Whatever the problem, we can figure it out. I lift my spirits through sheer force of will. “Maybe if we?—"
One of the assistants flinches with a jolt of nervous shock that smacks me like a splash of lime juice. “What’s happening to it?”
The words have barely left her mouth when I see what she means. The rift is moving again—right now, before our eyes.
A wave of darkness courses out of the portal like it’s vomiting up a surge of shadow. Chunks of the spew flicker with a thicker blackness. A flurry of chaotic sensations rushes over me.
As I shudder, wondering if this might be the first time in my existence I entirely lose my appetite, the wave of shadow puke ripples through the yard.
The first human to see it yelps and scrambles away. The others turn to look and back up, swearing under their breaths.
Their fear smacks into me like the chilliest of unsweetened iced tea. Another shudder runs through my essence. “What do we do? How do we stop it?”
Raze lets out a growl. “I don’t know.”
Another assistant sputters. “We have to— Maybe the shadowbloods will know?—”
He flits away from us toward Jonah’s van, I guess to reach out to our base camp for backup.
Which I suspect we’re going to need. The rift is still heaving out more condensed shadow, retching it all across the factory’s yard. The flood surges forward faster.
One of the workers isn’t able to dodge it fast enough. He yelps as the mass of darkness sweeps over him.
Through the warped shadows, his form twitches and flails. Pain lances from him through me.
A cry breaks from my throat. “It’s hurting them! We have to help him—help all of them.”
Hail’s voice sounds strained. “We don’t know what’ll happen tousif we touch that stuff.”
I leap forward. “I don’t care. We’re supposed to protect them from the rift. We can’t stand here while it suffocates them. I’m getting them out!”
Whatever’s happening in the shadows, it’s definitely not a carnival for the mortals. The man who got trapped in the wave seems to have deflated, his movements sluggish, but I know he’s alive. Discomfort still wafts off his form.
I plunge into the spewed shadow after him. The darkness prickles at my essence in a way I’ve never felt before, as if it’s nipping at the edges of my being, digging in and jerking out. I gird myself against the disturbing sensation and hurtle on toward the trapped man.
As I reach him, I focus on my physical form just enough to turn me slightly corporeal. My presence takes on enough heft to shove the man through the shadow vomit.
He stumbles and staggers. I ram into him again, as carefully as I can while still using enough force to move him.
My three shadowkind men dive in to join me.
“Keep pushing!” Raze hollers through the shadows. He propels the man toward the edge of the flood with a heave of his own.
“Sink or swim!” Mirage crows, his voice garbled, and appears to heft the man up and onward as if giving him a brief piggyback ride.
I make out Hail grumbling indistinctly, but he throws himself into the rescue effort too. The smack of his shoulder sends the man finally tumbling out the side of the growing torrent.
It’s still expanding. I leap out of the unnerving darkness, solidifying into physical form at the same time so I can grasp the man’s arm. “Come on! We have to get as far away from it as possible.”
The man gapes at me, probably wondering where the heck some turquoise-haired chick in a sundress came from and why I’m jumping to his rescue, but he keeps his wits enough to listen. As I yank at his elbow, he scrambles with me across the yard toward the factory building.
Footsteps thump against the pavement as my shadowkind men materialize around us. Yells reverberate from the other side of the building. My head snaps around to see a couple of Rollick’s assistants herding other workers farther away from the spilled shadow.
It’s still coming, surging forward like an endless gush of filmy toxic sludge. Before my eyes, the dark current collides with the back of the factory.
My breath stops in my throat. As far as I can tell, the strange shadows slide straight through the brick wall as if it’s not there.
But the bricks feel it. The mortar between them starts to crumble away. Little pock marks form in their surface like dimples—but not the cute kind.
