Page 33 of Commanding Chaos

I tapped my thumbs on the steering wheel. “Question… When we summon Mayhem, isn’t that going to make the veil even weaker? So we’ll be dealing with more rifts?”

He didn’t speak for five full seconds, which meant I was right. “Finding my brothers is the only way to break your curse.”

I hung a right and stopped at a light. “Okay, but then what? You get your family reunion, convince your brothers to break the curse, and get your revenge on Isabel’s descendants. The veil is still weak. The rifts are still happening. How can we fix the problem we started? Can we even fix it?”

He was silent for ten seconds, fifteen, twenty.

The light turned green, and I pressed the gas. “How bad is it? You always get quiet when I’m not going to like the answer.”

“I’m thinking.” He tapped his index finger on his thigh. “I believe it can be done.”

“Care to enlighten me?” I turned left around a curve.

“Cinder is as powerful as you and Ember?”

“Put together, yes.”

He nodded. “Combining your power, you should be able to revert the veil back to its original state on your side. It would require a time spell, but I believe it can be done.”

“Whoa.” I nearly missed a stop sign and slammed on the brakes. “Time spells are dark magic. Fully dark. They’re not even a little gray. We can’t do that.”

“Not even to save your city? Possibly the world?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek and continued on my way. When he put it that way… “I mean, I guess if it came down to it, we could probably get away with one dark spell.”

“My brothers and I will return to the other side and perform our own magic to restore the divide. The six of us together can end this.”

“If you can convince your brothers to cooperate. They didn’t spend a week trapped inside a witch’s head, so they might not be as sympathetic.”

“I’m aware of that hurdle.”

“I guess we’ll jump it when we get to it.”

“Precisely.”

“You have arrived at your destination,” my map announced, so I rolled to a stop in front of a hardware store. One panel of glass in the front window was shattered, and the automatic sliding door went back and forth, back and forth, never opening or closing fully. The inside appeared completely normal. No commotion at all.

Chief Higgins marched to the van as soon as I put it in park. “It’s about damn time.”

“What’s happening?” I slid out of my seat and opened the side door.

“Monkeys. That’s the story.”

“Monkeys?” I opened the back hatch and slung my spell bag over my shoulder before gathering as many daggers and gardening tools as I could.

Chaos picked up Ember’s sword and tested its weight. “Very nice.”

“You better take care of this fast.” Higgins crossed his arms. “When the media catches wind, they’ll swarm the place.”

“That’s what we do.” I brushed past him, and Chaos and I walked into the store.

Gray fog rolled toward us, Shade engulfing us in his magic and bringing us into reality. Shelves had toppled. Nails lay strewn across the floor. A massive cut marred Shade’s brow, and Ember’s hair had been lobbed off on one side.

“What’s happening?” I handed the weapons to Shade and Chrys.

Ember took her sword from Chaos. “A bunch of little shits. Twelve of them acting like gremlins. They killed the shopkeeper.” She pointed at the dead man lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The hook end of a bungee cord pierced his cheek like a fish that had been caught, and chunks of flesh were missing from his arms and legs. His torn shirt revealed a gash in his stomach, and his intestines…

My stomach lurched.

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