Trickles of humans emerge from the doorways on either side of the street. Jonah waves them down the road, toward the spot where one of Rollick’s assistants is now acting as Pied Piper.
“We’ll get you out of here safely,” our sorcerer promises. “Please follow my colleague out of the dark area as quickly as you can.”
The humans start to shuffle toward the assistant, looking as bewildered as the shadow creatures have been acting—but at least they’re not rolling around in anyone’s entrails.
As the trickles of humanity widen into thicker streams, more and more people hustling out to potential safety, the shadows shift again. A swell of denser darkness rolls off one of the rooftops and plummets toward us.
All five of us flinch. Hail whips his hand up with a gust of icy wind; a flare of yellowish light bursts off Peri toward the sky.
I can’t help simply lashing out with my hand, my claws pricking from my fingertips, multiple fox tails swirling uneasily behind me.
A shudder runs through the mass of shadow—and through the connection I can feel between me and Peri. Peri’s light contracts in a snap while she winces.
The blotch of darkness heaves across the faces of the buildings rather than hitting us, but several of the humans are yelling or shrieking.
Jonah rushes over to reassure them. “Just keep moving! You can get away from it before it gets worse.”
Can they?
He glances back at me, his eyes wide, and I remember the main part I’m supposed to be playing. Tensing my body, I summon the images I’ve been projecting into the minds of the mortals we’ve encountered throughout the city.
Let them see a soft, welcoming glow just up ahead—always moving farther as it urges them through the streets. Let them hear a cheerful pop beat to keep their spirits up. Let smells of rich chocolate and savory steak waft from that ever-retreating glow.
I’m not sure which part of the illusion calms most humans enough to get them moving. It might be something slightly different for everyone. I just hope no one’s too disappointed when they don’t find actual steak and chocolate at the end of their travels.
As our latest procession of humans shuffles off toward the promise of the light, our team draws back together.
Hail peers at Peri, his mouth slanted downward. “Did you feel something strange when that big blob of shadow almost hit us? It looked like you reacted.”
Raze’s face turns grim. “Ifelt something. Like a quake through our connection. My sense of Peri’s emotions scattered for a second.”
Jonah nods slowly, and a chill prickles through my chest that I can’t blame on Hail. They all noticed the same thing I did?
Peri hugs herself and rubs her arms. “There was a little… jolt, or jitter, or something. I’ve never felt anything quite like that before. But everything’s gotten pretty weird, hasn’t it? I can still pick up on your emotions just as well as I used to.” She pauses. “Don’t worry so much. We’re still a team—we’re still okay.”
She manages to beam her shiny rainbow smile. The unshakeable center of our strange bond.
I don’t want any weird shadows messing with the energy that glues us together.
With a tsk of my tongue, I throw my arms around her and whirl her in a circle. “We can make our own jolts and jitters. Show the shadows how it’s done properly.”
Peri laughs, but Jonah puts on his stern teacher face, which he shouldn’t be allowed to do when he isn’t a teacher anymore. “We’ve got a lot more people to evacuate. Come on. And Mirage, be ready with those illusions. It’s getting harder to keep people calm the deeper we get into the city.”
It’s getting harder for me to impress the illusions on people’s minds the farther they have to linger before those people are safe, but I salute him and don’t mention that part. Peri shouldn’t have to worry either—definitely not about me.
As we march a couple more blocks down the street, the pressure of all the power I’ve already expended drags at my mind. Images of bright sunlight beaming down over us shift into imagined fields of smiling sunflowers waving their leaves?—
No, I think that’d send most of the humans running screaming in the wrong direction.
As we call the next swarm of refugees out of their apartments, I sweep my arms through the air like a conductor. Another guiding light gleams in the distance. Why not a sprightly folk tune this time? Hot buttered popcorn and roasted pork belly…
The illusions pass through my own mind sharply enough to leave my mouth watering. But as the humans hurry past me in a daze, the glittering brilliance of the moment fades.
I’m tricking them to send them someplace safer. To make sure they don’t panic and get hurt. So it’s not at all like the shadowkind I unwillingly manipulated into the clutches of the scientists who once caged me for their awful tests.
But in some ways it’s exactly the same. We want to help these people—to be friendly with them. To prove we’re not actually the monsters they might take us for. Only… technically, we are those monsters.
Pulling the wool over their eyes and bamboozling them seems like a questionable strategy for forming any kind of alliance.
