Page 122 of The Rut in the Road

Okay,sunshine, Sylvia said, her voice patient.Try again.

I didn’t, instead dropping down to the couch in the lobby and putting my head in my hands.I can’t do this.

You can, the ghost insisted.You just have to—But she didn’t tell me what I just had to, probably, I suspected, because she didn’t know.

Mason didn’t, either.

They’d both been trying to coach me through the process of setting protective warding, and I hadn’t managed to do anything at all other than throw magic out into nothingness. Wasting my energy and accomplishing nothing.

I felt the couch dip—a lot. “I’m sorry, Mason,” I said to him.

“You don’t need to apologize,” the big orc replied. “There’s something we’re missing about your magic, because you should easily be able to do this.”

I lifted my face from my hands and looked up at him. “Well, I can’t.” I was getting very fed up with everyone else telling me what I could or couldn’t do. I knew they meant well—Mason wanted me to be able to do more with my magic, and Raj just wanted me to be safe—but I just wanted to be able to make my own damn choices about what I was and wasn’t going to do.

And I felt guilty that I couldn’t dothis, because I wanted to be helpful. I was tired and frustrated and had no idea what I was doing wrong.

Stop thinkin’ about it like they’re thinkin’ about it, sport, Archie said.

Sylvia rolled her vacant eyes.And how else would you recommend thinking about it, dead man?

Life and death, he replied.

I was too tired to try to put together what that meant.

“What are they saying?” Mason asked.

I looked over at him. “They’re arguing about what I should try next,” I replied. “Archie thinks that I should think about it in terms of ‘life and death,’ but I don’t know what that means.”

Mason made a soft humming sound, the way he did when he was thinking. “How would you use life casting to protect something?”

I gave him a helpless look. “I have no idea,” I replied.

If you were using death magic, Archie said.You’d make a booby trap.

How is that supposed to be helpful?I asked him.You might be able to do that with your magic, but I can’t make a tripwire or something like that out of magic.

“Did someone have an idea?” Mason asked.

“Archie suggested that you can make a booby trap with death magic,” I reported.

“I’m sure he could,” Mason replied. “Just like Ward easily could, and Vi probably could.” Vi was on her way in from Williamsburg. “Their magic is like threads that can be woven together to create magical barriers or thresholds. Ours… isn’t.”

I sighed, then leaned forward and picked up the packet Mason had given to me. “I understand sigils,” I said. “But what I can’t figure out how to do isactivateit.” I’d copied the sigil exactly—and I’d been trying for the last hour to actually make itdosomething.

“How do you make anything do anything?” Mason asked me.

I regarded him balefully. “About all I know how to do is kill things, and I really don’t think that’s useful here.”

Mason grimaced, pressing his lips together around his protruding fangs. “Well…” he murmured. “Howwouldyou do that?”

“I’d pull the power from here,” I explained, pressing my hand to my low abdomen, “andpush.”

“Okay, so try that,” Mason said.

I looked at him, worried. “And what if I make it into a death trap instead of a protection ward?”

“It would still have a deterrent effect on anyone who wanted to harm us,” Mason replied mildly.