It did make sense.
“I want to say something but I don’t dare to say it out loud here,” said Helen, looking around as if she were expecting to find someone watching us. “Maybe later.”
The mechanical eye I’d drawn in my sketchbook came to my mind.
Yeah. Maybe later.
We only took a few more moments to rest before we got up to continue walking, hoping this time something would be different. Hoping this time some new clue would come to light and we would gather an idea about how to get to the next level.
Each time, though, that hope grew dimmer and dimmer. I personally doubted we could go anywhere, at least without magic, but who knew?
“Reggie’s not back yet,” Seth said, while Silas stretched his neck to try to see better behind us after every few feet.
“It’s not like he can go anywhere else,” said Levana.
“Yeah. Wewish,” said Cook.
“C’mon, Sy. He’ll find us in no time,” I said. There literally wasn’t anywhere else to go.
Silas did look a bit uncomfortable, but he followed us anyway. He walked beside me, so I saw how he turned his head back every fifth second without fail.
I was thinking about what to say to distract him so he had a moment to calm down. My eyes were on the floor, watching my every step, racking my brain for something I thought he’d know more about—because he seemed to know a lot about a lot, Silas—and that’s why I noticed it first.
That’s why Isawit when the energy shifted—it hissed, as the air released differently onthisside for a moment. As if I was suddenly in a different place, though I wasn’t.
I stopped, and when March continued ahead, my hand slipped away from his.
It was a subtle change, and for a split second there I couldn’t really make outwhy, but then the heat in my chest rang all of a sudden. The energy under my skin buzzed.
My magic was just…there.
“Ora?” someone called, but I was still looking at the floor, at that network of roots and branches and leaves I stepped on.
They’dchanged, too. I could have sworn the color of them was paler.
“It broke,” I whispered, unsure of my every word, but twelve-hours certain at the same time. “The loop—it-itbroke.” I felt it right there in my gut.
Everybody stopped walking and talking and breathing.
“How?” March asked, looking down at the floor himself, then at his own hands. With them, he touched his chest—hecould feel the buzz of his magic, too. It was released from whatever had held it back. It was thereagain.
We looked at one another, unsure of what to expect, what to say, whether to cheer and clap, or to question what we were feeling, when…
“Reggie.”
Silas’s voice fell like a mountain over my shoulders.
He took off running, and the entire world spun before my eyes when I pivoted to the side and ran after him without taking a moment to breathe.
The rest of the Hands followed, and I thought we’d be running a while until we found wherever Reggie had gone. Because I thoughthe’ddone something, Reggie. I thoughthewas the reason why there had suddenly been a shift in the loop, why it had suddenly let us go.
Instead, Reggie was on the ground, half hidden away by a thick branch, with another man hovering over him, choking him.
My mind went blank. My eyes were painting the view in front of me, but I refused to believe them, because it was impossible that Reggie would be on his back like that, shaking, with his arms to the sides, justtakingit while a man choked him.
It wasReggie.He was a big guy, the biggest among us, and he could take on anyone. He was not afraid to fight, that much we knew. So thenwhywould he let another man do that to him?!
I found out the next moment, when we were close enough to see them better.
