I made a sarcastic noise. “Go swimming in the river and then talk to me about cold.”
“My little mermaid,” Ethan murmured, as Mallory positioned a hand over the orb again.
This time, a single tap. “We’re here to listen,” she said, “not to harm you.”
We sat in the cold darkness, ears perked for any response. But there was none.
Mallory shook her head, wet her lips, and hit the orb again. “If you talk to us, we can try to help you.”
She nearly squealed when the orb pulsed with light, and jumped backward.
It started as a whisper, a faint and faraway call. And with each percussion the sound lengthened, heightened, grew.
help.
Help.
HELP.
HELP.
The voice was masculine. It was one sound and many, a singular cry and a million voices. That was probably the “depth” Winston had mentioned.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” Mallory murmured, as we stared at the thrumming orb.
HELLO. HELP ME.
The volume was huge, as if the sound was a room that had suddenly enclosed us, sucking out the air and leaving behind only the fear, the terror. It wasn’t just a cry, but a demand for attention. Not just a plea, but an order.
This was panic and anger and frustration and grief, a cocktail of hopelessness. And it wasn’t the kind of emotion that dulled the senses but the kind that heightened them. The kind that made every noise seem a timpani drum, every caress a blinding burn. Irritation began to itch under my skin, the emotion weighted with despair.
This had to be what the delusional had been hearing. Little wonder they’d been terrified, Winston and the others. Little wonder they’d begged for help, and had considered death to stop the pain.
“They weren’t delusional,” Catcher quietly whispered. “Not even close.”
“Hello,” Mallory said to the orb. “We are here in Chicago with you. Where are you? How can we help?”
HELLO. HELP ME.
“It sounds like a recording,” Ethan quietly said. “Just reflected thoughts.”
HELP ME. HELLO. HELP ME. HELLO. HELP ME. HELLO.
The words became faster, seemed more insistent, as if they carried more emotional push—and more magical baggage.
“We’re here,” Mallory said. “Can you tell us where you are? Can you tell us how to help you?”
Silence.
I AM . . .The orb throbbed with each word.
I AM . . .
“It’s sentient,” Mallory quietly said.
“That’s not possible,” Ethan quietly said. “Latent magic isn’t alive.”
The magic disagreed. I AM! it screamed, loud enough that we clamped our hands over our ears.
I AM! The orb exploded, shooting the silver platter into the air.
Ethan threw an arm over me, pushed me to the ground as magic splintered the air around us. The concussion of sound echoed across the bandstand, back and forth across the buildings near us like a bomb.
And then, just as suddenly as the explosion had happened, the world became quiet again.
We sat up cautiously, looked around us. The orb was gone, and with it the platter and rosemary. And there was a hole in the middle of the blanket, the edges still marked by smoking char.
“Dibs on not telling Helen about the platter,” I said quickly, before Ethan could object.
Ethan growled his displeasure. “Everyone okay?”
“Fine here,” Catcher said, helping Mallory sit up. There was a streak of smoke on her face, but her limbs were still connected, which she confirmed by patting down each arm and leg.
“Well,” she said, then huffed. “The source of the city’s delusions is kind of an asshole.”
As if that source were insulted by the statement, a gust of icy wind sliced across the lawn, carrying with it the same chemical scent that had marked the others who’d heard the delusions. The smell surrounded us like a fog.
And this time, as we sat in the middle of downtown Chicago on a blanket in the snow, I realized how familiar that smell was.
No, I thought. Not smell. Smells.
It wasn’t really industrial, or chemical. It was industrial and chemical. It was exhaust and people and movement and life. It was river and lake and enormous sky. It was Chicago, as if the city had been distilled to its essence, to an elixir that carried hints of all the things that existed inside its borders.
Or inside the alchemical web Sorcha had created, the one that had stretched out from Towerline like a spider’s.
I thought of what Winston had painted in his small, tattered notebook, and the painting of what even Winston thought had been rows of teeth—jagged and uneven—from the mouth that had screamed his delusions.
They weren’t teeth, I realized, looking back at the uneven line of buildings to the east. He’d drawn the skyline. He’d drawn Chicago.
He’d heard Chicago. Somehow, because of magic I didn’t understand, he’d heard Chicago.
“Merit?” Mallory asked, head tilted as she studied me.
“Winston Styles painted images that came to him when he heard the voice. He drew the skyline,” I said. “He heard Chicago. The smell isn’t the magic, or a chemical. It’s Chicago. Squeezed down and distilled, but Chicago all the same.”
None of them looked convinced. “Close your eyes,” I said. “Close your eyes, and think about the scent.”
They looked even more skeptical about that idea. But they did it.
“Traffic,” Mallory said after a minute. “Exhaust.”
“And beneath that?” I asked.