“I want to get the flower like Eureka.”
She leaned too far. Her foot slid across the wet stone, and she tumbled forward, over the rail. Everyone scrambled toward her, but William, who was always already next to Claire, was first.
His arm shot over the rail. His open hand reached out. By the time Eureka got there, William was holding Claire.
Except he wasn’t. Their hands didn’t even touch. Five feet of air separated the twins. Claire dangled over a steep drop, held aloft by an invisible force. As William reached down and Claire reached up, some kind of energy in the space between connected them and kept her from falling. She looked beneath her feet at nothing. She began to cry.
“I’ve got you.” William’s forehead beaded with sweat. His body was still except for his twitching fingers. Claire began to rise.
The rest of them watched as Claire slowly floated toward her brother’s hand. Soon, their fingertips connected, then each grasped the other’s wrist. Then Ander and Solon were hauling Claire up the rest of the way, onto the veranda.
“Thanks.” She shrugged at William after she was upright, safe.
“Sure.” He shrugged back as Claire ran to Dad to wipe her tears.
Eureka knelt before William. “How did you do that?”
“I just wanted to bring her back where she belonged,” William said. “With us.”
“Try it again,” Solon said.
“I don’t think so,” Dad said.
“Throw something in the air,” Solon said to Claire. “Anything. But let William be the one to catch it.”
Claire glanced around the veranda. Her gaze settled on the purple bag Eureka had set by the head of the stairs. The Book of Love peeked from its top.
“No!” Eureka warned, but Claire already held the book in her hands.
She hurled it into the sky. There was a small gray burst as the cordon became visible where the book pierced it. Wind and rain ripped through the hole it created. Eureka heard a loud buzz, like a riot of bees, then a tiny purple mushroom cloud bloomed in the sky. The book sailed over the Tearline pond below the veranda. It moved through the rain like it would never stop, like the answers to Eureka’s heritage would always be further and further away. After what seemed like half an eternity, The Book of Love struck a high peak of white stone and fell open on the face of a rock.
“My book,” Eureka murmured.
“I’ll get it back,” Ander said.
“The little thing has pierced my cordon and compromised the witches’ glaze.” Solon scratched his chin, horrified. His gaze darted around the Tearline pond, like he could suddenly sense Atlas, too. “Everybody run!”
“Wait.” William edged forward and rested his elbows on the veranda’s rail. He focused on the book across the pond. After a moment, it rose from the stone, thumped closed, and sliced backward through the air. A purple shimmer blinked in the sky as the book passed through the glaze. Then came the gray burst at the cordon’s boundary. Everybody ducked as The Book of Love soared back to the veranda. It shot into William’s arms and knocked him off his feet.
“Amazing.” Solon helped William up, then hopped atop the veranda’s rail and examined his cordon, through which rain no longer fell. “It must be a counterquirk.”
“A what?” Eureka returned her book to her bag, and her bag to her shoulder.
“Yesterday, Claire trespassed the border of the witches’ glaze to enter the Bitter Cloud. Today, William does the opposite. He said it beautifully: he brings things back where they belong. The twins’ quirks are counterpoints. Counterquirks.”
“What is a quirk?” Eureka asked.
“The quirk—it’s …” Solon glanced at the others. “No one knows? Really?”