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“Right now we need to get the hell out of here.” Pellini hauled me upright again, draped my arm over his shoulder to steady me as we made our way down the trail. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. Eilahn and Idris are right behind us, and we’ll get back to your house and fix it.”
“I’m gonna throw up.”
Pellini reacted like a man who had way too much experience with people about to blow chunks. In a split second he unslung my arm from his shoulders and lowered me to my knees. He scooped my hair back with one hand and steadied me with the other, all while keeping himself out of the line of fire. “Right into the grass there.”
After I finished, I remained on my knees and attempted to trace a sigil. I formed the lines well enough, but when I tried to draw power to make it more than mere scratches in the dirt I might as well have wished for fairies to appear.
Footsteps approached. I straightened to see Idris jogging up the trail, face contorted with anger. He’d recovered quickly from being caught in the edge of the ritual. Eilahn wasn’t far behind him, pale but no less determined.
“We need to keep moving,” Idris said, tone harsh as he passed us without a second glance. Pellini helped me up, but Eilahn scooped me out of his grasp.
“Not much farther,” she said. She hurried me up the trail after Idris, leaving Pellini behind.
I clung to her arm as I staggered along. “Where’s Pellini? He helped. He stopped it.”
“He follows.”
I craned my head around, relieved to see him with his gun out and ready as he surveyed the woods in all directions, covering our retreat.
“My arcane senses will return?” I asked Eilahn, desperation making my voice crack. “What McDunn did to me will wear off, right?”
“You are a summoner,” she replied, implacable.
I gulped. “Not if I can’t touch or see the arcane.”
“Precisely.”
A brief flare of exasperation pushed aside my fear. “Yeah, and I can’t touch or see the arcane.”
“I know this,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. “You are a summoner. Summoners see and touch the arcane.” She nodded as if certain it would all be clear to me now.
Dismayed, I gave up debating the point. Did she understand what I was experiencing? Not that I was sure I understood. But for the first time I wondered if there was a logical gap in her thinking. To her it was clear: summoners could see and touch the arcane. I was a summoner. Therefore, I could see and touch the arcane. Except that she couldn’t seem to grasp that the reverse was also true: without the arcane a person wasn’t a summoner. Maybe she couldn’t comprehend such a radical change? Perhaps to her it was like a terrier saying it wasn’t a dog anymore. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to comprehend it either.
Idris stood a few feet back from the end of the trail, listening and sensing. He traced his fingers over the bark of a tree beside him, shaping an alarm sigil to notify him if people passed near—though I only knew what it was because I recognized the wrist-straining twist of his hand at the end. Eilahn stopped a short distance behind him and made a careful scan of the road and truck that waited beyond the edge of the woods. Her nostrils flared delicately as she scented the air and assessed for active or potential threats. After another tense moment she said, “I sense nothing amiss.”
Pellini clicked open the locks with his remote. “Y’all get in,” he said, still on guard. Eilahn helped me into the back and got me buckled, while Idris threw himself into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. Pellini climbed in and started the truck, then performed a quick three-point turn and got us on our way.
“Feeling any better?” he asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror.
No, everything’s wrong! I wanted to yell, but I held it back and offered a shrug instead. “I don’t feel like puking quite as much.”
“They knew we were coming,” Idris said, hands clenched into fists on his thighs. “The fracture of the valve threw them off, but they were waiting for us.”
The truck jolted over a rough bump, and I gritted my teeth against the answering queasiness. “We were cocky and got caught,” I said once I could speak. A shiver passed through me, and I rubbed the gooseflesh on my arms. No matter how hard I tried to see the arcane, the world remained dull and ordinary.
“We walked right into it!” Idris raged, face red. “Katashi was right there! We could’ve had him if we’d blasted him in the first place like I said!” He shot me an accusing glare.
My battered self-control disintegrated into pain and loss and fear in the face of his oh-so-righteous anger. “I’m sorry,” I screamed at him. “I’m so fucking sorry I fucked your day up by getting caught in their trap!”
He swiveled to stare at me, annoyance drawing his mouth into a deep frown. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
My hands trembled. “While I was so inconveniently caught in that trap, McDunn . . . did something to me.”
“What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed. “He enhances talents and intimidates people. That’s pretty much it.”
Did he think I faked the puking and feeling like shit? “Who knows, maybe this was his first time,” I said stiffly. “But what he did to me was the opposite of enhancement.”
It took him only a second to grasp my meaning. “Damn. I didn’t know that was possible.” His mouth twisted in thought. “They wanted you neutralized, not dead.” He exhaled. “Then again, with Rhyzkahl’s and Szerain’s influence on you along with Kadir’s, it’s safer for everyone now. Even you.”
