A hand shoots up in the midst of the crowd, as if we’re still at school. Rollick motions for the owner of the hand to speak.
A female shadowkind I recognize as one of my old bullies—one of Gloss’s friends, before Gloss got banished for nearly murdering me—pushes a little closer with a flick of her gleaming hair over her shoulders. “Why do we need to worry about the humans at all now that they’ve got their own authority-type-people to help them? Let the soldiers stay around the humans who left the city, defending them with those guns, and we’ll focus on the rift.”
Rollick’s tone turns dry. “That would be fine, except I don’t think Colonel What’s His Face and Major Second In Command would agree. They barely trust us to wipe our asses, let alone contain what they see as some kind of level one-million biohazard.”
Sorsha’s hellhound shifter raises his eyebrows. “We could incinerate them all, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about them to begin with.”
As Sorsha elbows him chidingly, Rollick shakes his head. “Our new ‘friends’ may be frustrating, but I don’t think they’ve earned a massacre. And they are at least useful for corralling the evacuees and finding temporary homes for them farther from the morphing shadow deluge.”
“Is there definitely a problem, then?” grumbles Gnash, one of the academy’s administrators. “So the humans have a few new dark spots on their maps. They’ll survive. The shadowkindcreatures will keep them on their toes. They’ve gotten pretty complacent.”
His colleague Shanty glowers at him. “You don’t really mean that. If all humans get it into their heads that they’ve got monsters to fight, they’ll come for us too.”
“That is one major concern,” Rollick agrees. “Another is the fact that I don’t think even the current state of affairs is secure. I’ve gotten reports of signs of instability at many other regular rifts around the world.”
Another chill washes over me, sharper than if Hail had flung a blizzard my way. “What if they all collapse?”
“I’d rather not find that out. So we need to work together to find ways to shove the shadows—and all the creatures coming with them—back where they belong. Which would be easier if we had more of an idea why they spilled out in the first place.”
A dazed looking guy off to one side of the room grunts. “Maybe the shadow realm got too big. It’s overflowing, like a bathtub.”
“With very aggressive bath toys!” someone else pipes up with a giggle.
One of Sorsha’s other men, the incubus whose voice always comes out smooth as chocolate, offers a wry grin. “Is another powerful higher shadowkind trying to take over the world again? That seems to be their favorite hobby these days.”
Rollick grimaces. “I’d prefer an explanation that easy, but no one’s noticed any odd activity other than the rifts themselves—and I’ve had people on the lookout ever since we found the first strange rift months ago. It’d be difficult to create a problem this big while keeping all evidence imperceptively small.”
I find myself raising my hand—tentatively, half expecting most of the room to laugh.
Gloss’s friend does snicker, and I think I catch a guffaw from elsewhere in the group of my one-time classmates, but Fen gives my other arm another approving squeeze.
Rollick’s expression stays thoughtful. “What is it, Peri?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say. “Seeing all the strange ways the new shadowkind are behaving, and remembering the things Viscera said while she was tearing up the city… It seems like the warped beings have the impression that they’re supposed to merge with the mortal realm somehow. That there’s a place for them, and they just can’t find it. A lot of them are trying in very physical ways.”
“Yes, I’ve seen some of that behavior myself. And?”
I clasp my hands together. “What if… What if after all the back and forth, all the times shadowkind have affected the mortal realm and mortals have affected shadowkind… the barrier between the realmsisstarting to merge? So that there isn’t really a barrier anymore. Everything’s starting to get literally muddled together.”
Someone else snorts, but the sound echoes out into deathly silence. I think I’d prefer laughter, actually.
“That does make a certain kind of sense,” Sorsha says after a moment, but I can’t say she looks happy about it either.
Mirage shivers where he’s standing near me. “But what would that mean? If the shadows all mix with the sunshine… There’s no sunshine left.”
Rollick drags in a breath. “We don’t know if that’s what’s happening yet. And if it is, we may be able to keep the effect contained. Let’s all keep that theory in mind while we continue to investigate. And if anyone finds any power or action that makes the situation better rather than worse, let me know.”
Raze touches my shoulder. When I look up at him, he tips his chin toward Rollick.
An image wavers up from my memory of the beams of light I shot out that one time yesterday—and the way the mass of shadow seemed to lighten as it absorbed them.
But that change didn’t reallyhelpanything. I have no idea if I could do anything even that small again.
The demon goes on with a motion toward Jonah. “The new sorcerer I was bringing in to assist us has finally arrived. Let’s have the two of you talk, and maybe you can find a strategy for talking most of the warped creatures into heading home. The rest of you, you have your assigned duties for the rest of the day.”
Jonah follows Rollick out of the trailer first. My human lover at least looks steadier on his feet than he did in the middle of the fray yesterday. By the time I found him again, he insisted he’d only gotten momentarily overwhelmed.
With all the chaotic emotions that were whirling around me in the moment, I couldn’t even tell if he was lying.
