I jumped in place, the throbbing of magic outside the warehouse at a fever pitch. Spells would come soon. Huge, powerful spells intent to tear the warehouse from its very foundation. They’d been preparing, all right. All these months, they’d been preparing. Collecting magic, building spells, assembling a freaking army.

All to combat three people.

We had no chance in hell.

44

“Parlay,” I yelled as a mighty spell bore down on the warehouse. “Parlay!”

“We’re not pirates,” Reagan said, pulling her hands up from her sides. “And they can’t hear us in here.”

“A spell is coming right at us!” I ran at Emery, grabbed his arm, and tore his survival magic from within his body. I had no idea how, but I didn’t care. I smooshed it with mine, and yanked at the three throbbing power stones, releasing as I did so.

A concussion of magic rocked out from my body, stopping in the middle of the warehouse before exploding outward without sound, a gray mass heading for the walls.

At the same time, Reagan grunted and shoved her hands outward.

The four walls of the warehouse bowed in the middle before ripping outward. The roof flew off as though from an explosion, ripping from the ends of the walls. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. Emery threw his body over mine.

The magic I’d thrown flew beyond the mess of broken walls and roof, expanding outward. The incoming spell hit it with a flurry of sparks, stopping its progress. Shimmery green warred with gray. Magic zipped away in all directions, hitting the ground and pooling acid.

Emery pulled off me and worked a spell. Without thinking, I added my weave to it, fortifying his efforts before weaving my own spell to blast out a wave of intense heat all around the warehouse, hopefully taking out their first line of attack.

Emery released his spell, aiming beneath the two warring spells, counteracting the potentially dangerous-to-us fallout. Without pausing, he bent to me, now working within my spell as I’d worked within his. If we each did separate spells, we’d get them out faster, but that would be for the heat of the battle. Now we needed a few larger waves of power to keep them from rushing in and immediately overcoming us.

I shoved the spell into existence and looked up.

And froze.

Twisted metal lay to each side of where we stood. Beyond, stretched around the warehouse in a large circle, the mages slowly walked forward.

There had been more than eighty.

At least double.

Their spells zipping off to try and counter the large bubble of our combined survival magic. Satchels hung to one side of their bodies, unless they were wearing the dusters and stupid hats, and small sacks to the other. I’d bet those were full of casings.

My newest spell rolled outward, making it past our bubble of survival magic and immediately encountering rapid-fire spells. Flame and color burst out of it, but magic continued to slam into it from all sides. My spell was strong, but it couldn’t hold. Not with that much opposition tearing it down.

“They’re spread out,” Emery said, yanking me to standing. “That’s good for us. This was a good location. Perfect.”

He had some strange ideas about perfection.

“Get those magical perimeter walls out in the fields,” Reagan yelled, standing in front of her magical spectacle again. It was still there, now standing on its own.

Thankful for some direction so I didn’t start panicking—again—I turned and snatched the casings off the table. Emery didn’t follow suit. He jogged to the center of the warehouse and started a new spell.

“No, it’s okay. I’ve got it,” I said sarcastically, running to the firing point we’d agreed upon earlier and cracking the first casing.

The bubble of survival magic started to disintegrate under the continued barrage of the green spell and the mages’ casings.

“Hurry!” Reagan yelled.

A pulse of power blasted out of the casing, whooshing by me and out of the quickly dissipating bubble. A few planes of vibrant, revolving color sprang up in front of some of the mages before the attack spell attached to the wall spell washed over them, taking a couple to the ground, eliciting a few screams, and leaving the rest unharmed. No one stayed down, though some had a harder time crawling to their feet.

I made it to the next spot, and Emery met me there, grabbing a casing from me and running.

I cracked the next wall casing, then sprinted to the final location.

The last of our survival bubble washed away, pulling at my energy reserves as it did so.

I cracked the final wall casing before pulling out my power stones and throwing them across the ground.

“Here we go,” I heard Reagan yell as stun spun toward me from somewhere to my right.

I turned and fired, hitting it with my rodent zapper, then following up with a spell to unravel the intent. All around us, the mages advanced.

Emery might not have meant it at the time, but his advice to focus on my will was the most important advice he ever could’ve given me.

“The tripwire spell,” Emery yelled above a rushing of power. My ears popped as I ran for the table, already on it.

Energy pushed and pulled at me, hot and cold, churning my stomach before soaking into my body. That complex feeling of Reagan’s magic infused my being, my magic, as I grabbed the casings in question, cracked them, and began to throw them rapid-fire.

The day blinked.

I blinked with it, shielding my eyes from the sudden darkness.

The day blinked again.

“What’s happening?” I heard Emery say as the spells zipping at us slowed.

I didn’t slow. Not like when that lion had come. This time, I knew better.

I cracked spells and squinted through the strange blurring of the world around me. It looked as if someone had come through with an eraser and rubbed at all the lines, shapes, and colors.

My stomach rolled again, like I was on a roller coaster. Perspective distorted.

I pushed through it and grabbed the casings from Emery’s hands, cracking them quickly.

Magic flew out, bending and twisting through the air, zooming toward the unseen victims. No screams reached my ears, not with the whup, whup, whup of power wobbling around me.

I grabbed my basket of spells and turned toward the middle of the warehouse before noticing Emery was staring at Reagan with his hand to his forehead, blocking out the glare from the occasional flashes of sunlight.

“Come on,” I yelled, but my voice got lost. As soon as it left my mouth, it was sucked up into the strange vortex of power pounding around us. So I kicked him in the shin.

He started, saw what I wanted, and nodded.

There was no time to marvel at the crazy chick who had a lot more power than anticipated. Even knowing what she was, I was awe-struck. It was time to catch these mages with their pants down.

At the center of the warehouse, I staggered when the magic flashed above and around the field like lightning. A sudden tangerine sky faded slowly into blood red before settling into a very dark crimson, almost black. It appeared to touch down to a distant horizon hundreds of miles away. White-gray clouds slowly stretched and drifted across the sky before shrinking until they spread out along a rippling surface of deep blue, nearly black water at the horizon, giving the scene an incredible amount of depth. Rocks sprang up in the distance, but the rippling water didn’t splash or move against them. The visual effect messed with my head and gave me the jitters.

“I don’t like this,” I said, my limbs shaking. I should’ve been firing off the casings. I should’ve been doing battle, especially since I knew this was some sort of trick. Instead, it was taking everything I could muster not to unravel Reagan’s false reality. “What’s happening?”

I’d never liked it when the Muppet Babies disappeared into an imagined reality on their cartoon show, and I didn’t like this, either. Drugs weren’t for me, magical or otherwise.

At least I wasn’t alone. Emery was in here with me. He looked behind us and started.

Everyone else had disappeared. Including Reagan.

We seemed to be marooned by ourselves in this strange, altered reality.

Off to the left, in the sea of blackened water, rose a white-gray pole, shaded with black. It looked like a celebration of Emery’s and my smooshed survival magic. It grew taller and taller, filling out as it did so.