He glanced around. “Can we throw a stick at it?”

“Wood doesn’t conduct.” I rifled through my purse and found what I wanted: a metal pen with a foam grip. “Hopefully, the foam on this will block the worst of it if the fence really is hot.” Trying not to grimace, I reached out and touched the pen’s barrel to the fence, half-expecting some intense charge to send me flying backward. Nothing happened. I slowly ran the pen along the fence, since most electric ones had an intermittent pulse. Sustained contact would be needed. “Looks clean,” I said, exhaling in relief and turning to Adrian. “I guess we’re good to—ahh!”

A bright light shone in my eyes, blinding me and killing whatever night vision I’d gained out here. I heard Adrian cry out in surprise as well.

“It’s the girl!” a male voice exclaimed. “And… and one of them!”

The flashlight was moved out of my face, and although spots still danced in my vision, I could make out two hulking figures rapidly approaching. Were they armed? My mind raced. Whether they were or not, they were still an obvious threat since Warriors apparently liked to practice bashing each other in their free time, and Adrian and I didn’t.

“Don’t move,” said one of them. A blade shone in the gleam of the lowered flashlight. Not as bad as a gun, but not great either. “You’re both coming with us, back inside.”

“Slowly,” added the other. “Don’t try any tricks.”

Unfortunately for them, I still had a few up my sleeve. Quickly I put the pen back in my purse and grabbed another souvenir from Ms. Terwilliger’s homework: a thin, round wooden bracelet. Before either Warrior could do anything, I snapped the wooden circle into four pieces and tossed them on the ground, calling out another Latin incantation. Again, I felt the rush of power and its exultation. The men cried out—I’d cast a disorientation spell, one that messed with equilibrium and made vision blurry and surreal. It worked a lot like the blindness spell, affecting those around me.

I lunged forward and pushed one of our assailants down. He fell easily, too incapacitated by the spell to resist. The other guy was so distraught that he’d dropped the flashlight and was practically on the ground already as his attempts at balance failed. Nonetheless, I gave him a good kick to the chest to make sure he stayed down and grabbed his flashlight in the process. I didn’t necessarily need it with Adrian’s night vision, but these two would now be helpless in the dark when the spell wore off.

“Sage! What the hell did you do to me?”

Turning, I saw Adrian clinging to the fence, using it to hold himself up. In my eagerness to stop the Warriors, I’d forgotten the spell affected everyone near me.

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? My legs don’t work!”

“It’s your inner ear, actually. Come on. Grab the fence and climb. One hand in front of the other.”