“The house looks great, Ms. B,” I said, because I suddenly felt like I had to say something and I couldn’t apologize for the bow.
She looked up and tucked the bow in the leather belt cinching her burlap dress. She waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss my implied thank-you and then looked up at me. “The girl said you’d have a message.”
I nodded, guessing that “the girl” was Rianna. “Tel her to meet me at Central Precinct tomorrow evening at six thirty.”
“Consider it told.” She hopped off the bed, her hair twitching as it trailed after her. When she reached the door, she jumped, turned the knob, and then saw herself out.
I stared at the door for a long moment after it closed.
“So, a brownie,” Falin said, walking around the side of the bed. “You want to explain how you befriended a brownie?”
“Not real y.”
He looked at me, leaning back with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, and I glanced away. I flipped on the TV to have something else to focus on. Lusa’s face showed up, but she clearly wasn’t in the studio. What is she up to now?
Hopeful y something that would pul attention off me. I walked over and turned up the volume.
“—we’re approaching the anomaly now. Ted, can you
“—we’re approaching the anomaly now. Ted, can you focus on that?” She pointed and the camera focus zoomed over her head.
The scene was dark. Wherever she was broadcasting didn’t have many lights, and I could just make out the shadowy shapes of tree limbs. As the camera zoomed, I caught the glint of moonlight off a reflective surface. Water?
A bad feeling crept into my stomach.
“Are you getting it?” Lusa’s voice asked from somewhere offscreen, and the camera zoomed more. “Okay, folks at home, I don’t know if you can see this, but it appears that we’re looking at another tear into the Aetheric. The one we saw two days ago was bursting with raw power, but this one has only a couple of wisps coming through. This thing is huge.”
The camera zoomed closer, and she was right, it looked like a person-sized rip in reality. Crap. I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I turned toward Falin. His expression darkened, his ful lips pressing tight. He tore his gaze from the screen and fixed on me.
“Did you?”
I shook my head. I’d ripped open those smal , dimesized holes when we’d fought the ravens, the hole in the Quarter during the first construct attack, and, of course, the room-sized hole I’d created in my father’s mansion, but unless I’d merged reality from a distance or the tears moved, I hadn’t caused this one. I squinted, searching the fuzzy screen of my old TV set and trying to make out details of the tear’s location.
The cameraman panned, zooming out to pul Lusa back on the screen. She rehashed information about the tear in the Quarter and about what the officials were currently debating. Come on, Lusa, tell us where you are.
As she spoke, someone crossed directly in front of the tear, pausing to look at the camera. Because the camera was focused on Lusa, the person’s face was blurred. I was pretty sure the figure was male. His height was hard to pretty sure the figure was male. His height was hard to judge, though he was tal er than the tear. He wore a long dark coat, which even after the sun set, was far too warm. A passerby? A gawker?
“Can you tel who that man is?”
Falin tore his gaze from the TV long enough to frown at me. “What man?”
“That one.” I pointed to the figure in the background, and Falin’s frown turned puzzled. “You can’t see him?” I asked.
He shook his head. Okay, then. That meant, most likely, that the man was a ghost or a soul col ector. The tear in reality scared me, but the fact that it was present at the edge of the river and that there was a spectral figure near it worried me even more.
“This is Lusa Duncan with Witch Watch live at Lenore Street Bridge, signing off.”
I was on my feet before the last words were out of Lusa’s mouth. I had my purse over my shoulder and was halfway out the door before I realized Falin wasn’t with me. True dark had fal en and he stil had my keys, which meant I wasn’t driving myself anywhere.
“You coming?”
He stared at the TV and shook his head. “I don’t think you should go anywhere near that tear.”
“What? Why?” I hadn’t been the one to rip reality. I was sure of that. I hadn’t been anywhere near the Lenore Street Bridge recently, which meant someone else had the ability to merge planes of existence. I wanted to find out who.
Maybe there was someone out there who could teach me h o w not to merge reality. Also, the riverside location worried me. Cal it a hunch—which was surely nothing definite—but a twisting feeling in my gut told me the tear needed to be checked out in relation to my case.
Falin shook his head again. “Alex, what you can do, when you make the land of the dead manifest in the mortal plane or bring the Aetheric here, is cal ed planeweaving. It is a fae ability.”