The name breaks from my throat automatically. “Peri!”

  Our rainbow-vivid companion has already rippled away through the shadows. I whirl to leap after her, but Hail stops me with a whip of his hand and a burst of frost that melds my feet to the ground.

  “Don’t you go running off too,” he snaps. “We don’t even know how else she might lash out.”

  Jonah has taken a step in the direction she fled in, but he halts with a firming of his jaw. “If she needs some space, we should probably give it to her.”

  Does he think she’d explode on us again?

  The memory wavers up of her plaintive voice carrying through the night when I left her behind in the forest before. “She might get lost—not be able to find her way back.”

  Our sorcerer aims a level look at me. “I’d expect that Peri can look after herself as well as she needs to.”

  I think I hear a thread of uncertainty in his voice. But it also occurs to me that he might not believe it’s a bad thing if she can’t return to us.

  Coming back means facing the judgment of the school administration. Maybe being banished.

  Does Peri really deserve that? If she runs away, she might be able to stay free here in the mortal world, feeding on the emotions she needs.

  I rub the spot on my arm that’s already sealing, just a thin wisp of essence still drifting up from the wound. It only hurt for a moment—she’d already yanked her brutal energy away from me before Jonah intervened.

  She really did get control over it.

  I scowl at Hail. “She wasn’t trying to break anything.”

  “But she did, didn’t she?” He turns toward Jonah. “You should have told the administration the whole story in the first place. Let them decide how much of a threat she poses instead of letting her cutesy exterior mess with your head. Now we’ve got a huge mess and nothing to do but go back empty-handed—and we’re the ones who’ll pay, not you, oh great sorcerer.”

  Jonah winces. “I’ll make sure they know none of you did anything wrong. She wasn’t even interacting with any of us when it happened. You were right here with me handling the devices.”

  Razes starts to pace. Uneasiness wafts off his hulking body, potent enough that I can feel it without any special emotion-sensing powers. “She said she was trying to send out her power. Why would she do that? She hates it.”

  Hail scoffs. “She got caught up in one of her delusions about this sorcerer she tangled with before. A shadowkind jumping at shadows. We never should have brought a wimp like her along in the first place.”

  All five of my tails swish out of me with a furious swipe through the air. “She wasn’t weak. Anyone would be bothered by getting captured and mistreated.”

  I should know.

  Hail aims his glower at me. “What does it matter if she’s too unstable to hold herself together?”

  Jonah drags in a breath. “We don’t know if that’s the case. If she’s getting better at deciding when and where she lets out her destructive impulses, it could actually be a good sign.”

  Hail shakes his head. “Only if we can trust her to aim them in a reasonable direction.”

  My gaze falls on the broken equipment, the data on their displays fragmented into distorted light. The first wave of searing darkness washed over them and me and our other teammates—behind Peri.

  She didn’t mean to do that part. After the power had already burst out, she directed it somewhere else.

  “What if the sorcerer was here?” I ask abruptly. “The one she knew before or whichever one’s messed with us up here? You’re just assuming she’s delusional.”

  The fae man grimaces. “Because she’s been set off by ridiculous things every time before.”

  “But before, after her outburst, she knew she’d just gotten scared. This time she was still worried about us.” The image of her standing before us, trembling and pale, flits through my mind. “She looked over in the same direction where she sent most of her power, like she was worried about what’s over there.”

  I don’t wait to see if the others will agree. I just wiggle my feet free from the melting frost and lope between the trees in the direction Peri indicated.

  The bark on some of the trees over this way looks as if it’s been scraped like my arm was. Some of the leaves scattering the ground have shriveled and grayed.

  My skin creeps, but I hurry onward, lifting my nose to the air to make use of my fox senses.

  Raze hustles over beside me, his muscles flexing through his brawny body. “We need to know what provoked her that badly.”

  Hail grumbles somewhere behind us with words I can’t make out. The crunch of footsteps through the brush tells me both he and Jonah are following us.

  All at once, Raze stiffens. He pushes forward through the woods twice as fast as before, his tongue forking into its lizard shape as it flicks over his lips.

  He comes to a stop at the edge of a small clear spot between the trees and throws out his arms to block me from brushing past him. “Wait!”

  As Hail and Jonah catch up with us, the basilisk shifter tastes the air again and again. His hands ball at his sides.

  “Someone was here. It’s the same human smell I picked up near the cabin the other day.”

  My pulse skips a beat. I duck down closer to the ground to peer at it. “I see the impression of shoes. The dirt looks stirred up, like he was having trouble on his feet.”

  Jonah inhales sharply. “If Peri’s energy hit him hard, it would have injured him at least a little.”

  When I glance up at Hail, his pale face has gone completely taut. I draw myself up to my full height, nearly meeting his eyes on the same level. “She did notice someone dangerous in the woods. She wasn’t messing things up—she was protecting us.”

  The winter fae opens his mouth and closes it again. His shoulders start to slump. “How were we supposed to know, after everything before?”

  Raze growls. “Because she’s always trying to help us, every way she can. You kept insulting her before she had a chance to totally explain.”

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  Jonah is still staring down at the churned up earth. “We need to know where the sorcerer went. She wasn’t sure he’d left completely. If he’s still lurking around…”

  His gaze darts across the nearby trees and then comes back to us. “I should give you a stronger command of my own to bolster your defenses, in case he tries to impose control on you.”

  For once, Hail doesn’t argue. He simply lifts his chin. “Go ahead. If I’m going to listen to any sorcerer, better it’s you than some creep.”

  Jonah’s mouth twists, but he speaks his weird sorcerous language to all of us. I shiver at the command wriggling into my skull.

  But there are worse ways of controlling someone. I know that too.

  I spin around. “We need to find Peri. She doesn’t have extra protection. The sorcerer might go after her if he thinks she could hurt him again.”

  Raze’s head jerks around. His voice bellows through the trees. “Peri!”

  Jonah touches his arm. “We will get Peri back, but someone needs to follow the sorcerer’s trail while it’s fresh. And probably not alone, in case he causes more trouble than we expect.”

  To my surprise, Hail wipes his hands together and speaks in a more forceful tone than usual. “I played the biggest part in running the cream puff off. I owe her the biggest apology. Come on, fox. Let’s track her down and let the sorcerer and the basilisk hunt the villain.”

  He wouldn’t be my first choice of company, but my preferences feel a lot less important than making sure Peri’s okay—and that she knows we appreciate what she did for us.

  We set off back toward the rift. It’s easy to find it again when we haven’t strayed that far. The pushy atmosphere it gives off weighs on me even from many bounds away.

  “Peri!” I call out, as loud as my voice will carry. “Please come back!”

  Hail adds his voice to mine, sounding a little hesitant. “Periwinkle! We know you were right!”

  He makes a face at those words. As we stride around the jutting rock face beyond the rift and venture into the shadows Peri darted off through, I peer over at him. “Why are you so mean to her all of the time? Why are you mean to all of us?”

  Hail’s stance tenses. “Why should I be ‘nice’? What have any of you done for me?”

  “You don’t think it’d make the mission easier for all of us—including you—if we’re getting along?”

  “I didn’t ask to be here in the first place,” Hail mutters.

  I click my tongue. “But you are and I am and she is. The job is what it is. And whatever you think about the rest of us, she’s been nice to you.”

  I’ve seen it with my own eyes. He can’t deny that Peri has extended her generous gentleness to him just as much as the rest of us.

  Hail doesn’t try. He’s silent for a few rasping footsteps.

  Then he sighs. “I don’t see why. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing about her makes sense.”

  I have to laugh. “I think she’s the only being I’ve ever met who really makes sense. The problem is the that rest of us try to make everything so complicated.”

  Even me, for all I try to simplify my life to jokes and games. Maybe because I do that.

  A pensive expression comes over the fae man’s face, but I like it better than the sneering one he often puts on. “Peri!” he hollers again.

  I pitch my voice even louder. “Come talk to us, Rainbow!”

  Hail cuts his gaze toward me. “Rainbow?”

  His tone is bemused but not disdainful. I let myself grin at him. “It’s more accurate than ‘cream puff.’”

  But none of that matters when Peri still hasn’t returned. I pause, listening hard, but I can’t hear any signs of her curvy body brushing against the underbrush, can’t smell her sunny-sweet scent or feel the impression of her presence within the shadows.

  If she kept running after she left, she could be beyond hearing us already. I don’t know how we’ll ever find her.

  “Rainbow,” Hail murmurs to himself with a slight roll of my eyes, and an idea lights in my head.

  I clap my hands. “Yes! We need a rainbow to call back our Rainbow.”

  My powers tingle through my body. I form the picture I want to create in my head and will the image out into the world.

  Cascading colors streak across the sky. Their mottled light radiates down between the trees to leave their sheen on the forest floor.

  The illusion I’ve conjured, a massive splash of rainbow, stretches above us as far as I can propel it toward the hidden horizon.

  Hail stops, his jaw going slack. “You… Mortals will see it too.”

  I can’t stop concentrating to answer him. Already, the effort of extending my magic that far is turning the pleasant tingle of power into a sharper prickle. Soon the strain will be jabbing at me like little knives.

  I don’t care. I push the illusion farther, drenching every inch of forest I can with the multi-colored light. Peri needs to see it, needs to know I’m reaching out to her.

  Here comes the jabbing. I tune out the pain as well as I can, though my fingers twitch. The longer I can maintain this image, the more likely she’ll—

  “Mirage?”

  The tentative voice breaks through my focus. The rainbow shudders away, and I find myself panting, standing amid the trees with not just Hail but Jonah and Raze by my side.

  How long was I lost in my conjuring?

  Long enough that a pale face framed by teal hair is peeking over the top of a bush at me, still a few paces distant, as if she’s waiting to see whether she’ll need to take off again.

  A smile springs to my lips. “Rainbow! You saw me calling.”

  Peri shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her gaze sliding from me to our companions. She tugs her leather jacket closer around her chest.

  Hail jumps in before anyone else can. “I’m sorry. I was a jerk to you. We saw that the sorcerer really was there by the rift.”

  His apology is brusque, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him apologize before at all. Peri blinks at him, apparently stunned.

  Jonah picks up the thread in his calmer voice. “We’re all sorry we didn’t hear you out the first time. Why did you go straight to attacking him? I’m assuming you had a good reason.”

  Peri’s voice comes out quiet but steady. “He tried to latch on to me with his sorcery. Your command stopped him, but I know he’d try again, stronger. And I recognized the flavor of his magic. It is the man who trapped me before.”

  Her head droops. “I felt so horrible, knowing he was that close—I couldn’t keep the awfulness in. But I could throw it at him so it didn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.” She hesitates, with an apologetic glance at me. “Not too much.”

  Jonah pulls his posture straighter. “We have a lot to talk about, then. If you’re willing to give us another chance to listen, that is.”

  Peri looks at him for a long moment, a pale blue glimmer passing over her hair. Her jaw tightens. “Yes. I think I’d better tell you everything.”