Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) by D.W. Moneypenny Page B

abilities?”
    “I don’t think so.” She pondered it for a second and then looked up. “What was supposed to happen? How does your Mara use this thing?”
    “She observes the sample like you did, absorbs as much about it as she can. Then she uses the Chronicle to alter the steam to incorporate the characteristics of the sample.”
    “We were making transparent steam? What use is that?”
    “This was just an exercise to show you how the Chronicle worked. I never said the result would be something with a practical application. Given the circumstances, I should have listened to my first impulse and discouraged you from coming in here. There’s no point in continuing. We might just make things worse.”
    “Oh, no you don’t. We are not quitting now, not until I figure this thing out. I’m not staying like this for the rest of my life.” She stepped up to the Chronicle of Cosms. “What do we do next?”
    Ping sighed and squinted at her. “You’re lucky I didn’t suggest we look at a sample of chocolate. That was what my Mara and I used as a sample the first time we worked in the lab together.”
    “Yeah, yeah. I’d be a giant candy bar instead of a living pickle jar. I need more instruction and less commentary, if you don’t mind,” she said.
    “Very well, but please be careful. I don’t want you to make things worse for yourself.”
    She growled in frustration.
    He raised a hand to calm her, pointed to the turntable and said, “Rotate the glass sample in this direction and remove it. Then line up the sample container with the steam so it may be viewed through the Chronicle.”
    She complied and held out the tiny globe with the glass shards to him. He shook his head and said, “You must take that with you. Just keep it in your left hand for now.”
    Dropping it into her left palm, she asked, “Take it with me where?”
    He pointed to the container of steam on the turntable. “In there.”
    She gave it a sidelong glance, then looked back at Ping, frowning. “I’m not following you. What are you saying?”
    “It might be easier to show you than explain the process. Just follow my directions, and you should be just fine,” he said. He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face the eyepiece. “Look through the Chronicle just like you did before. Remember to concentrate on the steam and think about the characteristics of glass as you saw them during your earlier examination.”
    Mara leaned forward and peered through the top end of the device. As before, she saw the steam roiling before her. “Okay. I see the steam. Now what?”
    “Grasp the end of the Chronicle as if you were adjusting the focus on a microscope,” Ping said.
    Since she still held the sample globe filled with broken glass in her left hand, she raised her right and put her thumb and forefinger on each side of the tube. A shock ran through her fingertips, up through her arm and throughout her body. She felt herself falling. Startled, she dropped the sample container and reached out for something to hold on to. She found Ping’s arm and dug her fingers into him. A spinning blue light filled the periphery of her vision and stretched out below her, forming a long brilliant tunnel through which she sensed herself falling.
    Behind her, she still had a grip on Ping’s arm, and she could hear him screaming, loudly echoing. He too was falling, but the pressure of air whipping by kept her from twisting around to see him or from catching her breath. It made her wonder how he could do all that screaming if he couldn’t breathe either. Lightheadedness pressed in on her as the bright blue light surrounding them faded to black.
    Her head snapped forward, and she found herself standing in clouds of steam, staring at Ping’s back several feet away. He spun around, panicked. What looked like a stick fell from the air above, landing between them with a series of metallic clangs as it bounced end to end, settling with a tinny drum roll.
    Mara