Peri had never thought of it like that before, and she sat before Rachel, the candle-warmed pot of wax between them. Oh, God. What if Bill calls? she thought, seeing her phone in a puddle of soon-to-be-radioactive wax. “What . . .” she began. “I don’t . . .”

“That’s what you do, isn’t it?” Rachel asked, her eyes flicking to Peri’s talismans.

It was, but Rachel was talking about changing form, not imprinting a memory trigger.

“You touched it,” Rachel said. “Felt its energy. Put your hands around the bowl.”

Peri didn’t move, and she jumped when Rachel took her hands, trapping them between her palms and the warm pot. “Remember what it was, and store the memory in the stone, like a talisman,” Rachel said. “Just do it, Peri.”

Peri looked from Rachel, who clearly thought she could do this, to Jenks, who clearly thought she couldn’t. They’re absolutely nuts.

“Or do nothing, and you’ll not only have a wax-covered radioactive stone and a busted phone, but two new roommates,” Jenks said.

Immediately Peri closed her eyes, focusing on the memory of Jack stealing the accelerator from the lab’s safe, marveling at it in the faint light before he tossed it to her to put in her purse. The shock of it thumping into her palm rang through her, the scent of ozone from the massive servers, how the flat facets of the cut crystal seemed to prick against her palm with tiny shocks, the weight of it akin to the weight of an egg, and how she felt it held the promise of a new beginning, much as an egg did.

“Peri?” Rachel whispered.

But she was lost, remembering Jack, his laughing eyes as he saw her react to the stone and the fact that they’d done the impossible again: his pride in her, his confidence, his trust.

“Peri.”

And her soft, up to now forgotten, niggling question of why the accelerator had been locked in a lab safe alone. No prototypes. No notes. Nothing.

“Peri. Open your eyes.”

A soft, suffused gray pulled away from her, and as reality impinged once more, Peri opened her eyes. Rachel was waiting, her focus frighteningly intent as her hair draped about her face, making her appear ominous. “Look,” Rachel said, and Peri’s attention dropped.

Gasping, Peri took her hands from the pot. The stone and phone were gone. In their place was an egg-size lump of wax. “You switched it,” Peri accused. “Give me my phone.”

Jenks laughed as Rachel calmly picked the lump up and peeled the wax off like an eggshell. “What an ass,” the small man said. “She did it herself, and she still doesn’t believe.”

“Give it a rest.” Rachel flicked the wax from under her nails. “She doesn’t have the background to believe.”