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silent, and I wonder what its thinking. How is it here? It must know something else.
    “Tell me.”
    The demon doesn’t respond at first, but Carter gives me a nod that Ric’s not dead. I exhale, and square my focus on the demon as Carter moves from Ric to Maple. The mauve demon looks me up and down, and then nods. Her eyes dart toward Carter as he steps closer to where Maple lies on the ground.
    “Magic is a balance, and any tipping of the scale can destroy it all,” Mauve says.
    I’ve heard that before. Read it, in fact. The day I got back from De’Intero, that line was written in an open book on Poncho Alistair’s desk in the library. The words are a message. Obviously an important message or this demon wouldn’t be saying it. The same reason Poncho wouldn’t have purposely left them out for me to see. “What does that mean?”
    But something in my bones tells me I already know the answer. The demon doesn’t say anything else.
    “She’s not breathing!”
    I spin around to look and Maple’s still sprawled out on the ground. All four of our phones chime the high note, low note, high note of the WNN. The demon glances among us all at the sound, and then as quickly as it comes, it flickers away. So much for being helpful.
    “Call someone, Penelope,” Carter yells.
    I pull out my phone and run to Ric’s side. Before I make the call, I glance at the screen.
    Static has power unexplained magical burst while driving her kids to camp: four killed.
    It’s not only Taylor.
    I ignore the message and call the Council. While I wait for someone to answer, my brain races to figure out how this happened, and what exactly it means. If the mauve demon says it’s because of me, then why? What did we really do down there?
    Ric coughs and I take his hand, but he doesn’t squeeze it. His eyes flicker open, searching mine frantically. At least he’s alive. That’s what matters. He’s alive.
    A voice comes on the line asking me what I’m reporting. “Static attacked with magic—two Enforcers are injured.”
    I tell them my location and they say they’re coming. When I hang up, the phone has more messages. One, two, three more incidents of Statics with magic.
    Crap on a stick.
    Then Ric screams. I cover my ears and he’s sitting straight up, screaming. After a second he stops and falls back to the concrete. I look over at Carter.
    What’s happening right now?
    But from the look on his face I can tell he’s as freaked out as I am.

Chapter Six
    Carter
    Pen sits next to me in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. She turns her salt vial necklace over and over in her fingers. The waiting is the worst part, and there’s nothing I can say to her to make it better.
    “When are we going to hear?” she asks. Her nose crinkles up and her eyes get wider as she scrolls through the WNN alerts on her phone with her other hand. I want her to stop looking at that thing.
    “Soon,” I say, even though I have no idea.
    Pen shakes her head. “There have been seventeen occurrences since we got to the hospital.” An hour ago. “What’s happening to the Statics?” Her voice gets lower. “What did we do in De’Intero?”
    What had we done? We were going to die there, and she’d taken my hand so we could share magic. I couldn’t die without kissing her one last time. The rest of what happened was beyond either of us.
    “Statics have magic. They have no idea how to use it. How many Statics are going to get it now—everyone? Only some?” Pen asks. Her phone dings the tone of the WNN updates—high note, low note, high note—and this time she ignores it, sliding the phone into her pocket. “This is huge, Carter.”
    That’s an understatement. Statics aren’t supposed to have magic. Witches are born with magic or they aren’t. No one had ever been an exception until I met Pen. Since her essence was stolen as a kid, she shouldn’t have magic, either. But she does. Now she has even more thanks to the void. That can’t be