Or herself. I’m not sure if the creature even has a gender. But his namesake is male, so I’ll stick with that.
Raze eyes my hanger-on with open suspicion. “What if that thing shifts and gets mean? They all seem to do that eventually.”
“He’s been stable so far,” I say, and focus on the creature’s inner state. The emotions wavering off Falkor taste like frothy cream, mild curiosity and excitement. Apparently he thinks we’re going on an adventure.
But also— “I’m not sure he is one of the warped creatures. There must be some regular shadowkind around too, right? He doesn’t have that twitchy vibe the warped ones usually give off.”
Hail raises his eyebrows. “Lesser shadowkind don’t normally go all groupie on the rest of us.”
“Maybe he was scared.” I give the snake-puppy’s neck a scratch, and his two paws wiggle where he’s clinging to my jacket. “He needed someone to look after him.”
Jonah clears his throat. “I think being scared is a pretty appropriate response right now. Looks like we’ve got a whole pack to deal with.”
Several misshapen creatures have emerged farther down the road. One of them is rubbing its belly against the asphalt.Another rams its head repeatedly into a shop’s doorframe—if it moved just a little to the right, it could actually go inside!
The others aim menacing glances our way. A few slink forward to meet us. A feathery, beaked horse sort of thing lets out a squawk that doesn’t sound like a friendly greeting.
Jonah holds out his hands. “We can all get along here.”
He switches into the sorcerous syllables that make my skin shudder almost as much as the weird shadows do.
The force he’s putting into the sounds rings through his voice, but only one of the approaching creatures falters. As it veers toward the sidewalk, the other three keep prowling forward.
“So much for sorcery,” Hail mutters. He raises his hand with a puff of frost whirling around it.
Raze tenses to spring—but the warped beasts launch themselves at us first.
Hail heaves a stream of ice at one’s legs, and Raze hurtles into another. The third careens straight toward me.
With a yelp and a jolt of terror, I throw out my own hands.
A surge of dark energy smacks into the parakeet-horse and shoots past it to shake the darkened atmosphere beyond. The creature topples backward with an indignant screech.
And the connections between me and my men give a hitch as if they’re elastic bands someone’s just flicked.
I reach toward my teammates instinctively as if I can restore balance to our bond by touching them. Before I’ve even finished raising my arms, the flow of emotions between us has settled back into its usual stable current.
Still, the fact that it wavered at all has left my nerves wobbling even more than earlier. The sensation felt like when we shoved away that cloud of shadow an hour or two ago.
Who gave this murky flood permission to fiddle with my powers, and how can I revoke it?
Raze tosses the parakeet-horse through a high window like a basketball player making a three-point shot and then whirls toward me with a furrow in his brow. His concern echoes the uneasiness passing into me from my other marked men—and presumably pouring in the opposite direction too.
Before we can comment on the odd effect, another form ripples out of the shadows. A spindly man only a few inches taller than my diminutive height eases closer to us, raking his twig-like fingers through the air. His voice is scratchy. “You—you’re proper shadowkind.”
He gives off a vibe of cranberry-sharp wariness and fishy discomfort, not flavors I’d mix on purpose but totally understandable given the circumstances.
I cock my head. “So are you. You didn’t come out of this rift.” I swirl my hand toward the gaping maw that stretches all across the sky above the city.
The higher shadowkind peers up at the hazy darkness and trembles like, well, a twig in a breeze. “I think I did. Not very far from here. I was moving through the shadow realm, and all of a sudden, it was as if the ground dropped under my feet. Except the shadow realm doesn’t really have a ground? So I don’t understand…”
As he trails off, his gaze slides to the lesser creatures still on their feet: the one banging its skull against the door frame and the other that’s now squirming around on its back as if trying to wriggle straight into the road. His lips purse. “Ireallydon’t understand all the other shadowkind around here. Did someone give them mushrooms?”
I can only guess what kind of mushrooms he’s talking about. Maybe Hail has experience with that mortal-realm feature, given his wry chuckle.
Jonah beckons the stick-like man. “Come with us. We’re heading out of the rift area. I don’t think it’s safe for any beingsto hang around here very long.” He pauses. “You couldn’t go back to the shadow realm where you came through?”
The man shakes his head and frowns at the sky. “I tried to leap back through the shadows, but as soon as I got close to the rift it flipped me over again, and I ended up back here.”
