I examined them. Turned them over in my hands. “Oh. Socks.”
“Yes.Socks.” He sounded amused and improbably gentle. Paka hacked, laughter in the syllable.
“Sure. I can do socks.” With motions that sent spikes of pain through my eyeballs, I pulled the socks onto my feet and then pushed my feet into the boots Occam held out for me.
“How we doin’, Lainie?” he asked.
“So far, so good.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what, other than the headache that speared me and the ache that was growing in my hips and knees and shoulders. I tried to unfold my limbs against the discomfort, but I didn’t want to move enough to complete the stretch.
“Remember the crabgrass-looking stuff that grew into you yesterday?” T. Laine asked. Before I could reply, she went on. “Well, about three minutes into your scan, we started to see the topsoil move. And at about four minutes, thirty seconds, shoots came up from the ground. Exact same moment the P 2.0 redlined. They wrapped around your ankle. I dropped the psy-meter and started myBreak. The momentBreakhit, Occampicked you up, I grabbed your things, and we hauled ass outta there.”
I was reading for only five minutes? That was all? That seemed important, but my headache was getting worse, and I closed my eyes instead of trying to put it all together. My stomach felt as if it would erupt with the slightest movement. “Did Paka sense anything?” I whispered.
“She’s shaking her head no,” T. Laine said.
The world swirled around me like I was being sucked down a drain.
“Nell? Nell, sugar?”
And then I heard nothing more at all.
***
I woke when Occam tried to maneuver me into the car. I heard the wordambulance.
“No. No ambulance,” I mumbled. I was cold and thought that if I started shivering I’d not survive the headache. “Just some aspirin and ibuprofen on top of the Tylenol, a blanket, and a candy bar. I think my sugar bottomed out.”
“Nell, you need—”
“I’m okay.” I lay my head against the seat back and took a bottle of water from T. Laine. Occam tucked my faded pink blanket around me. “I think...” I had to stop and lick my dry, cracked lips. “At Spook School,” I whispered, “there was a class on backlash from interrupted magical workings. The usual stuff: fire, explosion, death. But they also said something about physical reactions.”
“Backlash,” T. Laine said, sounding relieved. “With headaches. Bad ones. Sometimes with auras, both visual and audible. You seeing an aura?”
I mouthed the wordyes.
The seat dipped, and I felt the presence of someone near. I identified Paka by the sound of her purring breath. She curled in the backseat, leaning against me, her heat like a furnace. As if she knew I was cold, she pressed against me, warming me like a hot fire in a stove. The threat of shivering eased away.
“I didn’t interrupt a working,” T. Laine said. “While you were getting ready, I drew a circle and preparedBreak. But I didn’t hityouwith it. I hit the ground with it.”
“I was in the ground,” I said, not knowing how to explain itany better now than I had in Spook School. I licked my lips again and said haltingly, “If something was full of psysitopes... or someone was being attacked by psysitopes... by a combative or offensive spell...” I breathed, hurting all over, trying to calm myself.
“You,” T. Laine said.
I splayed the fingers of my uninjured hand in ayesmotion. “And I was in the ground,grounded, as it were, and theBreakspell hit,Breakbeing a defensive working, that could result in backlash.”
“Oh. Presumably yes,” T. Laine said, guilt lacing her words, “since the thing that had you was magical. Nell, I am so sorry.”
I waved the guilt away. “How about a consciousness or an artificial intelligence program that runs on magical energy?” I said. “Could it be hurt too? ’Cause I gotta tell you’uns. Them things act as if they’re alive.” The silence that followed was telling. It might have told me more had my eyes been able to focus more than a foot away, but I was doing the best I could.
“No ambulance?” T. Laine asked again.
“No ambulance,” I said. “Just OTCs.”
“Look at you all medical-talking. Over-the-counters. Nice,” T. Laine said. “Allow me to be your street-corner drug dealer. Here’s the aspirin and the ibuprofen. Take aspirin now and the ibuprofen in an hour.”
“Okay,” I said and popped the two aspirin with more water. I barely got them swallowed before I sank into sleep, to wake again only when the car braked at HQ. I swallowed two ibuprofens and tried to get out of the car, but I’d stiffened up and it took both Occam and T. Laine together to get me up the stairs, Paka leading the way. I let them help me because I didn’t want to throw up on the stairs. But about halfway up I retched again.
