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With a roar and a thundering crash, a large chunk of jagged bedrock dropped heavily into the truck gru impatiently on Watchward Lane Jack Shield, brown-eyed, brown-haired, and possessing legs that seeoal he was defending and, too late, covered his ears

A soccer ball caught hi him heavily onto his back

“Hey!” Jack cried out

“Sorry” Jack’s sister, Jaide, was instantly by his side, helping hiot distracted It’s so noisy!”

Jack nodded, dusting hih the ball had seemed to move much faster than a nor boost from Jaide’s Gift…

“I wonder when Grandain,” he said

They both looked to the front door of the big, rosy-bricked house they lived in, half expecting it to burst open that very instant Three seconds passed and there was no sign of their grand Her temper was on a short fuse when it came to civic disturbances of any kind Jaide possessed a si Jack to frequently wonder if Grandma X’s hair had been red, too, before it had turned white

Jack and Jaide looked completely different, but they were, in fact, twins They and theirin the small town of Portland because of Gifts the twins possessed — Gifts they hadn’t known anything about until they’d accidentally destroyed their house in the city Even worse, it was dangerous for their father to come near them, lest his own Gifts further disrupt theirs Hector Shield was a Warden, like their grandmother, and the tere troubletwisters, doomed to whip up mayhem until their Gifts were firmly under control

Jaide’s Gift gave her power of the air, and she had indeed used a careful puff of wind to give the soccer ball a secret push toward the goal

Now she looked back over the fence, to where the yellow, toothy head of the front-end loader was turning with a snarl to find another chunk of stone Perhaps if she could deliberately time the next kick with another crash, Jack would be distracted again and she would have better luck

“What are they doing in there, anyway?” her brother asked “I thought they were supposed to be fixing the old place up, not tearing it down”

“Tara told h for three cars” Tara was Jaide’s best friend, and the daughter of the developer who had bought the property next to their grands were identical — three stories high, indows and a alk circling the roof The only difference was that one had been left to go to ruin

Jack retrieved the soccer ball and round in front of him “Did Tara say why it has to be so noisy?”

Jaide shrugged “Garages don’t dig themselves”

“Well, I don’t like it”

Jaide wondered if he was thinking of the time a bulldozer had attacked them when they had first moved to Portland It had been driven by a hideous creature ence known only as The Evil — a nameless, a to insinuate itself into anything and everything on earth, starting with s its way up to people and inanimate objects like bulldozers The Evil was the ancient ene a troubletwister was so iraduate to becoht

“Just ignore it,” Jaide said, snatching the ball fro away to the other side of the yard “I’ to catch up!”

Jack narrowed his eyes and crouched between the posts, ready to defend his goal

“Do your worst!” he cried back to her

“What does that even mean?”

Jack didn’t know, exactly He’d read it in one of his father’s old novels It was a challenge of so to turn back his sister’s powerful kicks Perhaps a flicker of shadow across her face would distract her, at just the right time …

With a cough, the front-end loader fell silent The absence of sound see in the air

Jack breathed a huge sigh of relief, then lunged too late for the soccer ball, which zoomed past him so quickly he practically heard it sizzle It ricocheted off a tree twenty feet behind hi with one eye half-open, waiting for careless birds

“Yowl!”

“Sorry, Ari!” Jaide was contrite, but not very Aristotle was one of Grand “That’ll teach you to pay attention”

He sniffed the ball and poked it with one of his claws His whiskers wiggled “It’s hot Is that allowed?”

“Yes,” said Jaide

“No,” said Jack

“This is why cats don’t play sports,” said Ari with a yawn “Fighting iswhen there aren’t so many rules”

“Don’t listen to hi around the side of the house Kleopatra was the second of Grand but wild animals Humans and cats alike”

Ari rolled his eyes andposition “Shush You’re scaring off the birds”

“If there are any left after that racket …” Kleo ran up to join the twins, her tail swaying high above her rump “I came to see why the noise has stopped”

“We don’t know,” said Jack, reaching down to rub her chin “Maybe it’s their lunch hour”

“I can hear people shouting,” said Jaide, whose hearing was particularly good during daytiest “I can’t h … sounds like they’re under the house”

All four of the Watchward Lane toward them Ari opened both eyes and watched with interest as the owner of the footsteps appeared in the arched entrance to the garden

It was Tara, looking dusty under a hard hat decorated with decal flowers

“We need you next door,” she said, slightly out of breath

“How long have you been there?” Jaide asked “I didn’t know —”

“I wanted to call you, but Dad said ere just dropping in for one e” Tara shook her head “That doesn’t matter You have to come”

Jaide glanced at Jack,

wishing they’d never lied about being interested in architecture Tara’s dad probably just wanted to show the at soccer

“You go on ahead,” said Jack “My ears still hurt I don’t want to go any closer in case they start up again”

“They won’t,” said Tara “That’s why I’m here They’ve stopped for a reason I couldn’t call over the fence because they’d hear me You know I can’t … you know … because … you know”

She led her eyebrows in frustration

That awoke the twins’ interest Tara, along with another boy from school named Kyle, knew all about Wardens and The Evil, but had been bound by their grandmother never to speak of it in public They literally couldn’t speak, write, or even draw anything that ht reveal the troubletwisters’ secrets