“What is that?” I wondered.
“Trip wires,” Scout said. “Magical trip wires. And I have got to get one of those spells.”
“I’ve got a box at the Enclave,” Detroit whispered. “I’ll bring you a couple.”
“We are now besties,” she whispered.
“What do they do?” Michael asked.
Scout pointed toward the smoke. “They set wards,” she said. “They’re like trip wires. If we breach one as we try to cross the door, whoever set the spells them gets a signal. Like an alarm bell.”
“And I bet Reapers would be on us in nothing flat,” Jason predicted. “This has got to be their handiwork. I mean, it’s got to be someone with magic, and if this was an Adept hidey-hole, we’d know about it.”
“Well, we’re definitely not going in there looking for slime,” Michael said. “What’s plan B?”
“I am,” Naya said. “I will call someone.”
“One of the recently deceased,” Detroit clarified, gesturing toward Naya. She took a step out of the crowded doorway into the corridor, blew out a slow breath and moved her hands, palms down, in front of her as she exhaled like she was physically pushing the air from her body.
Jason bumped my arm. “Let’s set up a protective area while she’s getting ready,” he said, then pointed to each of us in turn. Michael and Scout made a line between Naya and the wooden door into the tunnels, and Jason and I stepped around them all to create a barrier between Naya and the trip wires. Two lines of Adept defense in case something nasty popped through either way.
Once in position, we waited silently, gazes skimming nervously around the corridor, waiting for something to happen.
As if the air conditioner had suddenly kicked on, the temperature in the room dropped by ten or fifteen degrees. I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “It’s super-
chilly down here today.”
All eyes turned to me. Understanding struck, and the hair at the back of my neck lifted. The corridor felt like a field of power lines, abuzz with potential energy.
“That wasn’t just a breeze, was it?” Michael whispered.
The sidewalk grates began to vibrate, then clank up and down in their moorings as something moved into the corridor. The air got hazy, and a cold, thick fog sank down among us.
“She’s here,” Naya whispered.
Jason muttered a startled curse, then reached out for my hand. I laced my fingers with his and squeezed. Michael and Scout were also holding hands. About time.
The mist swirled, but didn’t take shape.
“She is having trouble heeding the call,” Naya said. “The energy . . . is scattered.”
“Is that why we can’t see her?” I whispered to Detroit. The question seemed rude —like this poor girl could help that she didn’t have a body—but important nonetheless.
“It takes a lot of power for the spirit to make contact, to penetrate the veil between the gray land and ours. Making herself visible would take more power than she’s got. But that won’t stop him or her from reaching out, or helping us.”
Naya finally opened her eyes. “Her name is Temperance Bay. She was one of us, an Adept. Her skill was illusion. She could change the physical appearance of an object. She died—was taken—by a Reaper at nineteen. Ten years ago.” Naya shook her head. “That’s all she can tell me—and she had trouble getting that much across. The energy down here is bad. Noisy.”
“That explains why I couldn’t get a good read,” Michael said.
“What would cause that?” I asked.
Jason pointed up. “Could be the trip wires. Could be because we’re down here in a hole. Could be because of whatever went on in this place before we got here.”
That didn’t exactly bode well.
“Hey,” Detroit said, looking at me curiously. “You’ve got firespell, right?”
“Um, yeah. Why?”
“Well, firespell is power magic. So maybe you could send her some firespell power, like an amplifier?”
Was she kidding? I barely knew how to turn the lights on and off. “I wouldn’t know how to do that.”
Undeterred, Detroit shook her head, then began tapping at the screen of her big black watch. “No, I think we can do this. It’s just a matter of energy. Of plugging you in, I guess.”
I looked at Scout, who shrugged, then Jason.
“This one’s all you, kiddo. You’re the only one who knows what it feels like. Do you think you could do it?”
I frowned, then looked at Naya. “Can you ask Temperance if she has any idea how to do it? How that might work? I don’t want to hurt her. I mean, could I hurt her?”
“Of course you could,” Naya said. “She’s deceased, not nonexistent. Her energy remains. If you unbalance her energy, she’s gonna feel it.”
“So no pressure,” Scout added from across the room.
No kidding, but I was an Adept, and I knew what needed to be done. “Okay,” I said. “Ask her what I need to do.”
Naya nodded, then rubbed the saint’s medal around her neck. Her expression went a little vacant again. “Temperance, we await your direction. You have heard our plea for assistance. How can we help you make manifest?” Her eyelids fluttered. “Nourish her with the energy,” she said, “to help her cross the veil. She says that I can bridge the gap to help you focus it. To help you direct it.”
I nodded again. I didn’t fully understand what Temperance was, but I had an idea of how it could work. Temperance was basically a spirit without a body. Naya was the link between us, the wire for the current I could provide. If I pretended Temperance was like a lightbulb in the tunnels, I might be able to give her some energy.
The only question was—could I do it without killing both of us?
“Give me your hand,” I told Naya. She reached out and took my palm, and I squeezed our fingers together. “With your other hand, can you—not touch—but somehow reach Temperance? Like, have her center herself near you?”
Naya nodded, and Temperance must have moved, because I felt the spark of energy along the length of our arms.
“Here goes,” I said, and closed my eyes. I imagined the three of us were a circuit, like the connected wires in a circuit board. I pulled up the well of energy, and instead of letting it flow into a bulb above me, tried to imagine it twisting, funneling from my extended arm into Naya’s, slinking softly through her, and into the ghost at her side.
I felt my hair rise and lift around my head as energy swirled and Naya’s fingers began to shake in my hands.
“Holy crap,” I heard Scout say.
My eyes popped open, and I glanced at Naya. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes were clenched closed. “I’m fine. Just keep going.”
“I saw her.”
I looked back at Scout, her face pale, her eyes wide, and the key around her neck—something worn by every girl at St. Sophia’s—lifting in the currents of magic.
“I saw her. She wore a brown skirt. You were doing it. Keep going.”
I nodded, then closed my eyes again and imagined a long cord of energy between the three of us—two current Adepts and an Adept from a former time. I pushed the energy along the current, not too much, just a little at a time, narrowing in as it spindled between us, like a fine thread being spun from a pile of frothy yarn.
I imagined the energy moving through Naya, slipping past her again, into the whirl of energy that was Temperance Bay. I tried to fill her with it, and with Naya acting as a conduit, I could feel her on the other side—her ache to be heard by the world around her, to be seen and remembered once again. It was a hunger, and as I offered her the energy, I felt her relief. When that hunger eased, I pulled back on the power again, slowing it to a trickle, and finally cutting it off.