Free Blue Magic by A.M. Dellamonica Page A

snap—one of the vitagua-contaminated bubbles had broken on a nearby willow. The tree wasn’t shooting skyward like the vitagua-drenched trees at home. Its leaves were stirring, and one of its spreading roots had broken through a nearby sidewalk.
    “Trace contamination, just a little growth,” she murmured. The world would end up like this, covered in magically tinged vegetation. People had to learn how to coexist with enchantment.
    They turned onto Market Street, and an inhuman cry rose around them. Starlings blanketed the roofs all around the buildings, cheeping and trilling so loudly, her teeth buzzed.
    “They’re here!” Will said. Clancy brought the trolley to an abrupt halt in front of a yarn store.
    “So much for catching them by surprise.” Aquino went into action, handing out chantments. He slapped a grocery pricer, disturbingly gun shaped, into Astrid’s palm.
    Igme dropped the turkey baster, tightened his grip on a hunk of letrico, and cranked a pepper mill. The yarn store shivered, then blew away in a cloud of fine dust. In the space where it had been, a circle of men, women, and children was murmuring, as if in prayer.
    “Carson!” Will’s kids were here, all right. “Eleanor!”
    Chilly air gusted toward them—a heat draw. Four of the Alchemites broke ranks, putting themselves between the children and their father. Chunks of rock pelted the trolley.
    Clancy yanked on a dog toy on the dashboard, squeaking it, and the missiles bounced away. Janet threw a hula hoop over one of the women. The hoop contracted, pinning her arms. She fell on her rump, dazed but unharmed.
    Little Ellie Forest spotted her father.
    She began to scream.
    Carson Forest had stepped toward the trolley, but now his sister clutched at him, visibly panicked. The boy turned, the frown on his face so like his father’s.
    The cold was spreading.
    “They’re drawing power for something big,” Clancy said.
    “On it,” Igme said, but the Alchemites were raising their faces to the sky. One had a whistle in her teeth.
    Will sprinted toward the children, ignoring the flying knitting needles, batting aside a net thrown by a barrel-chested Alchemite. A chunk of letrico in his left hand powered his ring.
    Astrid grabbed a set of carved wooden salad spoons. Open up a path, she thought, chanting the spoons and then sweeping them outward. The Alchemite circle broke, adults tumbling aside, clearing the space between Will and his children.
    One of the defenders threw a beanbag at Will’s feet. A pit of muck opened up in front of him. Quicksand? Will stumbled, arms pinwheeling. The ring kept him from plunging in.
    The children turned into starlings.
    Now the Alchemites were all birds, shrieking in triumph as they flapped up to join the flock above. Thousands strong, it swirled upward.
    Astrid scooped up an old purse, thinking of nets—
    There was a boom and all the birds were gone.
    Will let out a frustrated cry as he recovered his balance. He whirled, grabbing the Alchemite Janet had entangled. “Where are they going?”
    The woman thrashed, straining to escape.
    “Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Astrid said.
    “Filthwitch!” she shouted.
    “It’s okay, Will. We’ll get the truth out of her.” Snatching a small wooden turtle, a toy, out of the crumbled remains of the store, Astrid chanted it swiftly, thinking of truth serums and lie detectors. Drawing letrico, she held it to the woman’s face.
    “Where are the children?”
    “Among the flock.”
    “Where’ll they go?”
    She grinned, gap toothed. “They’ll scatter.”
    “Astrid,” Igme said. “We’re running out of juice.”
    Will held out his spinner. The needle turned in slow circles. “It doesn’t know where they are.”
    Among the flock. Astrid bit her lip. “We need to go home, regroup.”
    Will scowled at the woman they’d caught. “What about her?”
    “Knock her out.” Janet pressed a gooey plastic eyeball to the woman’s forehead. Letrico flowed; she