“Let’s go,” she whispered. Finding Daniel’s cold hand, she stood. Her bubble shivered to nothing as she touched it. Around her, people groaned as they picked themselves up. A large open space surrounded Quen, the tables shoved to the edges and tangled with broken plates and spilled food.
“Out.” His expression angry, Quen pushed them to the door. Trisk went, still dragging Daniel, his neck craned to look back over his shoulder at the destruction. They hit the sun-drenched sidewalk together, stumbling as Quen shoved them toward the police station. Behind them, shouts became loud, confused at first, then angry.
“Plan B?” Daniel questioned, still trying to get his feet under him.
Trisk tightened her grip on his arm. “Quen and I always paired up in defense class.”
Behind them, the first people spilled out of the diner, pointing as they caught sight of them. “Can you make us invisible?” Daniel asked, and Quen yanked them into an alley, his expression grim. “Forget I said that,” Daniel panted, breathless as they were forced into a run.
The damp walls rose up tight and tall around them, the sound of their steps out of sync and somehow threatening: Quen’s slow, solid thumps, her rapid patter, and Daniel’s hesitant gait. A brighter light beckoned at the other end of the alley. Trisk had no idea where it led, but it didn’t matter, and the first real fear slid through her. They had nowhere to run to.
“I’m not going back to that jail,” Quen muttered when they reached the end.
“Where are we going?” Trisk asked, and Quen yanked Daniel back as the man looked out.
“Anywhere they aren’t. Keep moving.”
Quen’s hand on the small of her back jostled her forward, but she hesitated, head going up at a familiar clatter. “Quen, wait,” she said as the bright silver dust of a pixy caught the light. “Orchid!” she shouted, and the tiny woman did a quick stop.
She stared at them for a moment, the dust slipping from her shifting to a muted gold, then back to silver. Trisk shrugged at the woman’s irate look, and then Orchid zipped off. Slowly her dust shifted into a sunbeam and was gone.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Daniel said, and then the people from the diner found them, spilling into the far end of the alley in an angry mob.
“That is a bad thing,” Quen said, pulling them out into the street.
Again they ran, and the crowd’s noise redoubled. Memories tumbled over each other, shoved to the front of her head: memories of torment, of running from classmates, of being pinned down and having worms draped over her until she beat them off, of sitting outside the principal’s office, punished for using magic when her tormentors got off with a token wrist slap.
“They’re catching up,” Daniel panted as he pounded the pavement beside her, and she readied herself, drawing on the nearest ley line to defend herself as best she could against a mob of vampires, witches, and Weres.
But then her heart stuttered when the roar of an engine rolled over them, and with a pebble-popping wave of heat, Kal’s Mustang rocked to a halt beside them. The top was open, his almost-white hair shining in the sun. “Get in!” Orchid chimed out as she flew over them, urging them to hurry.
Daniel cried out in relief, surging ahead to close the twenty feet between them. Quen, though, slid to a halt, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “Are you kidding me?” Trisk said, grabbing his bicep to drag him forward. “It’s a ride. Let’s go!”
Quen didn’t move, and Trisk stumbled, catching her balance. “I’m not getting in a car with him,” Quen said tightly. “He tampered with your work, ruined it.”
Save me from fools and male egos. “Fine. You want to stay here?” she said, pulling the hair from her eyes as she glanced at the oncoming mob now shouting obscenities.
Eyes narrowed, Quen looked at Kal impatiently revving the Mustang’s engine. Daniel was in the back, arm stretched, reaching for Trisk. “We don’t know if this was Kal’s fault or not,” she said, and Quen grimaced.
But finally he moved, and Trisk exhaled in relief. “It is,” he muttered as he lifted her up and set her in the back beside Daniel. “And you know it.”
She did, but Kal had a car, and there was an angry mob behind them.
“Get in! Get in!” Orchid shrilled, and Quen calmly went around the front of the car, vaulting into the front passenger side even as Orchid slipped under Kal’s hat and the man floored the accelerator. They took off in a cloud of dust, spitting pebbles at the people chasing them.
Trisk turned, watching their instinctive, collective cower become rage and a shout to get to their cars. They weren’t out of this yet, and they’d been lucky that it was so ingrained not to use magic openly. It wouldn’t happen a second time.