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equilibrium. He opened his eyes and held up the beaker. “Ready?”
    Toria grasped the knife’s hilt, holding the blade horizontal. Kane tipped the beaker, and her thick silver formula oozed toward the edge of the glass.
    Her entire being centered upon the point where liquid would meet metal. Toria felt her perception shift in a way she had not expected. Her vision tunneled, and the blade of the dagger magnified hundreds of times in her sight, more precise than a microscope. But it had depth, not the flat look of a sample smashed between two glass slides. The blade wavered in her hands, making the world appear as though it shook in a violent earthquake. A wave of dizziness passed over her.
    Everything stilled when the silver liquid touched the blade. Then a brilliant flash of pure white light left Toria blinking away shadowy negative images. Uncontrolled power surged through her. She heard the familiar sharp crack of thunder, and the world went black.

    Kane shouted her name in the distance. She no longer sat on her stool, but instead found herself sprawled on the tile floor. Her left shoulder ached where she’d landed on it. Heat warmed the skin on her cheeks and forehead in marked contrast to the cool floor.
    “Toria!”
    Kane’s hands wrapped around her upper arms and tugged. The strange warmth got hotter, and an odd smell met her nose. Had she mixed some compounds wrong?
    Her eyes shot open when all of the pieces fell together. Kane stood above her, shouting her name and attempting to haul her across the floor. She pushed herself up, banging the top of her head into Kane’s chin. They both yelped in pain.
    Broken glass surrounded her, and the alloy oozed across the floor. Blue flames leapt from the silver liquid, gushing a thick white smoke toward the ceiling. The knife lay discarded nearby, the blade charred and black.
    “What the hell happened?”
    “You tell me!” A note of panic marked Kane’s voice. A screeching noise drowned out the rest of his words when the smoke detector kicked in.
    Toria pushed herself off the floor, ignoring the complaints from her aching body and the ringing in her ears. She must have cracked her head on the floor when she fell, too. She staggered across the kitchen to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall. This was not her first incident. Kane took cover on the other side of the kitchen island when Toria pulled the pin on the extinguisher and sprayed the unnatural blue flames with thick white foam. She had done this too many times.
    The fire went out fast, and Toria thanked her luck that she’d once again not burned down the small apartment building. They surveyed the mess.
    “You have a habit of doing that,” Kane said, pitching his voice over the smoke detector, but calmer in the absence of fire.
    She didn’t have the energy to shout back. The metal extinguisher clanged on the counter where she set it down. She rubbed her sore shoulder and hoped the noxious metallic taste in the air faded soon.
    They stared at the mess of evaporating foam and scorched metal staining the tile floor. With a last disgruntled beep, the smoke detector stopped screaming. “Well, then,” Kane said. “We should probably work on this before the stains set in the tile.”
    “What do you mean, ‘we’?” Toria said. “I’m pretty sure this is my project and my mess. And definitely my fault.”
    “Nah.” Kane pushed up his shirtsleeves. “Once again, we forgot our power doesn’t just double when we work together.”
    “Yeah. It quadruples,” Toria said. She opened a tall cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, revealing their stock of cleaning supplies. “I was so determined to get results. Are you sure it isn’t you who should be the scientist?”
    “Thank gods I’m not.” He caught the roll of paper towels Toria tossed to him. “Let’s pop open all the windows after we’re done here and head out for the afternoon while the air clears.”
    The cleanup went quick, a matter of mopping