My eyes widened. Just for keeping our location to herself for a couple of hours? “So . . .,” I said slowly. “Then you’re here to provide a familiar face for me. Right? Like them.” I nodded at Agents Valk and Sanghani.
Torrance laughed. “Nailed it. Director Facet wants you comfortable.”
“Is it working?” Valk inquired.
I frowned. “I’ll . . . let you know.”
“You’re right,” Torrance said, “in that I never worked on the rift before. They only briefed me just now.”
“Should we go down there?” I studied the other highway. Those researchers were my best bet of getting useful information.
“Not yet,” Torrance said. “The team is gathering readings with you at this distance first. Stay right there. No more than a few feet in either direction.” She pointed at my feet and drew a loose circle with her finger.
“Just when I thought my radius couldn’t shrink further.”
“I’ll check what the plan is.”
If I leaned over the guardrail, I could glimpse the inside of a van stuffed with equipment and monitors. The displays showed similar images to the tablets some researchers held: a radar screen and maps with shifting colored overlays.
I squinted at the vans to get a clearer look at the rooftop equipment. “Are those sensors?”
“Yes.” Sanghani came up by my side. “I’ve been providing security for the research team, so I picked up some things.” She pointed out other equipment, both in researchers’ hands and carried by drones. “Some are for safety purposes. If the air turns toxic or otherwise dangerous, an alarm goes off, and we can pack up and be gone within seconds. They also measure air pressure, composition, radiation levels, and more. Drones go close for better readings, but sometimes they get sucked into the rift and disappear.”
“Have the researchers learned anything new?”
“Beats me. They don’t update security on their findings.”
The possibility that I was wasting my time nagged at me. The rift had never been shy about reacting to my presence or absence. It hadn’t reacted to my defeat of the trolls, either. Whatever connection had existed must’ve gotten severed the second I turned sixteen and the rift snapped away from under the Power’s thumb.
The feeling that I’d made a mistake pushed on my shoulders, swirled around in my head, weighed me down with every breath.
I turned my back to the guardrail to observe the area behind us. The closed-down highway reminded me of West Asherton nights, when sometimes, the only people on the road were me and an agent. No lights. The trees only faint outlines. The world silent and black.
A paper bag danced across the asphalt. A flock of birds swept overhead.
Shamefully, I realized that I liked the quiet. Now I could actually look around without being startled every few seconds by noise, by people, by cars. I wished I could wander around Philadelphia itself like this. Explore the city like an open-world video game.
Over the next hour, the team brought me steadily closer to the rift. They moved me to the lower highway. They stuck electrodes to my skull. They asked me to approach, then to back up, then to move around the rift in a wide circle and approach from other directions.
I tried to get ahold of the head researcher, but she spent half the time holed up in a closed van and the other half going from colleague to colleague to overlook their work and give direction.
When I approached the other researchers, most of my questions were answered with a vague “Hang on a sec, let me wrap this up . . .” Occasionally, this was followed by cursing and thwacking the machinery—but never actual answers.
A week ago, I’d have taken the hint and dropped the matter.
I suddenly, sharply wished I could go back to that: the blissful ignorance, the passive acceptance.
Every now and then, the rift spat something out. Stones. Liquid that hissed as it hit the ground and bit half circles into the asphalt. A book in a language none of us could identify. Shards of glass.
The rift hung silently in the air. Its edges shifted like waves. My eyes kept trying to pin down where the rift ended, but somehow, I couldn’t; it was as though I’d just woken up and my eyes were still struggling to adjust. The rift shook into blurriness, expanded and shrank, crackled outward in a sudden spike, but never once seemed to sharpen.
How was I supposed to fix something so alien, when even the Powers That Be couldn’t?
Wouldn’t, I corrected myself. Not couldn’t. Not that it made any practical difference.
Perhaps knowing other solutions existed was a start, though. Maybe instead of closing the rift, we could board it up, the way Neven had explained in that field in Damford.
Either way, the question remained: How?
Sanghani had been summoned back to the farm, while Valk had stuck around. At one point, she brought me a paper cup of hot tea. “Are they making any progress?” she asked.
“Wish I knew.”
“Hrm.” She sounded disapproving, but I could’ve been imagining that; her face didn’t give me many clues to work with. Was she thinking the same thing as Sanghani? Was she disappointed in me?
“Do you think I was selfish?” I asked without meaning to. “For running?”
“Doesn’t matter. You came back.”
I smiled wryly. “Sounds like a ‘yes.’”
“Look.” She sounded reluctant. “If anyone had to be in this position, I’m glad it’s you. You came back because you’re not selfish. It’s not easy giving up your whole life to protect others. I know. It’s not the same, but . . .” She lifted one hand and wiggled her ring finger. I saw a thin, white line around the base, where a wedding band might’ve been. “Too many secrets. Too much time away from home. Too much focus elsewhere.”
Meaning me. Meaning the rift.
Abruptly, Valk added: “No regrets. Not after these past days.”
“I didn’t realize—” I started.
“Take a break. We’ll leave soon.” She pointed to an
