“Sydney!”
I recognized Adrian’s voice but couldn’t see him. I could only tell that he was somewhere behind me, possibly near the SUV.
“Let go!” he yelled.
“I’ll fall,” I called back.
“No you won’t!”
I released my hold, and for half a heartbeat, there was nothing to stop me from falling to the ground. Then, an unseen force pushed me hard on the back, and I went tumbling over the balcony’s edge, landing ungracefully—but safely—in it. I was confused about what had saved me until I turned toward Adrian, where he stood in the parking lot a healthy distance from the burning SUV. The Alchemists in sunglasses were coming toward him, and he fixed his gaze on them, knocking them over with an invisible wall of power, just like he’d used on me. I winced at that kind of telekinetic work, knowing it took an incredible amount of spirit and that he couldn’t do it all day.
“Is the door open?” he called.
I tried it and nodded.
“Meet me at the place I forgot to go last night. Go!”
The Alchemists were starting to get to their feet, and he took off into the parking lot, running behind the flaming car. Sirens sounded in the distance, and gawkers were starting to come out. I hurried into the hotel room I’d landed outside of, relieved to see it was unoccupied. I cut through it and emerged into a second floor hallway and pondered my next move. Meet me at the place I forgot to go last night.
It made sense we wouldn’t go to the car. The Alchemists undoubtedly had that staked out. But where did he mean? A moment later, I knew. To one side, the hall led to an emergency exit. To the other, the stairs and elevator led down to the lobby and casino. I tried to think like an Alchemist and went with the stairs to the lobby. An obscure back exit would be monitored for sure.
Downstairs, on the main floor, I found chaos, which was just what I needed. Everyone had heard the car outside, but no one knew exactly what had happened. Some people were trying to evacuate, while others, hearing the fire was outside, wanted to stay in. Hotel security seemed to be waffling on what to do, though one guard finally decided it would be safe to let people out of an exit door on the side opposite the SUV fire. I quickly joined the people gathering there and tried to determine if there were any Alchemists to look out for. I’d have no idea who they were if they were in hotel uniforms or even regular clothes. My biggest clue that someone was safe was if they were pushing past me, far more concerned with themselves than me.
I’d nearly reached the door when I made eye contact with a man in a tropical-print shirt who was definitely more interested in me. He began pushing his way through to me, and I had the good fortune of a security guard standing nearby, overseeing the evacuation. “My room faces the SUV that blew up,” I told the guard. “And I saw that man there by it just before it happened!”
A claim like that might have normally been discounted, except that I think details of what had happened were still so fresh that me specifically mentioning the SUV lent credibility. Plus, the guard was young and had the eager look of someone who wanted to distinguish himself. He stepped past me, blocking the man in the Hawaiian shirt, who was only a couple people away now.
“Sir,” said the guard, “can I talk to you?”
The man, impatient and fixated on me, made the mistake of trying to get past the guard, who shoved him back and began calling for backup.
“Let go of me!” yelled the Alchemist. “I need to get through!”
“Sir, get down on the ground!”
I didn’t stick around to see what happened. I let them fight it out and finally slipped through the door. There, another well-meaning guard was trying to keep all the evacuees in an orderly group. I ignored him and immediately broke off from the others, trying to get my bearings. We’d actually come out near the front of the hotel, and across a busy boulevard, I could see the shopping center Adrian had been to last night. I began running toward it, wishing we were in a much busier city—like Las Vegas—where I’d have a crowd to lose myself in. As it was, I was pretty conspicuous, and I soon heard shouts. Glancing back, I saw two more people in sunglasses charging toward me. I was more exhausted from my earlier climb than I’d expected, and that type of physical exhaustion translated to difficulty with magic use.
I was nearing a crosswalk that would take me across to the shopping center, and I began to slow down. Frantically, I wondered what on earth they really expected to do. We were in public, in broad daylight. Did they think they could just grab me off the street? Yes, I realized, that’s exactly what they’d do, and they’d find a way to justify it later and write it off to any witnesses. They did it all the time with supernatural phenomena. How much harder could it be with a human abduction?
The light changed, and I sprinted across the street, moving as fast as my out-of-shape muscles would carry me. It wasn’t enough, though. The Alchemists were gaining. I reached the shopping complex’s parking lot and headed straight into the superstore my clothes had come from. Without looking back to see how close my pursuers were, I darted straight into an aisle of stationery and murmured the weak invisibility spell. I felt the magic settle around me, and then I hurried out into another aisle in case they’d seen my original destination. No one immediately came after me, and I took a roundabout way through some other aisles to finally circle back and get a vantage on the store’s entrance. One of the Alchemists was stationed at the door, and I had to assume the other was searching the store. With them actively looking and expecting to see me, the spell wouldn’t hold if we crossed paths. There was a much more powerful invisibility amulet in my bag, but I hated to waste it when I was so close to meeting up with Adrian. I either had to find another way out of here—without running into the roaming Alchemist—or distract the one by the door.
Continually ducking and looking all around me, I zigzagged toward a display of bathing suits that looked like they were made of pretty flammable material. Lighting a fire wasn’t a problem for me. I could do a fireball in my sleep. The problem was, I didn’t want to attract attention right away. As soon as my fire was noticed, all attention—including the Alchemists’—would head that way, which was what I wanted. But I needed to be well away from there when it happened.
I closed my eyes and summoned up the smallest of sparks in my hand. It was difficult keeping it from growing because my work with Ms. Terwilliger had focused on making the biggest, baddest fireballs imaginable. This one, though, needed to be just a kindling, like I’d made in re-education. Once I had it sustained, I set it on top of a khaki pair of swim trunks—out of principle—and then backed up as quickly as possible, crouching near some carts. Although I could see tendrils of smoke, the swimsuit didn’t actually ignite as quickly as I’d expected, and long, agonizing moments went by as I waited for people to notice it. The Alchemist at the door held his position, and then to my horror, I saw the second one approaching, obliviously unaware that he was headed straight toward me. I was trying to figure out how to get out of his line of sight when someone shouted by the display, and finally, true flames erupted from the cheap material.
The Alchemist headed toward me stopped and stared at the fire while the one at the door gaped as well. With their attention diverted, I was able to slip past them and run three stores down the strip mall to a drugstore. Outside it, an idling tour bus marked LAS VEGAS was loading up senior citizens, and in my haste, I ran into one of them. He blinked in surprise as we made eye contact. I must have appeared out of nowhere for him, but as so often happened when humans encountered the unexplained, he shook his head and turned back toward the bus.