One more confused push against the invisible wall from the Similars, and then a loud crack, the same one she’d heard in Temecula but closer, so close it ripped the air right out of her. Then a vibration, a bright light like a nuclear bomb, and then came the explosion, a bigger blast than she had ever seen or imagined, not five feet from where she sat clamped to Ampersand like a vise.

The explosion didn’t touch them but stayed behind an invisible wall, turning into a massive half sphere with Enola, Ampersand, and Cora on the other side. Enola had his hands up, “palms” open and fingers splayed like a tarantula on the defensive. He seemed like a maestro, delighting in conducting a symphony of unfathomable destructive force, and Cora squinted against the incredible bright light in horrified awe.

Then the blast shrank into itself at the command of the conductor as his digits contracted, meeting in the middle in a sharp point. There was a crater the size of half a football field where the blast had been. She looked to the other side of the crater and could only just make out that the Similars had survived the blast, now several hundred feet away, beaten and very confused. The three pulled themselves to their feet quickly like cats that didn’t want their owner to see they had fallen down. Then they disappeared, and all that remained were lines of heat coming off the still-glowing salt, creating ripples in the air.

Enola retracted his hands back into that calm, neutral position and turned to examine her. She was still holding Ampersand tightly, powerlessly, Mother Mary performing her alien pietà. She didn’t know what was worse—the thought that Enola might have been delusional about his ability to protect them from the Similars or the fact that he very clearly wasn’t. That he really did possess more destructive power than all three Similars combined.

I’ve freed the harpy, she thought. And she’s going to kill us all.

Enola bent down, his focus on her rather than Ampersand, quiet, contemplative, intrigued perhaps. “OUR BELOVED IS NOT WELL.”

“I know,” she said. “Will they be back?”

“NOT NOW THAT THEY KNOW WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF,” he said, sparing a glance to the other side of the newly formed salt crater, the heat from it still licking Cora’s skin. “ENERGY PULSES ARE NOT THEIR PREFERRED FORM OF ATTACK, AS IT IS ONLY SIMILARS OR THOSE THAT EXIST INSIDE THE BODIES OF SIMILARS THAT ARE AFFECTED BY THEM. THEY PREFER NOT TO USE FORMS OF ATTACKS THEY THEMSELVES ARE VULNERABLE TO. BUT THEY WILL USE THEM IF THEY FEEL THEY HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.”

“Please,” she said, letting her iron grip relax, sitting up to look at him. “Nikola. Nik. Please, can you take us to Kaveh? I know he’ll want to see you.”