“Hey,” she said. She reached out with her hand, and I pulled the gun away. She let go of Tristan and reached out for the gun with the eye-hook. I grabbed the eye-hook, and then wrapped the length of the prehensile arm around her upper body, tying her up with it.

“Hey!” she said, again. She laughed. “Chris help!”

I didn’t need to ask, and I liked that I didn’t need to ask. Orange motes began to surround Kenzie.

“No, no, no, no!” Kenzie said. “Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris!”

The head of the long club was poked out between Kenzie and me, separating us. Kenzie started to back away, and the orange motes became solid rock, encapsulating her legs. Tristan lunged forward to catch her before her upper body came down and her head cracked down against his rocky terrain.

I flew up a little ways, putting myself between them and Chris. Chris drew the fat end of the club back, and then smacked it against his palm. He laughed, deep and low, and pointed at Kenzie.

“Stop laughing at me and help, you doofus!”

I had Kenzie’s gun in hand, I could have shot Chris, but I had my deep reservations about using a tinker’s stuff, even a nonlethal gun that temporarily blinded.

Ashley used her power. I could hear the sound of it, and I saw the wall break.

“By the way,” Tristan said, looking in that direction. “We’re not catching her on the return trip.”

He blurred, and with that blurring, the rock blurred too. White with orange-red veins became clear water, reflecting the blue of the sky and the green of the trees above and grass below. The front wall of the fort that Ashley had just penetrated and the platform that Kenzie and Chris were standing on became frothing water.

With the slope, that water flowed downhill, carrying Ashley and Kenzie down to the base of the hill, amid branches, mud, and sticks. Ashley used her power at the start and toward the end, to little effect.

Chris brought his rod down, stabbing it deep into the ground, and held onto it for leverage. It had to be sturdier than the dead tree had been, because it didn’t bend and it didn’t break. Condensed down, maybe, shaped to be hard.

He reared back, and he blew. He’d broken down and processed more of the dead tree than what he’d used to condense it into a giant club-staff. He exhaled a cloud of wet sawdust.

I didn’t want to put up my forcefield if it would catch the sawdust, so I endured it, flew closer, and used my forcefield for only as long as it took to kick the stick he was holding onto with all of my strength.