Jonah looks from his phone to the trees around us and back again. “It should be right here.”

  Mirage tips his head to one side and then the other before spinning around with a brief swoosh of a couple of fox tails. “No rift, no work to do!”

  Raze adjusts the bag of equipment he has slung over his bulky shoulder and frowns. “It can’t have disappeared, can it? Do rifts move?”

  “They aren’t supposed to.” Jonah’s forehead furrows. “But this wasn’t like any other rift we know of, right?”

  An uneasy quiver ripples through my veins. “And the creatures that we think are coming out of it change like no other shadowkind do. Maybe it’s all part of the same energy—always morphing.”

  Hail folds his arms over his chest. He offers a typically blasé tone. “If Rollick’s been getting reports of the strange activity up here for months, then the rift mustn’t move very far. Let’s get on with finding the stupid thing.”

  Jonah hesitates and then motions to the rest of us. “We should spread out a little. Pay attention to the atmosphere—if you sense anything like the vibe that rift gave off, shout for the rest of us right away.”

  As we fan out from the coordinates where the portal to the shadowkind realm was before, my skin creeps. Mirage bounds along to my left, the sunlight catching on his bright red hair. I stay where I can still see Raze’s huge, sinewy form between the trees.

  We haven’t come across any signs of more strange beings around here so far on this trek, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. And I’m not all that confident in my abilities to protect myself.

  I extend my awareness as far as I can, but I’m built for picking up on emotions, not weird shadow-realm energies. I haven’t noticed anything at all when the fox shifter lets out a startled bark.

  “What is it?” I ask, hustling over.

  By the time I reach him, Mirage’s emotions have calmed. He points to a crumpled mass of shiny paper on the ground. “I stepped on that. It’s not part of the forest.”

  I bend down and realize the paper is shiny because it’s coated with aluminum foil. The surface is flecked with dirt and grit… as well as dried smears of a dark red substance.

  My pulse hiccups. I pick it up and give it a sniff.

  The spicy tang of tandoori fills my nose.

  I drop the wrapper as if it burned me. Jonah and Raze are just loping over from opposite directions.

  Raze takes one look at my face and bares his teeth. “What’s the matter?”

  I shake my head quickly. “It’s nothing. Just some garbage. Another random coincidence.”

  Lots of people like eating tandoori. We even had it at the school just days ago. There’s no more reason to think this piece of trash is connected to my old captor than our cafeteria meal was.

  Other than the fact that we know there’s a sorcerer with questionable intentions who’s gathered some of the odd creatures up here.

  As I rub my arms to will down the goosebumps, Jonah picks up the crumpled wrapper. “We need all the evidence we can get.”

  Mirage springs forward and sniffs the breeze. “The air is a little… wobbly this way.”

  When Jonah has tucked the wrapper into his bag, my nerves settle down. I step forward, ignoring the twinge that’s creeping up my ankles. “Maybe that’s where the rift wandered off to, then.”

  Raze has only taken a few more steps before his tongue flicks over his lips. “I can smell one of those unusual creatures. Not too fresh. The trail’s at least a few hours old.”

  Our leader perks up. “Follow the trail back to where it came from.”

  We tramp on through the woods, all together now. After a couple of minutes, a tingle of energy passes through my flesh.

  My head jerks up with a hitch of breath. “I think I can feel it—the rift.”

  Even Hail nods, his pale face more intent than usual. “We’re close.”

  We pick up our pace, twigs crackling and stones rattling under our feet. The energy reverberates more thickly through the air, and my nerves start jittering again.

  We reach a small glade with a ridge of rock at one side. I can sense the rift, with its slight blurring of the surrounding vegetation, looming right in front of the low cliff that rises from the ground next to us.

  Jonah taps the coordinates into his phone. “It moved half a mile in a couple of days. I wonder how often it drifts around?”

  Hail grimaces. “Hopefully we’ll be finished with this mission before we have to find out.”

  At Jonah’s gesture, Raze hefts the bag off his shoulder and unzips it. They pull out the metal boxes with their knobs and buttons out of their padded containers, as well as a couple of folded cages that we could open up if a creature comes through. Hail moves closer to watch.

  I don’t understand how all the devices Rollick sent with us are supposed to operate, but there’s something comforting about the pings and ticking sounds as Jonah holds the first one up to the rift. As if he’s bringing this strange phenomenon back into the realm of things that can be explained and catalogued. It won’t remain an unsettling mystery for much longer.

  There isn’t much for me to do, since I have no experience with technology. So I wander through the woods near the rift, testing whether I can catch hints of emotion from the forest’s inhabitants. Are any of the odd shadowkind still close enough for me to sense their presence?

  I taste Jonah’s satisfaction at fulfilling Rollick’s request and Raze’s at helping with the job. Mirage gives off a little delight while chasing sunbeams that dart back and forth with the swaying of the overhead leaves in the wind. Hail has his feelings tightly under wraps, and I don’t want to bother him when I’m still confused by his reactions to me the other night.

  A little fear reaches me from a few forest animals who don’t know what to make of our presence, but I don’t notice anything that matches the shifting emotions the strange shadowkind gave off.

  Jonah switches from one device to another. “After we’ve gotten all the readings, we’ll see if you can affect the rift’s energies with your powers, Raze. You’re probably the best choice to give it a try, considering how strong you are—if you’re still all right with making the attempt.”

  Raze dips his head and murmurs an answer I don’t hear, because at the same moment a different sort of energy zings right through my skull.

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  My heart lurches. Every inch of my skin chills as if it’s been coated with ice.

  I know that feeling. Like when Jonah gives us his sorcerous commands, the words jabbing into my will like tiny fish hooks, except this zing has a darker, sharper flavor to it.

  Like tandoori chicken wrapped in aluminium foil in a dim basement room.

  As my pulse pounds frantically, I throw my awareness in the direction the energy came from, tasting for other sensations with all my concentration. Only a few whiffs of emotion—mortal, human—reach me.

  Frustration like meat charred to black.

  Anger like bursting peppercorns.

  Greed like a rich vanilla mousse that’s spoiled.

  I know those feelings too. I’ve tasted those exact flavors.

  All from the same source.

  My throat constricts so fast I lose my breath. All those little bits and pieces I’ve stumbled on—they weren’t just coincidences. The sorcerer messing with this rift is the man I knew, the same one who flung his shimmering net over me, shut me away in a cage, and dug his blades into my body to provoke the anguish he wanted.

  He’s here. He found these strange shadowkind and decided to turn them into his new slaves.

  And any second now he’s going to realize that his attempt at latching onto my mind didn’t work, that it bounced off the brief instruction Jonah gave me earlier, and he’s going to hit me even harder.

  I don’t know for sure that my former captor has stronger magic than Jonah’s—but he is a lot older. He’s had a lot more time to practice. He commanded an army of shadowkind creatures a couple dozen strong.

  If he catches hold of me again—if he traps Raze and Mirage and Hail in his power—

  Horror sears through my veins alongside the blare of panic.

  As a shudder wracks my body, my vision hazes. The dark emotions roil beneath my skin, heaving to the surface, the command Jonah gave me to control them having faded since yesterday’s iteration.

  I’m going to hurt them again. All of them, and every animal nearby, and—

  There’s one specific being I do want to hurt.

  The idea hits me just as the agony blasts from my body. Darkness surges in every direction.

  No!

  I grope for a shred of control, picturing the man’s pock-marked face, focusing on the place the prickle of his sorcery came from.

  With a grunt that bursts from my throat, I heave all the fear and misery gushing out of me toward only him.

  The wave roars around me, warbling through the trees. Somewhere farther off, it smacks into a form with a flare of acid-sour pain that echoes back into me.

  Good. Good. If there’s anyone in this world who doesn’t deserve happiness, it’s him.

  More of the darkness careens through the woods. I have to stop him. I have to—

  Jonah’s voice pierces my head in a shouted string of sorcerous syllables. The power rushing out of me contracts in a jolt so abrupt I stumble forward and fall to my knees.

  The distant pain flickers and dwindles—I think the man who meant to capture us is running away.

  I sent him fleeing before he could dig his awful sorcery into any of us.

  A smile crosses my lips, and then footsteps thud through the underbrush around me.

  “What was that?” Disappointment rings through Jonah’s voice and wafts off his presence next to me. “Peri, you seemed fine. If you were getting worked up, you were supposed to warn us.”

  Mirage shuffles over beside him, rubbing a wound on his arm that’s dribbling smoky essence.

  Guilt clamps around my gut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. There was—I had to—”

  “You had to screw up the whole mission yet again,” Hail interrupts in a caustic tone. He holds up one of Rollick’s devices. “All of the tech we brought is going haywire thanks to you, pipsqueak.”

  What? I scramble up, my pulse racing. “I tried to direct it away from you, away from the rift, as quickly as I could. I was throwing it over there—I mustn’t have been fast enough.”

  Raze’s forehead furrows. “You let out that blast of darkness on purpose?”

  Jonah’s mouth twists, and Mirage winces. They don’t understand. If the my former captor tried to control my companions with his sorcery, they didn’t recognize the attempted magic.

  Of course they didn’t. I’m the only one who knows this sorcerer. I’ve been recognizing him all along and just not wanting to believe it.

  I don’t even know for sure that he’s gone.

  “We have to be careful!” I blurt out. “He was close—I could feel it. If he tries again—”

  Hail sneers. “You lost your head in more silly paranoia and exploded your crazy energy all over the place. Now we’ve got to go back and get new equipment, start this whole thing over again. What do you think Rollick is going to say when he finds out how his things got broken?”

  A clammier chill sweeps through me. I’ve caused another incident, and this one so much was more destructive than the one before. Destruction we can’t gloss over.

  Before I can say anything, Jonah rakes his hand through his hair. “We have to give Rollick the whole story. I don’t know, Peri. I’ve tried—but maybe you need something more to get you stabilized than any of us can offer.”

  “No!” Another tremor shakes my body. “Please. I was only trying to help. The sorcerer was trying to catch us like he always does—”

  Raze holds out his hands, a flicker of worry crossing his face and wavering through the air between us. “Just calm down, Peri. We’ll figure it out.”

  They think I’m simply freaking out over nothing again. They’re afraid that I might lose control all over again right now.

  What can I say that’ll convince them? Is there anything I could say that’ll matter?

  I finally got a little handle on my powers and pointed them toward the right kind of target, but I still ruined everything we were working on.

  And when Rollick finds out, even he’s going to want to banish me.

  A sob breaks from my throat. I cast one last glance over my shoulder, braced to see my sorcerer captor charging at us from between the trees, but I can’t sense him at all now.

  I can’t protect anyone. I only make things worse.

  Blinking away tears, I hurl myself into the shadows and dash in the opposite direction as fast as I can go.