Her lack of faith seemed justified; I’d probably just mess it up if I tried to pay. I was a newly sixteen-year-old girl who, until today, had never set foot outside a tiny circle of the world. I’d never been inside a store. I didn’t even own a wallet. What would I use a wallet for? At most, I slipped a dollar into the school vending machines or borrowed a credit card when Carolyn and I went to Franny’s or to the mini-golf course.
The Powers That Be had made a mistake about me.
There was no one in the world less suitable for saving it than I was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Even with our new eight-dollar hoodies (I ♥ NJ—none of us knew how they’d ended up in a Pennsylvania truck stop), the flight into the city was freezing. We huddled close for warmth, me at the front, partly shielded by Neven’s thick neck.
Philadelphia stretched out before us, a million tiny white-red-orange lights at the horizon. I ought to have kept my eyes closed to stop me from getting dizzy or frightened, but fascination won out. Below us, the tree-lined suburbs and fields around West Asherton made room for street grids and parking lots. The trees were black dots, the roads coiling snakes. I thought I’d recognize sights from the internet and TV—a statue maybe, an unusual building—but nothing looked familiar.
In some parts of the city, I could barely make out the people; in other parts, the streets were so brightly lit that it might as well have been daytime.
The flight passed like that: cold, distant, quiet. A news chopper tried to approach once, but Neven beat her wings faster, and it hadn’t kept up.
Finally, Neven lowered.
She’d said she could sense the rift’s state and direction, but couldn’t pin down specifics.
She didn’t need to. The chaos would lead the way.
Residential streets below us were being cordoned off. People turned their cars around, honking all the way. Pedestrians were let out past the police tape, many with phones to their ears or holding backpacks and children; other pedestrians edged closer to the cordoned-off zone, weaving through the people trying to escape. Cameras flashed. People pointed at the pavement beyond a line of police tape, where it looked as though something had crashed onto the sidewalk. It’d left a two-foot crater and fractured tiles all around.
Several vans were parked past the tape. Half looked like police vans, while the others were unmarked, black, and identical to those scattered on my lawn. MGA.
Between the chaos and the darkness, people didn’t spot Neven right away. Only when we got close did a few faces turn up. One officer saw us, gaped, and fumbled with his radio so badly he dropped it.
We flew past the blockade and toward another street being cordoned off a few blocks down. I couldn’t stop staring into the crowds below.
The world from high up looked like the streets you saw in movies—an establishing shot from above, some background noise. After that, you zoomed in on the main character and everything else faded.
Flying as low as we did now, close enough to make out individual faces, it turned out the background noise didn’t fade. It just got louder.
Before, the busiest place I’d experienced was the schoolyard. Even when kids were yelling, though, the world outside the school grounds was silent. Here, the din was constant. People calling questions at police, cars honking pointlessly, a roar from a bus two blocks away, distant music that sounded like Beyoncé.
And so many people. Dozens. Most of them adults. They wore heavy coats, shapeless hoodies, carried nondescript bags. Some barged toward the barricades, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening, while others were being escorted out by police and had to shove their way to freedom.
“God, I love the city,” Rainbow said behind me. I couldn’t tell whether it was sarcasm.
“Tell me this isn’t normal.” My voice hitched.
“Nah. But it’s not far off.”
As we flew, more people turned, craning their necks and pointing. I caught a screeched word: “Dragon!”
I was glad to pass them by. These crowds weren’t so different from a rowdy lunch hour at school, I shouldn’t be this freaked out—but I was, and—
Focus.
We flew past another barricade. Row houses lined both sides of the street, with here and there a church or a telecom store. The fence around a small, square backyard was scorched black. On the roof of a shabby corner market, violins lay in shambles. Three MGA agents were loading a tarp-covered, bulky item into a van that looked stuffed full already. I shook the urge to help them by pointing out the violins.
A hundred yards ahead, a group of agents all faced the same direction, dressed in near-identical suits. Those in front formed a barrier with ballistic shields. Several black vans stood between us and the agents, the back doors open and drivers at the wheels. Ready to peel out if the agents were in danger.
And down the street—
The rift.
It stole my breath.
Few MGA experiments required being eye to eye with the rift. I’d seen it in the flesh—hovering inside a blank-walled hangar with observation windows on all sides—only a handful of times. The last time had been at least eighteen months ago.
“That’s gotta be it, huh?” Rainbow called as Neven started her descent.
The rift had grown.
Over my lifetime, it’d gotten maybe a foot bigger. Now it was easily the same length as one of the vans below. It shimmered above the pavement, its edges fizzing and crackling. Its interior distorted the street behind it, like looking through curved glass or agitated water. More than that: The rift’s interior amplified the street. Dull road markings turned neon yellow; brick homes shifted into the angry red of a laser light. All shuddering, wafting, jittering inside that frantic little slice of world.
I never thought I’d see the rift in a
