline. He’d drawn Chicago.
He’d heard Chicago. Somehow, because of magic I didn’t understand, he’d heard Chicago.
“Merit?” Mallory asked, head tilted as she studied me.
“Winston Styles painted images that came to him when he heard the voice. He drew the skyline,” I said. “He heard Chicago. The smell isn’t the magic, or a chemical. It’s Chicago. Squeezed down and distilled, but Chicago all the same.”
None of them looked convinced. “Close your eyes,” I said. “Close your eyes, and think about the scent.”
They looked even more skeptical about that idea. But they did it.
“Traffic,” Mallory said after a minute. “Exhaust.”
“And beneath that?” I asked.
; I made a sarcastic noise. “Go swimming in the river and then talk to me about cold.”
“My little mermaid,” Ethan murmured, as Mallory positioned a hand over the orb again.
This time, a single tap. “We’re here to listen,” she said, “not to harm you.”
We sat in the cold darkness, ears perked for any response. But there was none.
Mallory shook her head, wet her lips, and hit the orb again. “If you talk to us, we can try to help you.”
She nearly squealed when the orb pulsed with light, and jumped backward.
It started as a whisper, a faint and faraway call. And with each percussion the sound lengthened, heightened, grew.
help.
Help.
HELP.
HELP.
The voice was masculine. It was one sound and many, a singular cry and a million voices. That was probably the “depth” Winston had mentioned.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” Mallory murmured, as we stared at the thrumming orb.
