Unknown

After a split second, I felt power begin to stream through the aetheric, a red-black pulse heading in my direction, and struggled to identify the type of attack. Not Earth powers, this time.

Fire.

It came as a hot streak of light as large as a man’s head, glowing white hot and trailing flames and smoke. I put my right hand down on the ambulance’s metal roof and pulled up, willing the metal to flow with me, then jumped down to ground level by the rear doors. As I jumped, the roof ripped free, front to back, peeling like a giant tin of sardines, and hit the ground with a thick, heavy boom—arched, still co

I ducked behind and hardened it just in time for the attacking fireball to strike it squarely in the middle. Ten inches from my face, the metal began to glow a dull, muddy red, and I felt the waves of heat boring through. But I hadn’t intended the metal alone to stop it; I heaved up the ground from the other side of the ambulance in a fountain of damp earth and cascaded it overhead, to thump down on the fireball, burying it beneath an organic weight that would not catch fire easily, if at all.

I heard the hiss as the fire began to fail, and the metal in front of me ceased to glow.

I stepped out of the barricade and stared out in the direction from which the attack had come.

There was a shrill, short cry, and then nothing for a long moment before Luis called, “Cass! Got her!”

Her. My heart stuttered in its rhythm, and I spurred my body back into a run, shattering even the speed at which I’d fled before. Ibby?

Luis emerged from the darkness into the glow of a streetlight. There was a child in his arms.

It was not Isabel. It was another girl, dressed in the same dull paramilitary uniform, long golden braids spilling down over Luis’s arm and swinging like ropes. I felt my stomach clench, and I slowed to a walk.

I saw the same weary pain in his face. “Had to knock her out,” he said. “Same as the other kids. Somebody amped up her powers, big-time. It’s burning her out. Goddammit, we have to stop this. How many of these kids does she have?”

“Enough to throw them away on the mere chance of killing us,” I said. “You noticed the change?”

He frowned down at the sleeping face of the girl in his arms. “Cleaner,” he said. “Healthier. Not dressed in rags and castoffs like the ones in Colorado.”

“Uniformed,” I said. “And trained. Pearl’s army is becoming a reality. I doubt we are the only ones being targeted, if that’s the case.”

Agent Turner, out of breath, arrived at that moment and heard the last part of my statement. He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed a number, turning away to talk, then back as he finished.

“You’re right,” he said, folding the phone. “Warden HQ has reports of isolated attacks all over. Kids attacking adult Wardens. The Wardens are off balance, they’re not sure what’s going on.”

“Tell them,” I said. “Tell them we have a significant problem, and they should be ready.”

“To fight kids?”

“To protect themselves,” I said. “These children won’t hesitate to kill. They’ve been trained not to flinch. If the Wardens do, they’re dead.” More of Pearl’s games. Sometimes you’re the bull. She’d use her Warden children as picadors, pricking us, bleeding us, driving us into a fury that she could manipulate.

But perhaps Pearl’s control wasn’t as perfect as she imagined. Isabel hadn’t struck at me with lethal force. She’d knocked me out and retreated instead.

Incomplete training? Or free will?

I could count on neither being true for long.

The next time I faced Ibby . . . I might have to destroy her.

Her, the other children . . . the Wardens . . . the human race.

Destruction radiating out the way the poison from the list had taken my hand.

But if I took that step, that last step, it would not be Pearl making that choice. It would be me, and me alone.

I stared at the blond- haired girl in Luis’s arms. She seemed so i

Luis said, “I can keep her out. Let’s get her in the hospital and make sure she’s okay otherwise.”

I followed him and Agent Turner to the door as security and medical perso

I left it to the more creative among them to explain the missing roof, the metal barricade, and the piled wall of wet earth around the scorches and burns.

I had better things to do.

Chapter 7

GLORIA JENSEN HAD LITTLE TO TELL US, after all. She was drowsy from painkillers, neatly bandaged, with her broken arm set in a plastic brace. Her parents, unaware of the incident down in the parking lot, had already made their ecstatic welcomes, and they sat on either side of her bed, touching her as if they couldn’t bear to let her go even for a moment.

Gloria’s eyes widened when she saw me. I had come alone; Turner and Luis had stayed behind with our child attacker. Luis was maintaining the artificial sleep that kept the unconscious girl from further destruction, of herself if nothing else; Turner, I think, just wanted to stay out of my way. He was regarding me with more and more caution.

Gloria told me nothing of significance. She’d been taken from school. She’d tried to fight the man who was taking her. He’d broken her arm in the process of subduing her; he’d tied and gagged her, and put her in the trunk of his car.

“Then the other man came, after a really long time,” she said. “I don’t know how he got in there. He was just there. Then the trunk opened, just enough for me to get out, and he took me to a policeman before he left again. Then they brought me here.”

Rashid. The hushed tone of her voice confirmed that she’d sensed him as being somehow different.

“The first man,” I said. “Did you know him? Recognize him? Had you seen him before?”

Gloria nodded, small braids bobbing around her face. “He was at camp, the camp last summer,” she said. “His name was Mr. Holden. I didn’t like it there, so my dad brought me home. But Bria

“Bria

“Yeah. Her parents travel a lot. She spends a lot of time with me. She liked it there.” Gloria made a sleepy face of distaste. “They seemed nice, but I could tell they weren’t. I told Dad I wanted to leave, and he got me. Bri-Bri wouldn’t go.”

I took a guess. “Bria

Gloria could not have looked more impressed if I had suddenly waved a magic wand and produced an elephant from thin air. “Yes. That’s Bri! How did you know?”

“Magic,” I said, straight- faced, and she smiled in delight. “Gloria. I need you to understand something. You, and your parents as well. You are not safe. These people could come for you again. I think they will try. You must stay on your guard, all right? And—” Now, I looked at Gloria’s mother steadily. “And you must be trained, so you understand what is ahead of you.”

Gloria’s mother flinched, then nodded. She patted her daughter’s shoulder gently. “It’s because you’re special, sweetie,” she said. “Like me. Like I used to be. And you need to understand what that means.”

Gloria looked over at her and said, very calmly, “I know already, Mom. I saw the news and stuff. It’s magic, right? Like those people who can make rain.”