“R’ski ya!” I thrust and the car rolls. “Inside, now.” Arrows rain like a hailstorm, coming faster and more at once, slamming into the roof of the car, the windows spiderwebs of growing cracks at each jab. It’s so hot, I can’t feel my skin. “Bri, anything you can think of? A magic that behaves like this?”

“Uhm… uhm…” She’s never been under pressure like this.

I get it. But, damn, I need her to get the fuck with it. “BRI!”

“More are coming,” Jhamal says, head peeking above his shield. “The shooters must be nearby.”

The back door of the vehicle opens and a smoky haze follows Zora inside. Flames slam into the door as it clicks shut.

“I couldn’t find anyone,” she says, her face lined with disappointment, like she’s let us down. Or herself down. Or both, maybe.

“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ve got this.” Somehow. Someway.

“I did notice that the arrows are shooting from an upstairs window in a taller building. But no one is there. I-I looked… I looked everywhere.”

“A trap.” Bri swallows, panting. “It’s a trap. They’ve booby-trapped this area, a-and looks like I stepped on the trigger.” Her shoe. That’s why it wouldn’t move? She inhales a big breath and lets it out slow. “I’m sorry I froze, Rue. I’m—”

Zora scoffs. “So, what needs to be done?”

Jhamal flashes her a look that says be nice. But she ignores him, too.

Fire knocks overhead.

Think, Rue. “Okay… magic is energy,” I say.

“Yes.” Bri nods.

“Someone’s commanded their magic to take fire arrow form. And when triggered, follow the target, right?”

“Yep.”

“But how?”

“Uhm, the magic could be bewitched to cling to like-energy like a magnet would? Maybe it senses any other magic and seeks it out?”

“No, because you wouldn’t trigger that, Bri. You don’t have onyx anymore. I would have. It was seeking though….” But seeking what…?

The vehicle rattles.

“Oh my god, heat! It was seeking heat.”

Zora’s eyes flicker with recognition. “And the heat we’re generating by all four of us hiding in here”—she coughs into her arm—“means those arrows are not going to let up.”

“We have to get out,” Jhamal says. “It’ll burn us all to a crisp.”

“Then the only way to get it off of us is to give it a hotter source to chase,” Bri starts.

But I’m out of the car before I hear the rest of what she is saying. I spot a boarded-up furniture shop with a glass sign. RICKY’S, it reads, the letters glitching on the screen.

“Sorry, business owner person, but I have to,” I whisper, conjuring flames in my palm. Fire spins in my hands like a turbine and I pull my palms apart. “Forez’o.”