Eddie, ever ready to improvise, grabbed the welcome sign from the robot standing at the doorway. Wielding it like a baseball bat, he swung it toward the fotianas as they came toward him. As though they shared one mind, the swarm parted so that his “bat” hit mostly open air. Only a couple of the fotianas were too slow. They disintegrated into sparks as they were struck. That was encouraging, at least, but we had a lot more of them to get through. Things grew more complicated when the swarm split into three and came after each of us.

I had just gotten to my feet, but as I saw the group targeting me—in an arrow formation, even—I tore across the room and managed to duck under the conveyor belt’s table just in time. “What’s the best way to get rid of them?” I yelled to Ms. Terwilliger. “Fire?” Across the room, I could see Eddie continuing to nick away at them with his sign, but their speed and agility kept him from making significant progress.

“I don’t want to burn this place down,” she called back, trying to dodge as the swarm chasing her passed nearby. They swiped her arm, leaving tears in her sleeve and small bloody cuts visible on the skin beneath. As soon as she had some distance between her and them, she held up her hands and chanted a Latin incantation I’d never heard before. A hundred tiny sparkling crystals appeared in the air before her, and with another command, she sent them flying into the fotianas. Where the crystals struck, the “mutant fireflies” vanished into sparks.

The swarm chasing me flew low, trying to run me out from under my table. I waved them off, getting my hand stung in the process, as I parsed Ms. Terwilliger’s spell. It had been very similar in word and feel to my old friend the fireball spell, with just a few notable differences. It was an ice spell, I realized. Thrown with enough force, bits of ice could have the impact of little razors.