“I guess my knife is kinda sharp.” I said it lightly, but I’d wondered the same thing during the flight here. I took the knife from my back pocket. The movement made pain shoot through my arm. I tried to hide it—the others probably had it worse.
I removed the sheath. There was no mistaking it: The blade gleamed white.
When I’d used the knife before, I’d assumed it reflected the surrounding light. Van headlights, living room lamps, the sun. Now, though, we were in a dusky parking garage. The only light came from fifty yards away.
Even with nothing to reflect, the metal was so bright its edges seemed to glow.
“You’ve found your weapon,” Neven said.
The words coming to mind were ridiculous, but no more so than everything else in my life. “The knife is magic?”
Neven rolled onto her side. “Chosen Ones always have magical weapons. Swords. Shields. Bows.”
“Magic?” I repeated. “Magic exists?”
“Hazel, I am a literal dragon.”
“That could be science in some way,” I said, though it sounded weak. “So I was meant to have a . . . weirdly shaped magic knife? And I just happened to find it inside a canoe from another dimension? I might never have seen it! I might’ve just left it there! What if I’d decided to threaten the agents with a—a broken branch instead?”
“In that case, you would’ve had a magic broken branch. Your wielding the knife in a moment of courage is what gave it magic. It’d have been preferable to discover its abilities sooner, given our situation just now, but . . . You have your weapon.” Neven flashed a toothless, reptile smile. “Congratulations.”
“A moment of courage,” I repeated. The blade had been dark when I’d first seen it. It’d only started glowing when I’d pointed it at the agents. “I threatened people who were trying to help me.”
“Protecting a loved one is courage.”
I twisted my lips into a smile I didn’t feel. Had that been courage? Perhaps the knife knew better than I did.
Red gave up on inspecting her injured knee. “What exactly is magical about the knife?”
“It cuts things really well?” I glanced at Neven for confirmation.
She blinked back impassively.
One way to check. I bit my lip—(so I did bite my lip like Four did)—and carefully placed the tip of the blade to the smooth concrete floor. The knife cut through it like it was foam. I let out a slight gasp. It sank into the floor all the way up to the hilt.
“Whoa,” Four said.
The handle jutted out from the concrete. “I barely even pushed.”
The others looked awed. Even Neven shifted her head for a better look.
Something occurred to me. “Why doesn’t it cut through the sheath?”
“Same reason you haven’t already sliced off your fingers despite the way you’ve been wielding that thing,” Neven remarked. “Magic.”
“Well,” Rainbow said, “I guess that’ll help with that saving-the-world, staying-out-of-government-hands thing.”
“I suppose I could cut up one of the MGA’s helicopters.” I cocked my head. A sword would’ve been better, but still. I had a magic knife. “Cool.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Part of me wanted to keep experimenting with the knife, but I tucked it away.
Of all the things clouding my mind—the knife, the fall, Director Facet’s voice, that troll creature in Lina’s apartment—only one really mattered.
I looked to Neven. “Trolls?” I asked.
“Yes! Good point,” Rainbow said. “Did we really just fight a troll? What kinds of bizarre dimensions is this rift linked to?”
Neven kept her eyes on me.
“Trolls?” I pressed again.
“You’ll have to ask a more specific question.”
I asked, enunciating every syllable clearly: “Are trolls the threat we’re supposed to save the world from?”
“Wait, what?” Four said.
Neven showed no reaction. “Why do you think they might be?”
“They keep popping up.” I already regretted asking, but I kept going. “Red saw them on the street. They’re in the news. Towns where the rift’s never been claim to have infestations. If one somehow reached the ninth floor of Lina’s building, they must be all over. The agents seemed to consider even one troll a threat; if there’s a lot of them, and if they get back up whenever you kill them, they could be seriously dangerous. Those agents also said they’d been dealing with the trolls for two days. That’s before my birthday knocked the rift out of control. So . . . the trolls are different. They’re a separate threat.” I wanted to leave it there, but I couldn’t help but add in a smaller voice, “Right?”
“It seems that way,” Neven agreed.
“Can you just answer yes or no? Please?”
“Rules,” she said. “I’m not meant to influence your major decisions.”
“But.” I balled my fists, released them. I couldn’t be mad at her. Not after what she’d just gone through to rescue us.
“That’s not fair,” Red said quietly.
“Did you know about the knife?” I asked Neven. “You could’ve told me to use it on the balcony. We’d have been free within seconds of that net dropping.”
“True.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Rules,” she said impassively.
I felt queasy. “That’s not fair to you, either,” I whispered. She’d almost died for those rules. “These Powers That Be seem like assholes.”
“It’s not my job to cast those judgments,” Neven said, her words deliberate. “I will not argue, either.”
I tried to smile, for her sake.
“If we think it’s trolls,” Red said, “let’s see what I can find online. My phone doesn’t have service, but there are open Wi-Fi networks nearby.”
I nodded. “Neven . . . you can break the rules, though.” I’d meant to sound straightforward, but it came across accusatory. “You said yesterday you couldn’t help anyone in West Asherton, but then you rescued Dad from the water.”
“Ahh.” She lifted her head from her paw until we were around eye height. “That was different. You asked me to help you.”
“At the farm, I asked you to help the agents.”
“Precisely.” She pushed herself up to a half-sitting position. “You asked if I could help them. I cannot. Not by myself. Not unless you decide to act.” She raised her unhurt paw and flicked a nail at
