Explode.

Chan might not understand “full entropy” but he damn well knew what explode meant. Adrenaline surged through his veins, Mihn’s solid warmth against his back doubling it. Instinctively, he jerked their carpet away from the lure. 

Mihn hissed and clutched Chan’s shoulders tighter. 

“Then hurry,” Injae said, clipped. “How can we help?”

“Um… take this pack off me?” Hanji looked tiny, naive, and green. His fluffy hair and round glasses were dreadfully out of place thousands of feet in the air. Chan really hoped Injae was right about him being the best witch for the job. Otherwise, they were all doomed.

Injae reached across the gap between their carpets, then said, “Can you bind our carpets together? It’ll be easier to get the pack off then.”

Chan watched with a steadily tightening gut as Injae and Hanji wrestled the carpets together against the wind. Hanji clung to the edge of the Director’s carpet and said something that the wind snatched away. Moments later, Injae unzipped the top of the backpack and plunged a confident hand into its depths. 

Mihn’s grip on Chan became almost painful, and she growled. Though he wasn’t worried about a trick waiting in the witch’s bag to hurt their boss, he couldn’t muster up any soothing words. His throat was suddenly very, very dry.

Wind whipping her long black hair about, Injae withdrew her hand, holding a small green bottle. Hanji gestured for it urgently, and she gave it to him. 

Chan eyed the lure as Hanji ripped the cork from the bottle with his teeth and smeared its contents across the edge of his carpet and Injae’s. Wasn’t he taking too long? The dirty little sack didn’t look any different–no smoke or glowing or vibrating or anything to indicate it was about to explode.

That mystery just made Chan’s gut tighter to the point of nausea, made his throat drier than sun-baked desert sand. If Mihn’s steadily tightening muscles against his back and legs were any indication, she felt similarly.

As Hanji’s lips moved in an incantation, and the two carpets fused together, Chan twisted his neck to speak as close to Mihn’s ear as he could. It came out a croak. “Does the magic feel any different? Closer to exploding?”

Mihn flattened herself to him, voice low and angry. “I don’t know, Chan. It’s still pond scum coating my skull. I’m not a damn witch.”

Injae had tugged the backpack off of Hanji and onto her own carpet. Free from his burden, Hanji pushed himself up onto his knees. He dove into the open top of his bag, black eyebrows drawn low in concentration as he dug inside it.

“But I don’t want to be here when it blows,” Mihn said directly into Chan’s ear, her hair stinging his face in the wind.

Chan didn’t want that either. But how far would its blast radius be? He zoomed the carpet closer, despite Mihn’s enraged, “Chan!” heating his neck.

“How big will this thing blow, Hanji?” he shouted over the wind and his own thundering heart.

“No idea!” Hanji sounded hysteric. He was spearing glowing rods into the bag, several open vials balanced on the rippling carpet between his knees. “A few yards? A few miles? I don’t know!” He thrust a spool of blindingly-white thread into Injae’s hands. “Hold this a second.”

She was kneeling on the other side of the backpack, lure to her right. Her face was serious and stone-like, almost exactly like the statue of her that Anjeon’s supporters erected despite her displeasure. They insisted she be honored as the founder of the Reserve.

The wind pushed Chan’s carpet away from the other. His bare arms–the rope-burns red and shiny–were growing numb, as was his face. Mihn’s warmth along his back was his only saving grace.

She shifted, releasing his shoulders and placing her palms on the carpet. Her nails were short and smooth. “I’ll grab Injae. You steer,” she urged in a tone that brooked no argument. It went directly to his brain. “The witch can’t nullify it in time. We have to flee.” He was certain neither Hanji nor Injae heard her.

Chan’s heart pounded in his throat. His limbs buzzed, desperate for action. He felt trapped, sandwiched between Mihn and the carpet. The sky stretched around them, cloudless and blue, nothing stopping the sun from searing them directly overhead. The flying carpets struggled against the wind, making the green horizon bob like the choppiest sea.

Mihn didn’t care about Hanji. But if Chan decided the lure was a lost cause, if he forced them to cut their losses and run, there was no way he could leave Hanji to face an explosion head-on. He wasn’t that heartless.

 But…maybe the witch could do it. Maybe there was enough time for him to work his magic.

And they didn’t know how far the explosion would reach. The lure was thousands of feet in the air, but what if the explosion hit the ground? What if, because Chan took Hanji away, the lure damaged all the animals within a several mile radius? He couldn’t live with himself. He was a Ranger, and his only job was to protect the precious creatures that had found safety within Anjeon.

Chan chewed on his lip, mind and heart and body a mess. What was the right call?

Mihn made it for him. “Now, Chan!” she barked, hands digging into the flesh of his back, poised to grab their boss. She was decisive, and Chan trusted her.

Chan curled his fingers beneath the carpet’s front edge. It took off towards the double-wide carpet. He felt Mihn rise onto her knees, her thighs a steel vise around his waist. She would grab Injae, and he would have to grab Hanji somehow. It didn’t matter that four adults on a single carpet was madness; he’d make it work or fall off himself.   

Injae jerked her head up at their sudden motion. Her eyes widened, and Chan felt a sharp pang somewhere around his ribs. 

The Rangers were mere inches from their targets when a hurricane-force gust of wind howled into all of them. Both carpets bucked wildly. Mihn was suddenly clinging to Chan. Chan was clinging to the carpet. Injae kept her balance, and Hanji toppled sideways.

Chan surged forward, ready to catch Hanji. But the witch’s shoulder hit the carpet, and he didn’t fall.

Something else did.

“Ah!” screamed Hanji. “Get it!”

Chan didn’t think. He pressed his carpet down, chasing the vile little bag. Hanji’s glowing rods fell out of it, whizzing past Chan as he plummeted. The herd of frenzied unicorns on the amber grassland below grew more distinct by the second. 

Chan stretched his arm out, the rope burns from yesterday morning shiny and red and stinging. His watering eyes locked on the tumbling bundle. It was almost within reach. If he didn’t catch it, it would land in the mass unicorns. He didn’t want to think of the astounding loss of innocent animal life that would happen if it exploded among them. Already, he could barely breathe through the terror that he would fail.

Suddenly, feathers and claws swooped around them. Griffins. Chan didn’t spare them a thought, focused entirely on the dirt-stained canvas spinning through the sky. He felt Mihn shift, lifting an arm up to shoo away the creatures.

He stretched, shoulder aching. His fingertips brushed the bundle uselessly, simply increasing its rate of rotation as blood-tipped unicorn horns gained definition. A desperate sound escaped his lips as he caught sight of their rolling eyes and frothing mouths.

They were too close. He and Mihn were going to crash into the herd and skewer themselves on those wicked-sharp horns if Chan didn’t pull up right now.

His mind was wild and panicked. There was no time to think, yet his mind flashed two agonizing images in his brain: All the unicorns in Anjeon blown to bloody bits; Mihn’s eyes devoid of life as horns pierced her body.

The unicorns were precious. But Mihn was more precious.

With a strangled sob, Chan wrenched the carpet up to stop their dive. I’m sorry.

Mihn had other plans. He felt her lunge forward with explosive power. Suddenly, her knees were not by his waist, but by his shoulders, her hip pressing into the side of his head.

She dove, and Chan cried out, his heart stopping for one terrifying moment. He released the carpet and clutched at whatever part of her he could reach to keep her from falling to her death. 

Mihn snapped her spine straight, shot her arm out and snatched the canvas lure from the air, mere inches from the tips of the unicorns’ horns.

Joy and terror both spurred Chan’s re-started heart to pound so hard and fast he felt it in his fingertips. She’d saved their charges. She’d almost killed herself. She’d trusted him to catch her.

But Chan didn’t have even half a moment to process, because the instant Mihn gripped the bag, she went painfully rigid. Her muscles locked and her spine arched so far backwards it looked liable to break like a dry twig. She bowed back so far he could see her face, see her locked jaw and wide eyes.

And then she shuddered, violent convulsions wracking her body while Chan clung desperately to her knees, the unicorns screaming like a chorus of starving ghosts below.