Call Forth the Waves Read Online Free PDF Page A

when we emerged. “The assets are running!”
    Idiots, I thought. We were flying, not running. Jermay’s arm was around my waist. I was hanging tight to Birdie to keep her from slipping off Xerxes’ back, and we were flying.
    I expected to see the glimmer of holographic unnoticeables, as that had always been the Commission’s tactic before, but none came. Maybe the Center in the sky was the only platform capable of producing them, or perhaps Warden Files and his fellows really were racing to pick up Nye’s scraps before we were found by someone else, and he didn’t have official support.
    Wardens hated to share, and they seemed to spend so much time snatching things from each other’s grasp that they hardly concerned themselves with their actual function.
    “We have to get out of these trees!” Anise called. “They’re holding us down!”
    Xerxes and Bijou had to maneuver between the branches. It was slow going, and the deeper we dug our path into the woods, the denser the coverage became. We were low enough that if the warden’s men had stood atop their trucks, they could have reached us with a jump. Most of them had stayed behind to see if our escape tunnel would allow them access to the Hollow, but there were sounds of pursuit headed our way.
    “Birch!” Anise shouted. “First line of defense!”
    “You’ve got it,” he answered.
    On either side of our escape route, two-hundred-year-old trees bent over like three-week saplings, filling in the road so no one else could pass. They became braided ribbons of oak, strong as iron and an anomaly for future generations to puzzle over, because there would never be an explanation for their new configuration—not for anyone who’d never seen Birch work his magic.
    It really felt like magic.
    Younger trees uprooted themselves to serve as sentinels at our back, following behind us like they’d been born not only to run on their roots, but to out run.
    The Commission had underestimated Birch since he was a child, and now they were paying for it. Like me, he was a rare “Level-Five,” a fifth-born twin in a touched family. Being a boy made him a wild card that no one had been prepared for. Birch had learned to use plants as a tool, and he’d taught them to answer his call. Now they were his soldiers.
    “Once we’ve got enough space between us and them, get us out of here,” Anise said. “Make sure they can’t see us when you do it. I don’t want them to know where we’re going.”
    Birch nodded, and the woodland guardians dipped their branches with him.
    “After we’re clear of the trees, we’re still going to need cover,” Jermay said behind me. “That’s you.”
    “I know.”
    I sat up straighter, making sure Birdie had a firm grip on Xerxes. My worry was unnecessary, considering she had better balance than the rest of us put together. She was so little that her slim brown fingers could grasp him where one row of feathers stacked on top of the next.
    “Don’t let go,” I told her. In our former life, I’d been the circus’s ringmaster. Safety was my responsibility when my father wasn’t around.
    “You’ll catch me if I fall,” she said, without doubt. “We’re family. I trust you.”
    I used to trust my family, too.
    I held my hands together in a cage like the one my father had built around our circus grounds, where blue lightning had danced along the lines every night.
    “Spark,” I whispered to myself. I blew into my hands, summoning the thick white air Vesper used to create the bodies for her owls. A tiny storm raged inside my fingers, and I held it steady, testing myself.
    “Do you think you can do it?” Jermay asked. He was peeking over my shoulder, and his voice was heavy with so much hope, I didn’t dare disappoint him.
    “Penn, are you ready?” Anise called to me.
    I nodded because I didn’t want to speak to her yet.
    Birch swished his arms over his head, and the trees spun into a cyclone of twirling branches. We rode the