“Do I not look the type?” I ask. “Because I don’t wear all black, shred the knees of my jeans, or paint my nails?” Personally, I consider my style somewhere between everyone-hates-me-anyway-so-why-bother and if-it’s-clean-I’ll-wear-it, with a preference for stripes and flannel.

“No, it’s just—I don’t know,” Katya says. “I think I had the wrong impression is all.”

“How about you leave the fanby’ing over screechy guitars for later, kay?” Aysha says.

Her use of the word fanby makes me smile. Katya grins too and I’m pretty sure I can see the ice between us melt a little more.

“Let me see what I can do.” Aysha lifts her hands and closes her eyes, then starts to hum, weaving her own song through the melody from the theremin.

Gradually, the harmonies change, the melody jumping wildly before settling on a single note—the same one Aysha is humming. After a few more moments, she opens her eyes and lowers her hands.

“To be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I figured all I needed to do was tune it to elemental magic.”

“Makes sense,” I say.

“Around us, it should sing like it’s doing right now. If there’s chaos magic, I have no idea what it’ll do, but it won’t sound like this.”

I pick up the theremin and the instrument falls silent again. Katya and Aysha share a questioning glance.

“Maybe my magic didn’t work,” Aysha says.

“Guess we’ll find out.” I tighten my grip on the instrument. “Now to find the portal.”

28

We start our search in the school, because why not. For four of five floors, the best we receive are a few weird blips and pings from the theremin, both outside Emmi’s and Joakim’s rooms, but that’s it.

“This is hopeless,” Katya says.

“Still got one floor to go.” We’ve been working our way down from the top, which leaves the ground floor. My hopes of finding the chaos mage’s portal sink with every step I take down the stairs. It could be anywhere. It could be somewhere out in the forest—somewhere we have no hope of finding. What if this was a waste of time?

“Hey, I think it’s working,” Aysha says as we cross the foyer near the cafeteria.

The theremin is whining, the sound made all the more eerie in the otherwise silent and deserted building. We continue down the hallway and the whine grows louder, more shrill, driving painful daggers into my ears as we get closer to MacCrone’s office.

“Thought you said it wasn’t MacCrone.” Katya raises an eyebrow at me. “Think it’s just reacting to battle magic?”

“Maybe, let’s check inside.” I hand the theremin to Aysha before opening the door.

It’s not locked and hasn’t even been shut properly. Not good signs.