“Until they start experimenting on her,” Cole said. “Quima, the shapecrafter lady, made it sound like they had more in store for you guys than just stripping your powers away. But she was pretty bitter about us wrecking her plans. She might have just been trying to scare me.”
“I can’t believe we’re part of a revolution,” Dalton said. “The High Shaper is really powerful. The resistance will need a lot of support to take him down.”
“They’ll get it once everyone finds out about Mira and her sisters,” Cole said. “If we can overthrow the High King, we’ll also free the slaves. That includes you and all our friends.”
“Even if the revolution works, we may not get to go home. If a Wayminder sends us to Arizona, we’ll get drawn back into the Outskirts. Plus, nobody back home will remember us. Our families will look at us like strangers.”
“That’s what I heard too,” Cole said. “It could be a sneaky way to keep people from trying to leave.”
“You think they’re lying?”
“I don’t know. Mira seems to think that’s how it works too. True or not, there has to be a way around it. We’ll talk to the best Wayminders. We’ll find their Grand Shaper. Shapecraft might even help us. If it can mess with the shaping power, maybe we can use it to get home and stay there.”
Dalton shook his head. “That would be amazing,” he said. “I guess I kind of gave up hope that could ever happen. Home felt so far away. But now, seeing you, it seems possible again.” Cole knew exactly what he meant. It was hard after being back with Dalton not to focus one hundred percent on finding the others from his world and escaping. But Mira had been there for him over and over—he couldn’t just walk away while the Rogue Knight held her captive. Besides, without Mira’s help and connections, who knew how far he and Dalton would get? No Mira would have meant no Skye and no Joe. Without them, Cole still wouldn’t know where to look for Dalton, let alone how to rescue him.
“This place could be worse, at least,” Dalton said. “Not that I want to stay,” he added hurriedly. “But it’s cool to make seemings. Much cooler than anything I did back home.”
“Fun for you since you’re a wizard,” Cole said.
“You brought that Jumping Sword to life,” Dalton said. “That isn’t supposed to happen. You’ve got power too.”
“I don’t know,” Cole said. “That one burst of power is all I’ve ever done. I can’t make it happen again. Declan, the Grand Shaper of Sambria, thought I’d have abilities someday. I figured when things changed, I’d know. How was it for you? Did it come all at once?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Dalton said. “I never made a seeming until they started training me. My power works like active imagining. You know how you can picture stuff in your head?”
“Like a hamburger?” Cole asked. “I miss hamburgers.”
A big, juicy burger appeared on the coffee table, ketchup and molten cheese oozing out from under the top bun. It looked completely tangible. Cole could almost taste it.
“That’s just mean,” Cole said.
The cheeseburger vanished.
“They had me picture stuff in my mind,” Dalton said. “They pushed me to see it really vividly, all the little details. Then I was supposed to picture it outside of my mind.”
“And it just worked?” Cole asked.
“Not at first,” Dalton said. “But I would get little flickers, so they knew I had potential. You have to picture it just right, and push a certain way, like flexing a muscle in your mind. It takes a lot of concentration. After you make the seeming, you have to keep concentrating, or it goes away. Unless you make it permanent, which I haven’t even begun to figure out yet.”
Cole pictured a break-dancing toddler. He imagined the little guy spinning on his back, doing the worm, whirling on his head. The toddler wore only a diaper. Cole felt like he could see him clearly. But he didn’t know where to begin to make the little guy appear on the coffee table.
“I’m trying to do it,” Cole said. “Where do you push from?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Dalton said. “Think of it like you’re trying to make yourself actually see it with your eyes. That’s how I started. Then when it works a little, you begin to learn how you really need to push. After you figure out how to push, it takes practice to build up the strength to push harder. I doubt I’ll ever be able to push like Skye.”
“You haven’t been here very long,” Cole said. “You’ll keep getting better.”
“I can’t believe how well she did Gustus,” Dalton said. “It’s hard to make a human illusion move right unless you anchor it to a person. If you tie it to a person, the seeming smiles when the person smiles, walks when the person walks. When you try to do it yourself, stuff moves, but it usually looks wrong. You forget to make them breathe. The joints don’t adjust quite right. The feet sink through the floor or float a little. You start to feel like a clumsy puppeteer. Not only was Skye doing three seemings at once, she made a fourth unanchored seeming walk through a scrubber and appear totally natural.”
“She’s good,” Cole said. “You should have seen her dazzle show.”
Dalton gave Cole a shy glance. “She’s not bad-looking, either.”
“I guess,” Cole said. “But she’s pretty old. Like an aunt or something. Don’t tell me you’re in love with her.”
Dalton looked away. “She’s just, you know, really nice and cute and talented.”
“This is like Miss Montgomery!” Cole exclaimed. Dalton had harbored a serious crush on their third-grade teacher. “Are you going to write her a poem?”
“That poem wasn’t for Miss Montgomery,” Dalton said.
“That’s right,” Cole remembered. “You used her real name. Linda.”
“I was just practicing,” Dalton professed. “The name was a coincidence.”
“Was it a coincidence how you hung around after class with lots of extra questions?”
“Those were legitimate math questions,” Dalton protested.
“Maybe you could get some shaping tutoring from Skye,” Cole suggested.
Dalton huffed and shook his head. “A lady can be pretty without me falling in love with her. You’re right, she’s like an aunt.”