The air vibrated, as though an electric power plant hummed nearby.
Except for that, this part of the woods looked no different from any other—she’d have never found the place without Cian’s directions.
“So how does this work?” she asked, trying not to shiver.
Stuart slid the medallion Crispin had given him from his pocket and dangled it from its chain. “Hey,” he addressed the air. “Open up.”
Peigi stifled a laugh. “Very mystical.”
Stuart flicked a gaze to her, every line of him taut. “I’m a fighter, not a magic user.”
“And this isn’t an RPG.”
“I wish it were,” Stuart said. “Then I’d just roll dice or click on something.”
Peigi cupped her hands around her mouth. “Ben! Are you there? We need you.”
They waited. The woods remained quiet, the only sound moisture dripping from trees to the damp forest floor.
“The gate won’t necessarily come out in our bedroom,” Stuart said. “Or Kurt’s basement. Or anywhere near our Shiftertown, for that matter. The pockets in between space and time move around. Trust me, I did plenty of research on this, for years.”
Peigi didn’t like the sound of that. What if they emerged in the middle of Antarctica? How did they get home then, if they didn’t simply freeze to death?
“So do we charge around waving the medallion and see what happens?” she asked.
Stuart handed it to her. “You try. I’m realizing that whenever I’ve come through, you’ve been with me. When we went after Diego, there you were—and I hadn’t been able to open a gate before that, no matter how much I tried. The first time Cian summoned me, I got stuck. Maybe the gates still don’t work well for me, but they do for you.”
Peigi wasn’t certain about this theory, but she had nothing to lose by trying. The silver knot was warm from Stuart’s hand and quivered faintly with magic, mirroring the hum she perceived from the gate.
Maybe frequency was the key. Perhaps when the sound waves from the gate and the medallion either melded or canceled each other out, the gate opened.
Peigi held the medallion high, closing her eyes. She could hear better this way, letting the Shifter in her listen.
Earlier this year, Donny had become obsessed with learning how to play guitar. Cormac had brought him one and taught Donny to tune it.
When Cormac plucked two strings—one fretted, one open—to produce the same note on each string, the vibrations between the two produced a faint wah wah wah sound. That discordance was more pronounced the more out of tune the strings were to each other, and disappeared when the two were perfectly tuned.
Peigi heard a similar sound between the gate and medallion. Now to figure out how to tune it. Peigi couldn’t simply turn a nut to loosen or tighten a string—she had to loosen or tighten a gate.
“Ben?” Peigi called. “Seriously, we need your help.” She thought about how they’d unstuck Stuart from the gate in the basement. “Maybe Matt and Kyle too, if Misty will let them go. They seem to navigate gates without any problem. Also, we’re going to need a Guardian. Unfortunately.” Her words fell away, flat against the damp. “Tell the cubs I love them. If you can hear me, wee ones … I love you.”
Her words caught on a sob. Stuart put his arm around her and drew her close.
The dissonance surged, pushing on Peigi’s eardrums, and then abruptly the two notes merged into one clear, sweet tone.
On top of that came noise, voices talking over each other, each one rising higher to be heard. Over that sounded a stronger, more gravelly voice, far more frustrated.
“If you will all let me hear myself think …” Graham bellowed. “Matt, Kyle, come back here. The rest of you sit down.”
“Oh.” The voice was Ben’s. “I think it’s too late.”
Three cubs charged out of the mist, two wolves and a small grizzly bear. They slammed into Stuart and Peigi, and all five went over in a tangled heap of fur, excitement, and fervent face licking.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Settle down!” Graham roared. “Aw, damn it, I never wanted to see this place again.”
Peigi pulled herself up, the grizzly cub firmly in her arms. “Noelle, what are you doing here?”
The two wolf cubs rolled from Stuart and shifted as they gained their feet. “She said we had to rescue you, rescue you,” Matt and Kyle babbled, one overlapping the other. “Do you need us to rescue you, Uncle Stuart?”
“I do now.” Stuart sat up, brushing wet leaves from his tunic. “Two wolves