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head in disbelief, Will followed.
    “How much do you remember about vitagua?” she asked.
    “Let’s see … magic used to be a living cell. It allowed people to bend the rules of nature.”
    “Right,” she said.
    “Centuries ago, when the Inquisition began burning witches, the cells—”
    “Magicules.”
    “Magicules, right, were driven into the unreal and they became vitagua.”
    “Blue in color, thick as blood, dangerous as hell,” she said, quoting her father. The fluid had been drizzling back into the real world for centuries. Well wizards like Dad had taken it drop by drop, locking it within magic items like Will’s ring.
    The physical breach between the real and unreal was in the ravine. It had been concealed in the chimney of Dad’s old house, and an irregular pile of bricks still marked the epicenter of the Spill. Blue fluid oozed through the porous, cracked bricks, pooling in the ravine, forming a boxy lake.
    Will peered down. “That’s … a lot of vitagua.”
    “Barely a drop in the bucket,” Astrid countered. “Remember the glaciers in the unreal?”
    He nodded. “You’re spilling it into the woods?”
    “I’m also making chantments.” She pointed at a line of shopping carts filled with junk: small carvings, combs, dishes, lampshades, books, tools, purses, plastic necklaces, jewelry boxes, flowerpots …
    “Where’s all that coming from?”
    “There are crews out salvaging in the evacuated towns. See that work crew there, going through the stuff?”
    “That’s … what, twenty people?”
    “It’s a lot of work. They have to sort through everything. Broken stuff has to be mended. Glass and electronics can’t be chanted at all.”
    “You must be making hundreds of chantments.”
    “Abracadabra.” She’d had a gold barbell pierced through the web between her right thumb and index finger: chanting required a break in the skin. She twisted the barbell before bending to dip her fingers into the flow of vitagua from the ravine.
    Liquid magic passed through her body, seeping from the piercing in the web of her hand and, from there, into the rescued objects. She’d shown Will how this worked before; she didn’t need to explain that she was binding raw magic into the scavenged items so people could safely access its power.
    Peace and a sense of vitality flooded her.
    This was what she was meant to do. The personality juggling, the meetings, the planning and recruiting, the endless defense of the town—those were just by-products of the Spill. Item by item, she made the junk into chantments. Volunteers bustled in to take the carts away.
    Will asked: “What’ll you do with them?”
    “Mostly, give them away.”
    “You’re not hanging on to everything?”
    “Only what we need. Being a well wizard is about sharing power.” She pointed at a red silk tent. “Over there, we have a team of volunteers using chantments that make them psychic. They’ve been working on locating your children.”
    “What if they say the kids are in Timbuktu, surrounded by heavily armed Alchemites? Got a plan for that?”
    “Of course,” she said. “You think I’ve been sitting around all this time?”
    A smile—a real one—broke across his face. “You are more of a go-getter than a sitter.”
    “What we’re gonna go get is your children, Will.” Astrid found herself wanting to hug him again. Instead, she led him toward the hotel. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

 
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    “ WE THOUGHT IT WAS a joke. I mean, here’s a bunch of civilians in motorboats and flying carpets and they’re trying to surround a carrier? A few of the women were dressed up like mermaids, and there was a guy with a trident—”
    “Did you see any of the defendants?” Special Prosecutor Lee Wallstone brought up the Alchemites’ mug shots on the courtroom media screens.
    “Yessir. I saw Sahara Knax, Patricia Finch, and Arlen Roy.”
    “Thank you. What happened next?”
    The televised