“Well,” Mallory said, pushing hair from her face.
I sat up, put a hand on my forehead, as if that would stop the world from spinning. “That was not a success. That was some kind of magical grenade.”
“It was a success,” Mallory said, and we all looked at her.
“How?” Ethan asked, brushing snow from his sleeves.
“We know it heard us. And we know it can fight back.” She moved to her knees, poked at the rosemary with a finger, then sat back on her heels. She looked up at the sky, closed her eyes, the breeze blowing her hair across her pinked cheeks. After a moment of silence, she looked at us. “We need to try again.”
“No.” This time, Ethan said it. “Absolutely not.”
“Agreed,” I said. “When you poke the bear and it tries to tear your face off, you regroup and replan.”
Ethan rubbed the back of his head. “Or perhaps you can try again solo and give us the report later. While we’re several miles away.”
Mallory sat up but looked back at the ground, frowning. “Look, even if the answers are somehow automatic, if the delusions are just emotions trapped in the magic, and no thing is actually asking for help, we can still learn from it. If we keep asking questions, maybe we can get a sense of its spread, of its size, from the answers we get back.”
“Like echoes,” I offered.
“Like echoes,” she agreed. “We’re running out of time. She’s getting ready for something big, and that big is going to happen very, very soon. If we aren’t prepared for it, it’s going to be worse than Towerline.”
Towerline had been half success and half disaster, with plenty of injuries and destruction.
Ethan opened his mouth but closed it again and glanced at Catcher, who was rolling his head, then his shoulders, as if trying to loosen a stubborn ache. Then he looked at us.
“We’re all in one piece,” Catcher said. “I’m not suggesting you’re cowards if you don’t try again, but . . .”
“But you’re subtly implying it,” Ethan said.
Catcher grinned. “This is magic, friends. It’s a dangerous game. Maybe vampires can’t hack it.”
Ethan’s eyes blazed silver. “Is that a dare?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Catcher looked at me. “We have to try something. This is currently the only thing we know to try.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I looked at Mallory. She’d pulled a small kraft-paper notebook from her bag, was thumbing through it. “Just give me a minute.”
I narrowed my gaze at Catcher. “Beer and pizza after this, and you’re paying.”
His lips curved into a smirk. “You’re a cheap date.”
“That is one of her finer qualities,” said my husband.
I elbowed him, and we settled back into our positions.
“It’s getting colder,” Catcher said. “We should probably move this along while we can still function.”
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.