man, but the girl from the second clip, Barbara Devore—she’s been missing for a month now.”
“It has to be magic,” Matt said. “Right? There’s nothing else it could be.”
“It certainly falls under the category of the supranormal,” Henderson said. “We have done extensive investigations on each of these incidents as well as hundreds of others that have occurred over the past decade. We’ve been able to confirm that these are not hoaxes.”
“There are always supranormal occurrences here and there,” Cho said. “But they seem to be happening closer and closer together, and they’re becoming more numerous.”
“Do you . . .” Albie swallowed so hard Sloane could see his Adam’s apple forcing its way down. “Do you think the Dark One is back or something? Is that why you asked us to come here?”
Sloane felt a burning in her chest, and she wasn’t sure if it was the same thing causing the tingling in her arms or if it was just run-of-the-mill terror. She couldn’t sit still anymore—she got up, stepped around her chair.
“What is it?” Cho said.
“Can’t a gal do a good, old-fashioned pace back and forth without getting questioned?” Sloane replied.
Henderson chuckled a little and said, “No, we don’t think it’s the Dark One. We haven’t seen any evidence of his return—there are no actors present at any of these incidents, see? No one wielding magic—but magic is happening anyway. It seems to us . . . well, the prevailing theory in ARIS, anyway, is that it’s like a malfunctioning radio. It’s creepy when it starts playing music out of nowhere, but it doesn’t mean anything sinister.”
“You’re saying that our planet is like a malfunctioning radio,” Matt said, “and that doesn’t alarm you?”
“Obviously it alarms us,” Cho said. “But I’ll take the source of Earth’s magic being busted or . . . whatever this is . . . over the Dark One any day.”
Sloane was moving, now without meaning to, toward the double doors across the room. Her body was burning, and as she drew closer, she smelled something sulfurous and chemical and familiar. Her hands had smelled that way after she did magic.
With the artifact.
The Needle of Koschei.
She hadn’t known when she went with a crew of ARIS agents to the middle of the Pacific Ocean how much the Needle would cost her. In the end, she had been so desperate to get rid of it that she had chewed it out of her own hand.
The others had gone quiet. Or maybe she just couldn’t hear them over the pulse in her ears. She didn’t try the handles of the doors, just pressed both palms against them and drew a long, slow breath.
She felt Matt standing behind her. She didn’t need to look to know it was him; she knew the shape of him, the heat of him. How close he dared to stand, so their arms were almost touching. And not because they were dating—no, engaged, she reminded herself—but because that’s how Matt was: not afraid to get close to anyone.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You don’t feel it?” she said.
“It feels weird in here, but no more than usual for a Drain site,” Matt said. “Why? What do you feel?”
Sloane stared at the scar on the back of her right hand. A web of thick tissue, paler than the rest of her skin. “It’s been bothering me since we got here. They made something new,” she said. “And it’s through these doors. Somewhere.”
“Okay,” Matt said, touching her shoulder. “Okay, let’s go sit down and ask them about it.”
Sloane nodded. On some level, she recognized that she would feel embarrassed later. But for now, she just let Matt take her hand and lead her back to the table. Henderson, Cho, Albie, and Ines were still sitting there, looking confused.
“Well, I guess that’s as good a segue as any,” Henderson said, scratching at his beard. “Uh—since these incidents have been increasing in frequency, we’ve stepped up certain programs we were already working on. It seems important to understand what exactly magic is and how to use it, so—we’ve developed a device that we believe channels magic. You reacting to it that way, Sloane, is actually really encouraging.”
“You haven’t tested it?” Ines said.
“Not yet,” Cho said. “We were hoping you might agree to help us. You are, after all, the only people we are aware of who have successfully wielded magic before. You’re less likely to cause a catastrophe.”
Sloane tasted copper. She wished she had kept the empty potato-chip bag