Chapter 17
Two Worlds Colliding
TIA
The Sentosa beaches stretch far left and right, seeping into the murky ocean, the waterline littered with seaweed and empty shark eggs.
There’s nothing glorifiable about it: beige dunes disrupted with bits of trash, an ocean too mild for water sports and too rife with jellyfish for swimming, the sand gritty and fake.
But Harper’s lying on a beach towel beside me in an oversized shirt and booty shorts, a hand tucked behind her head, which means this is officially my favourite beach in the world.
The date has been going perfectly; we left Lain Co.
in the morning, walked from Harbourfront to Sentosa Island and grabbed lunch for the beach.
I thought it would be hard seeing Harper in a different light so quickly, but it’s actually easier – I call her pretty whenever I think it, and get to watch her face flush.
I slip a bookmark into the book on my lap and glance at her. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
Harper sighs with a smile and peers at me over her sunglasses. Raises her brows. ‘Yeah, enjoying the view.’
I shove my foot under her butt and a mini tussle ensues, her sun-soaked skin warm under me, her laugh sharp and manic and wonderful.
There’s a mini bucket beside us with a jellyfish that she caught, and our fight nearly topples it – Harper screams and the twenty-odd people around us look at us funny, so I yank a hat over my face to hide my identity.
‘You think they think we’re a couple of best friends?’ Harper whispers conspiratorially.
I peek out from under my hat and meet her wild gaze. Locks of her mini-bun have come free, and it frames her tilted grin and sharp chin, her face windswept and pink with heat. ‘And what would be the truth? That we’re girlfriends?’
Harper tugs her bottom lip into a bite with a slip of pink tongue. ‘If you’re okay with that?’
It’s so hard not to kiss her. The tension from the other night seems to have dissolved with the sea, and whatever’s been weighing on Harper has been burned away by the midday sun.
But suddenly, as I watch, a shadow passes over her face. Her shoulders, previously relaxed and loose, tense as she sits up. ‘Do you hear that?’
I pause to listen: there’s the ocean, a child laughing in the distance, the trees rustling with the gentle sea breeze.
There’s a scream.
‘Oh, shit,’ I breathe. In my peripheral vision, Harper’s already scrambling to stand, rummaging through our backpacks and coming free with my helmet, wrist and ankle blasters.
She tosses them to me. ‘Go. Duty calls.’
‘I don’t—’ I catch them, thumbing the edge of metal, cold as guilt. ‘I’m sorry about this. I was really enjoying today. I don’t want to go.’
Harper sweeps our things into a backpack and pushes her sunglasses to perch on her forehead, eyes squinted. Her teeth chew her bottom lip. ‘But you have to, don’t you?’
I swallow as she picks up the jellyfish bucket and faces the sea. ‘Kit, wait. Stay on the beach. I’ll text you if danger gets close to you. Please stay safe.’
Harper reaches out. Our fingers flirt. ‘You too.’
I suit up and leave the beach as Lune, soaring into the cloudless sky. What if Harper gets injured? Worse, what if it’s because my inadequacies as a Sentinel surface, and—
Enough. From this high up, I can track the patches of forest through Sentosa’s island, pushing up between its many amusement parks and beach resorts.
There’s a commotion by the theme park, near a towering blue rollercoaster. ‘ALFRED, zoom in.’
As I watch, a neon-green ride with flying stegosaurus capsules turns to stone and collapses into ash with a low rumble. A chill shoots down my spine. What the—? ‘ALFRED, notify Niko and Kiran and do a read on what sort of magic that is.’
As ALFRED runs diagnostics, I float closer to the ground.
An explosion shakes the air, and it surges over me, like I’ve been hit. It takes everything to stay afloat, and I’m lucky my suit absorbs most of the punch.
It feels like—
‘The magic trace isn’t previously documented,’ I hear ALFRED begin, ‘but it seems most aligned with the new strain of moonstones.’
The moonstone bombs. We’d already theorized that the Foxes and Nagas might make them, but this is the first time they’d be using them in public. Seeing it in person strikes a growing horror in my chest as another ride crumbles into black stone and rubble.
There’s nothing I can do to fix this kind of damage. If there are moonstone bombs scattered throughout the park, my job is to defuse them before they blow up.
But how can I scan an entire theme park alone when I don’t know what the bombs look like?
Calm down, Tia.
I close my eyes and focus. ALFRED said the bombs leave a lunar magic trace. When I focus, really focus, I feel a subconscious tug, alerting me to nearby lunar energy.
With my magic seeking it out like a magnet to iron, I quell my nerves, follow the divining stick in my gut and dive into the park.
RAVEN/HARPER
I’ve been on the phone for five minutes, perched in Raven’s uniform on the roof of a beach lookout spot, tucked away from the sun. A quick call to Ah Ma suggests it could be the Nagas, and now the phone is on the sixteenth ring for my dearest ex-boyfriend and infuriating Naga leader, Avyaan.
He picks up, and I mash the phone to my ear. ‘Av, is it you guys?’
‘This is the first thing you say to me in months?’ Avyaan’s voice comes through thin. ‘So much for lunch, I guess.’
‘Avyaan.’
He sighs. ‘Is what us?’
‘Sentosa, dude.’ In the distance, there’s a gigantic boom. Oh, Tia. ‘Send me the exact location of whatever you’re doing.’
‘We’re not doing anything.’ A rustle. ‘What’s going on?’
‘The bombs? I’m not stupid. I’ve heard from the Sentinels, okay? I know you and Maria have been up to something, drop the fucking act.’ I swipe sweat off my forehead, my mask stuffy with heat. ‘Call it off.’
‘Harper . . .’ Avyaan hisses through his teeth. ‘Why— Why are you even speaking to the Sentinels? What bombs? Why would you believe them?’
‘That’s what Tia said!’ I burst out.
‘Don’t get mad at me. I don’t even know what you’re saying!’ Avyaan snaps back. ‘Once again, why are you listening to the Sentinels?’
I pinch my nose bridge. Either Tia is grossly misinformed, or Avyaan is lying. Knowing him, though, I don’t think it’s the latter. ‘God. Fuck. Okay, I have to go. And you’re sure that the Nagas and Foxes have nothing to do with this?’
‘I know the Nagas don’t, but you’re the Fox leader. How do you not know what your own clan is doing?’
I hang up on him.
My finger hovers over Maria’s contact for a second, but I think better of it.
Instead, I sprint across rooftops towards the source of the screaming, soar over running pedestrians and rip through tree branches.
When lactic acid sears my thighs, I pray to my stamina, and use telekinesis to buoy me when I try to bridge a gap too big and almost don’t make it to the next rooftop.
Who could possibly be behind this?
A detonation vibrates the ground. I bypass the theme park’s entrance, land and scan the park for Lune. Alarms rip the air, but I steel myself to focus on the looming structures and sun-seared metal of rollercoaster rides.
Where would Lune even be?
A shout rends the air, and I whip around. The sound comes from two intertwining rollercoasters, one red and one blue, twisted into each other like a veinous heart. I’ve sat on the ride once before with Maria, enough to know it’s deathly – fast, spiralling, with several parts where the cart flips.
Right now, at the height of a loop, a cart of eight people hangs upside down.
Lune hovers right beside it, seemingly tinkering with something on the tracks. When I squint, I make out a bulk of wires and a metal case, glinting blindingly in the sunlight.
I guess I should be thankful that I’ve found the bombs. I’m a lot less thankful that my girlfriend is practically attached to them.
Before I can think twice, I fumble for my phone and conjure up an illusion of Harper beside me.
My thumb finds Tia’s contact and I press CALL.
Lune picks up immediately. ‘What— Kit? I can’t talk. I—’
‘This is Raven. I’m with Harper, look down!’ Raven shouts. ‘Tell me what’s going on. I can help.’
‘Why do you care? What’s the catch?’ Lune’s voice comes out strained. ‘Why is Harper with you? Tell her to get to safety!’
I swallow. ‘Favour to Harper. Now tell me what’s going on.’
‘This thing’s going to detonate in exactly three minutes, but it’s soldered to the cart. I’m scared that trying to blast it out might set it off, but I don’t have enough time to evacuate everyone.’
‘Okay, look, I’m going to join you up there, and I’ll help you evacuate people, okay?’
‘How do I know you’re not going to sabotage this?’
‘Do you want my help or not?’ I snap, hoping it sounds in line with Raven’s personality. Hoping it hides the tightness of my voice and the tremor of my fingers.
‘Get Harper safe first.’
Stop being so romantic, damn it. ‘She’s safe,’ I snap back, willing illusion-Harper to sprint into the distance. ‘I’m coming up.’
I leap onto the rollercoaster tracks and scale them like a ladder. It’s easier than a regular building, and my gloves take the burning heat of the metal with ease.
I count the seconds in my head, and get to thirty when Lune comes into full view. My feet stride deftly from beam to beam, until I’m drawing up to her, the cart hanging below my boots, as she heaves at the wire-enmeshed bomb on the metal.
Like she said, it’s soldered to the tracks.
Like I counted, we have exactly two minutes and twenty-seven seconds left.
I squat by her. ‘How’s it looking?’
‘I think I can neutralize it with lunar energy.’ Lune has both her hands splayed over the opaline surface of the stone. It’s been sanded into a smooth cube, a forearm’s length wide and long. ‘I just . . . I need time. I need to make sure people are safe.’
We do not have time. There are still eight people suspended from the track beneath us.