“How do we free him?” Oilcan asked.
Tinker blew out her breath and tugged at her hair. Yeah — how? “Just need to figure out what this world’s note is. . and tell it to him. . somehow. . and. . something.”
“Quiee,” Baby Duck said.
They glanced in unison at the other children, huddled close together.
She really hated to say it aloud, but there was no other logical choice. “Since the other kids have the same ability, they might be able to figure out the note.”
“No!” Oilcan snapped.
“I didn’t say I was going to experiment on them!” Tinker cried. “Not directly. We could see if they recognize the note, and then tell it to Rustle.”
“Can he even hear us?” Blue Sky asked.
This was how it always went, and there was comfort in the familiar. “We’ll tackle that after we figure out the note. By now you should know the steps of the scientific method. Ask a question, do background research. .”
“Now I know we’re in trouble,” Blue grumbled. “You only say that when the shit is about to hit the fan.”
Tinker forged on. “Construct a hypothesis, test your hypothesis by doing an experiment, analyze your data, and draw a conclusion.”
“And communicate your results,” Oilcan added as always.
“But we never tell anyone anything,” Blue mumbled.
“Sama.” Merry was holding her bulky olianuni case to her chest. “I can tell Rustle.”
They blinked at her in surprise, and finally Oilcan sputtered out, “How — how exactly would you tell him?” as Tinker murmured, “I thought you said they weren’t telepathic.”
“I’ll join him inside the spell.” Merry edged closer to the spell.
“No, no, no, no, definitely not.” Oilcan reached out for her, and she flinched away.
“It should have been me!” Merry circled the spell, keeping away from Oilcan’s outstretched hand. “He’s hurt! He can’t even drum! And he has nothing to drum with. I love him and I couldn’t bear it if I never saw him again and I know I might have been able to save him.”
“Merry,” Tinker said. “I don’t want to lose both of you, because I don’t know if I’m right. I might be totally wrong on this whole resonance thing. Music might not have anything to do with it. I probably am wrong.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Merry said. “I’d be with him. I’ll be where he is.”
“You should let her go,” Blue said. “It would be right to let her go.”
Tinker stared at him, surprised and a little horrified. Even worse, when she looked to Pony, he nodded sadly.
“What is the worth of your life if you can’t protect the ones you love the most?” Pony said.
Of course the bodyguards would think that way. They were lucky to see the world in black and white. The world was so clear-cut to them. If it was her, yes, she’d throw herself into the spell in a heartbeat to save Oilcan, or Windwolf, or Pony, or Stormsong, or Blue Sky. . Gods, the list kept getting longer and longer the more she thought about it — which probably only proved their point.
Yes, she would chance it. That wasn’t the point here. She was the adult, and Merry was just a child of approximately thirteen. Although some people would say eighteen wasn’t an adult. And to be fair, at thirteen she had started her own business and lived by herself.
And had risked her life to save a total stranger from a saurus.
If it had been Oilcan on the ground unconscious, she wouldn’t have even done a hit-and-run on the saurus. She would have beat on it with everything she had. She hadn’t known Windwolf, had no reason to think that saving him was her responsibility, and yet she’d felt like she had to do something, and that hitting and running would be an acceptable risk. That it would be best to strike once, strike hard, and flee.
Stormsong said that her mother’s talent made Tinker ruthless on the racetrack. Maybe her talent had guided her that day. Maybe she knew deep inside that Windwolf would someday be someone that she would risk everything to save.
How sure did she feel that she was right now? If she had nothing but a hunch, how strong was that gut feeling? “Okay.”
“Tink!” Oilcan cried.
“I think it will be okay,” Tinker said. “It feels right.”
While the tengu and the laedin set up a new perimeter, her Hand stayed close, keeping her shielded so she could focus on saving Rustle. She was glad that Thorne Scratch shadowed Oilcan, keeping him safe. Merry played all the tones the olianuni could make, starting with the deep rumbling notes, while the other children listened intently.
“Do it again?” Barley suggested after Merry finished hitting the highest chime-like notes that the instrument produced. “None of them seemed special.”
“They’re just sound,” Cattail Reeds grumbled.
Baby Duck quacked nervously.
“I don’t think they can recognize it,” Oilcan murmured, and behind him Thorne Scratch nodded, agreeing with his assessment.
“If we could recognize it normally, then Rustle and I would already know it.” Merry had been stoically silent up to now. “We’ve studied music our whole life. Really! Whole summers just practicing chord progressions!”
“She has a point.” Tinker considered the problem. “Here’s what we know. None of the other kids had the problem of losing stuff like Rustle did. Right? The enclaves are on a strong ley line, but none of the other kids’ powers activated. And Merry didn’t do this”—she waved toward the gleaming spell—“when we just did a divination spell.”
“We established those as given.” Oilcan pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Could we just null all magic in the area?” Riki asked.
“That might destroy the only link we have with him.” Tinker’s comment made Merry meep and Baby Duck quack in distress. “Providence exists elsewhere without a body? He needs a combination of magic, what’s left of his body, and Jin to manifest?” Riki nodded to this, so Tinker plunged on. “If the kids have the duality of intelligence, there might be information they can only access while connected to large amounts of magic.”
“That’s a huge leap in logic.” Oilcan gave a sad smile to Thorne Scratch, who had laid her hand on his shoulder.
“I know,” Tinker said unhappily. “The gut feeling is still there, but I don’t like risking Merry’s life just on a hunch.” She paused to look around, suddenly aware that her test subject had vanished. “Where’s Merry?”
Everyone pointed at the spell.
Thorne tightened her grip on Oilcan to keep him from leaping after Merry. “She earned the right to choose her path when she walked away from all that was safe and ventured out into the unknown.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?” Tinker cried to Blue Sky, who had been standing closest to Merry.
“You said it was okay for her to try!” Blue Sky backed up, holding up his hands to fend Tinker off.
“I–I—no! That was before!” Tinker cried.
The spell started to flash colors all up and down the spectrum as music suddenly started to play loud enough to hear.
“She’s with him.” Thorne Scratch still held tight to Oilcan.
“How do you know?” Oilcan asked.
“That’s an olianuni duet. It needs two people to perform it,” Thorne Scratch explained. “They’re played often at court.”
“I dress people for court,” Cattail Reeds said as the other children looked to her for confirmation. “I don’t actually attend court.”
Stormsong breathed out a laugh. “It is a duet. ‘Mating Dance of the Dragons.’”
The light flared within the spell shell fast and brilliant. Deep violets rumbling and pale yellows shimmering with reds and oranges trilling around and around each other. Once Tinker considered the speed of the notes, it was clear that more than one person had to be playing the song.