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THE SNOW ISN'T CAUSING a complete whiteout, but it's close. Even with my superior vision—which all angels and Archangels are blessed with—I can only see a few feet in front of me. I'm not cold, but I manifest a puffy coat and mittens out of habit.
“Bash!” I cry out. “Bash, are you out here?”
A chuckle from Ben has me crossing my arms. Why would he be laughing at a time like this?
“Sorry,” Ben apologizes. “When you screamed Bash all of a sudden, I was bracing myself for a punch. I thought you were gonna bash me. I didn't realize it was Sebastian's nickname.”
“Well... it is... according to the LightTab.” I cup my hands around my mouth and shout his name—and nickname—as loud as I can.
“He can't actually hear you, right?” Ben asks.
“It's complicated. Some humans are more clairaudient than others. In such cases, they might actually hear you... albeit faintly. A spirit could be screaming at the top of their lungs, and the human might hear it like a whisper. Most of the time, when we shout suggestions to humans, they don't actually hear the words... it's more like we're getting through to them on a subconscious level.”
Ben has a glassy, far-off look in his eyes. I doubt he heard a single word of my reply. I don't think he cares to know the difference between clairaudience and intuition.
“Hey, Ben...” I try to recapture his attention with a different topic. “How are your warping skills?”
“Bad.”
“How bad?”
“When I was with my last instructor, one of our charges was filming a tv show at a castle in Scotland. I think it was called Blair Castle,” Ben says. “At the time, I couldn't remember the castle's name. I only knew it was big... and white. Anyway, when I tried to warp to Blair Castle, I ended up at a White Castle instead... y'know, the restaurant. I tried to warp to the actual castle after that, but I think my heart must have been set on having some of those dagnam burgers, because I literally couldn't leave, no matter how many times I tried. So I just gave into temptation and sat down and ate sliders all day. My instructor was pretty pissed.”
“That's an... interesting story,” I reply.
“It wasn't interesting. And we ended up failing that mission because our charge got fired... which, if you ask me, had nothing to do with the fact that I sat down and ate burgers.”
I give Ben my honest-to-goodness opinion. “You were a brand new student. Your instructor shouldn't have had you warping on your own. You know, for you to fail all five of your missions, that means your instructor likely failed five as well. That's really rare. What was his name?”
I never get an answer, because Ben and I are distracted by the sound of children at play. We follow the noise deeper into the woods, where Sebastian is flinging a snowball at a boy with red hair. The ginger retaliates with a snowball two times larger. As it explodes on Sebastian's coat, both boys cackle and scramble behind cover.
“Well... it looks like his mom and I were worried for no reason,” I admit to Ben. “He's just playing after all.”
“Still, the kid needs to go home,” Ben says. “It's too cold to be out here for hours. He's going to give himself frostbite.”
Sebastian makes another snowball and hurls it at his friend, who ducks behind a tree to avoid getting hit. The other boy's counterattack is equally unsuccessful. His snowball hits the ground and bursts.
“The other boy's name is Liam Britton,” I report to Ben. “You can use the LightTab to identify almost anyone, you know.”
“Well, Liam needs to get his ass back home too, or these kids will turn into Popsicles,” Ben says. “This brings back memories, though. I was a wild kid too.”
“That's not hard to believe.”
Ben and I stay and watch the kids for a few more minutes. Ben tries to shout at them, to get them to go home, but Sebastian and Liam can't pull themselves away from their snowball war. Liam, his hand loaded with frozen ammunition, charges at Sebastian's hiding place. Sebastian flees into a clearing in the woods.
But the clearing isn't a clearing—it's a frozen pond. When the ice cracks and Sebastian plunges into the water, I scream.
“Ben, I think we have our mission!” I announce, rolling up my sleeves. “One of us needs to get Sebastian's mother. Ben, I need you to—”
Ben leaps into the water before I can assign any kind of task. I don't know what he plans to do. Even I would have a difficult time getting Sebastian out of the water.
“Ben!” I scream. “Ben, what are you doing?”
I'm trying to stay as calm as possible, but I can see Sebastian's red coat drifting under a sheet of thick ice. He's trapped beneath it, and Ben's attempts to save the boy are as useless as I thought they'd be. His hands pass through Sebastian's body every time he tries to grab him.
Turning to Liam, I shout, “Go get Sebastian's mom! Now!” Thankfully, Liam doesn't need a lot of coaxing. He takes off running in the direction of Candice's house, kicking up snow as he dashes away.
Ben pops out of the water and yells, “He's stuck under the ice! We have to do something to break it!”
I agree with Ben, but I don't have the proper weapon for this job. Even so, I have to try. I stand on the ice, unsheathe my sword, and bring down its blade on the solid lake. I smack the ice again and again, desperate to save Sebastian from a cold, watery death. I can see the boy's fist on the other side, banging on the ice. We're both trying to break through, but it's my sword that makes the first crack.
While I'm chiseling the ice, Sebastian starts sinking. Ben dives deeper into the water and grabs Sebastian's coat, pulling him upward. With enough motivation, even a new student can affect the physical world.
I have no idea how much time passes before my blade finally shatters the ice. It felt like an eternity, but I doubt it was more than a few minutes. Still, that's more than enough time for this to end in tragedy.
Together, Ben and I drag Sebastian to the water's edge. When help comes—and I hope it comes—it will look like he swam from the water on his own.
“Please be okay...” I whisper to Sebastian. “Please, please, please.” I wish there was more I could do, but unless I get a miracle approved, my hands are tied.
A shrieking Candice arrives on the scene a few seconds later. Breathless with panic, she scoops her little boy into her arms and checks him for a pulse.
Sebastian's lips are oddly colored, and he's definitely unconscious. If he has a pulse, it's weak.
I hate to say it, but I have a bad feeling about this.