No time to hesitate. Ben hurried after her, pushing through the crowd of guardians and out onto the porch, nearly colliding with Priya Sharma as she stepped aside to let him pass. Sidney was already halfway across the yard, moving toward the tree line with the kind of single-minded determination that told him exactly where she was headed and exactly how little she cared about the consequences.
“Sidney, wait!”
She didn’t slow down. If anything, she moved faster, her boots crunching through the gravel and then the fallen leaves at the edge of the forest. Ben caught up with her just as she reached the first row of trees, then grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.
“Let go.” Her voice was tight, almost too precise, but he could see the wildness in her eyes, the fear that was driving her forward. “I need to get to the portal site. I need to see what’s happening.”
“And do what? Stand there while a feedback loop tears through the ley line?” He kept his grip on her arm, felt the energy thrumming beneath her skin like a high-voltage wire, the scars on his own body responding to her agitation with pulses of sympathetic heat. “You can’t stop this by yourself, Sidney. That’s not how this works.”
“I have to try.” Her eyes were bright with something that might have been tears or might have been the fire that lived in her blood; he couldn’t tell the difference anymore, wasn’t sure there even was one. “Ben, if that feedback hits the portal before I can do something — if it destabilizes the network further — people will die. The guardians, the town, everyone. I can’t just stand here and wait for that to happen.”
“Then we’ll face it together.” He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her even as she tried to twist away. She was strong — stronger than she’d been before the phoenix merge, strong enough that holding her took real effort — but he wouldn’t let go. “That’s how this works, remember? That’s the deal we made. You don’t get to run off and sacrifice yourself while I stand around being useless.”
For a moment, she resisted. Then something seemed to break in her, and she sagged against him, her forehead pressing into his shoulder.
“I can feel it,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. “The ley line. It’s like someone’s dragging a knife down my spine. Whatever Julian Gregory’s doing, it’s tearing the network apart.”
“Then we need to stop him.” He took a step back so he could get a good look at her face and make sure she was hearing him. “Not by throwing yourself at the problem alone, though. We have to use everything we’ve got — the guardians, Rebecca’s contacts, your father’s surveillance data. All of it.”
“There isn’t time — ”
“Then we’ll make time.” He cupped her face in his hands and felt their bioelectric fields pulse together, gold and blue-white in the gray November light. “Sidney, listen to me. You’re not alone anymore. You haven’t been alone since I showed up in your shop all those months ago. Whatever’s coming, we’ll face it together. That’s the deal.”
She stared at him for what felt like an eternity but was probably just a few seconds. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“Together,” she said. “Okay.”
They turned back toward the house, and Ben saw the others spilling out onto the porch — Rebecca already on her phone again, Finn studying something on his tablet, the guardians clustering in small groups as they prepared for whatever was coming. Brigid Callahan had produced a worn leather satchel from somewhere and was distributing small objects to the other guardians — talismans, Ben guessed, or wards of some kind. Kenji Tanaka stood apart from the others, his eyes closed, his lips moving in what might have been a prayer or a meditation.
“We need to evacuate the town,” Sidney said as they approached the porch. Her voice was stronger now, steadier now that they’d determined on a course of action, if only a very shaky one. “If the feedback hits and the portal destabilizes, anyone too close to the epicenter could be caught in the collapse.”
“How are we supposed to evacuate a town of two thousand people in less than ten minutes?” Rebecca asked, not looking up from her phone.
Emily Thompson appeared in the doorway, her gray hair wild and her expression grim. “We don’t. But we can protect them. The wards Brigid’s people have been preparing — they were designed to shield against dimensional incursions. If we can extend them to cover the town center — ”
“That would take hours,” Brigid cut in. “Hours we don’t have.”
“Then we’ll improvise.” Sidney stepped onto the porch, and Ben watched the guardians turn toward her, drawn by the authority in her voice. “Brigid, how many of your talismans can you activate at once?”
“A dozen, maybe fifteen if I push.”
“And Kenji? Your people specialize in barriers, don’t they?”
The Japanese guardian opened his eyes. “We do. But the scale you’re describing — ”
“I know.” Sidney’s jaw tightened. “I’m not asking you to protect the whole town. Just the center. The shops and the restaurants, the places where people gather. If the feedback hits, that’s where the casualties will be highest.”
“And the outlying areas?” Josie asked quietly. “The farms, the houses on the edges of town?”
“We can’t save everyone.” The words seemed to cost Sidney something, and Ben saw her hands clench at her sides. “But we can save as many as possible. That has to be enough.”
Rebecca lowered her phone. “Eric says the readings are still climbing. We’ve got maybe seven minutes before the feedback reaches critical mass.”
“Then we move now.” Sidney turned to the assembled guardians, raising her voice so it carried across the yard. “Brigid, take your people to Main Street. Set up a perimeter around the town square. Kenji, I need you and the Tanakas at the north end of town, near the road to Eureka. If the feedback spreads, that’s the most likely vector.”
The guardians began to move. Ben watched them go — Brigid and her team heading toward the road, Kenji gathering his family with quick, precise gestures, the Quispe matriarch directing her own people toward the western edge of the property.
“What about us?” Finn asked. He’d shifted his position so he now stood beside Rebecca, his tablet forgotten in his hand.