The stone fell in between the bodies, but that didn’t stop the light from blasting into the alley. A rainbow of light. The only time I’d seen anything like it was when I held the stone myself. It had shone brightly for me, but still, I was the only one I knew of with a rainbow.
One creature moved from the meat, turning its attention to Bibbi, and it snapped me out of my daze. I ran forward just as it moved to sink its teeth into her ankle.
They scattered, dragging some of the meat off with them, leaving a trail of blood.
Another sound drew my attention to the opposite end of the alley, the one we’d just come from, and I saw a group of kids running off.
How long had they been there? Had they seen the light? Would they put it together the way I had? How could they not? All they had to do was see the grouslies flashing the same colors and glance at my hair. It was impossible not to add those two things up. Even if they needed a little help, the next fifty people or so they told, someone would figure it out.
I shut that out of my mind for now.
“Did it get you?” I asked Bibbi, motioning to her ankle as Oscar and Zab approached from the other side.
“It tried, but I don’t think it broke the skin,” she said, even as her attention was on my hair as she tried to figure out why the grouslies, and maybe Dread, would have the same colors.
I didn’t go for the hat I had tucked in my pocket. It was too late anyway.
There was an awkward silence as Oscar and Zab didn’t say much. They didn’t have to. I saw the wheels turning. Musso cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything. Bertha was the only one with enough restraint to not look at my hair, even though they’d arrived in time to see the flash of color.
“Let’s check your leg, just in case,” Hawk said, stepping in and breaking the silence.
“Huh?” Bibbi asked.
“Your leg, where it tried to bite you? I want to make sure it didn’t break the skin.” He stepped in front of me, disrupting her concentration on my hair.
“Oh. Yeah.” She nodded and then tugged up the pants, as if the wheels in her brain had finally found something else to spin on than the muddy rut of my current dilemma.
She knelt down and tugged up her pants, letting everyone check out her skin for any possible penetration as I took a few steps back.
I’d always known something was off, that I’d been connected to it in some way. But flashing the same magic? I took another step back before catching myself and locking my legs down so my feet couldn’t take me anywhere else.
Frozen in place, I felt like a human slushy machine, spinning but too cold and numb to think straight.
What did that mean? Why did that light look like mine?
Musso edged toward me while they continued to examine Bibbi. “Don’t worry about it, kid. There are worse things in life than flashing the same color magic. Doesn’t mean anything.”
I shrugged. “No, yeah, not a big deal. I’m sure it’s happened before.”
His lips parted and his eyes closed up a bit as I waited to hear his words of wisdom. “Well, that I can’t say. But nothing to do about it. If there’s a similarity, then there’s a similarity. Like I said, doesn’t mean anything.”
When I looked at him, his eyes shot away from my hands. “Not sure I’ll ever get used to the fifth wind of Xest.” I shoved them inside my jacket pockets so he couldn’t see the tremble.
Hawk pointed to the gem on the ground. “Someone grab that and let’s head back.” Hawk began walking, pausing for a second once he got to where I was standing.
I started walking, falling into step with him the way we usually did, out of habit.
“But what did that mean?” Bibbi asked, trailing behind us as we all walked from the alley.
“It meant nothing,” Hawk said. “Absolutely nothing.”
7
When we got back to the broker building, everyone went their separate ways while I lingered by my desk, flipping through some cards.
Hawk was on the other side, by Zab’s desk, not pretending to do anything but wait for the room to empty out.
He was the only one who didn’t seem rattled by the revelation, almost as if it hadn’t been a surprise. It was hitting me all wrong. Something was off. He wasn’t bringing it up in front of anyone, not showing any curiosity at all.
The room downstairs emptied with unusual quiet. No one stayed to talk about what had been revealed. No one was talking about anything. They left with a few curious looks backward.
As soon as they were gone, Hawk straightened from where he was leaning and walked into the empty back room.
I followed him.
The absence of all other sound meant he’d muted the back room. As soon as he did, my suspicions turned into a landslide of murky truth.
“You knew something was going to be weird, that I was linked to Dread somehow. That’s why you didn’t want Bibbi to go through with her plan. That’s why Jasper thought I was evil. He knew too.”
He settled on one of the couches. “I didn’t know but thought it might be a possibility.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never seen magic like yours, the way it threw off that kind of intensity and that array, not with any other witch or warlock in Xest.”
“You suspected and didn’t think you should tell me, of all people?”
“No. I didn’t.” He kept staring at me as he shrugged.
“How could you not?”
He let out a sigh, as if this was the last conversation he wanted to have right now. “Because you can’t defend yourself without twisting your motivations into some story of why it’s good for your opponent if you win. If it turned out I was right, I didn’t think this would help matters. From the look of you right now, the waves of agitation you’re throwing off, I was right. You took ten steps back the minute you realized.”
I’d give him one thing: he’d never been more correct. I was rattled so badly that if I crumbled into a thousand pieces right now, it wouldn’t be a surprise. The only thing keeping me standing was pure resolve, backed by nothing other than the knowledge that I had to keep going.
But that didn’t make it any better. I was somehow connected to something that was pure evil. What did that make me? How could I be good if I was linked to evil? All the fears I’d barely buried felt like they were being washed ashore by the storm of tonight’s revelation.
This wouldn’t do. I couldn’t afford to have a crisis of self on top of all the other problems happening. I needed to be on top of my game, not clinging to stay in the arena.
His eyes tracked me around the room, making me realize I’d been pacing. I stopped moving, gripping the back of the couch in front of me with both hands to anchor myself. I’d use whatever I had to get through this, even a stupid piece of furniture.
He wasn’t talking, but his gaze didn’t leave me, as if he were waiting to see if I was going to implode.
“It was a shock, but I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
He nodded, not fighting. It had an altogether placating feel that I wasn’t fond of. The fight I could handle. This was new territory.
“You didn’t want to run this little experiment because of me, did you?” I asked.