The frail thing clashed with the leather, but immediately I felt a sense of relief in its shadow. I’d seen Ku’Sox. He knew I was aware of what he’d done. He’d make his demands soon enough, and until then, I had to believe that Ceri and Lucy were okay. “Thanks,” I said as I looked at the stack of rubble. “Shouldn’t the line be over the rocks? That’s where I came in.”

Al began picking his way to my ley line, his cane knocking jagged chunks of rock from his path. “Lines drift,” he said, his head down. “Move. They’re like magnets repelling each other. They will shift across continents given enough time and impetus. They only appear to be stationary because they’ve balanced with each other ages ago. Yours here . . .” Al sniffed in consideration. “It likely won’t move much anymore. Has it always been this size?”

I nodded as I came even with him and faced the barely visible shimmer in the air. The ley line the university was built on was wide enough that you could drive a team of horses down it for a quarter mile. The one in my graveyard was about four feet wide and twenty feet long, an admittedly small line. Mine here was about the same, maybe a little longer.

Al pressed his lips together, puffing his air out as he gazed at seemingly nothing, but he was probably looking at my line with his second sight. “You got out fast. The longer it takes, the wider the wound.”

“Really?” So a small line was a good thing, which made me wonder who made the line in my graveyard. Then I wondered who had taken forever to get out of the one at the university. Al maybe?

Walking the length of the shimmer in the air, Al turned and strolled back, the line a haze between us. “A line this size can’t be leaking this much on its own.”

“It wasn’t when I left it.” I cocked my hip, feeling naked without my usual shoulder bag.

Al’s focus landed on me. “Can you hear it?” he asked, and my lips puckered in distaste. “You’re not using your second sight,” he added, and I shook my head, tucking a gritty strand of hair behind an ear. But at his dramatic prompting, I exhaled and opened my second sight.