"Yeah, this should work fine." Alexa stepped out of the darkness, green light draining from her eyes into the rest of her body.

Sarah heard a thud come out of the room behind her, and looking back she could see a billow of dust rising from where Finn had tripped and fallen inside.

"Need a hand?" she called back.

"Yes. Or a light," he answered.

Sarah walked back and guided him out of the deeper parts of the dilapidated offices until he could see his steps by the light coming from the main warehouse. Once he got out with the other two, Finn leaned back, stretching out from the way he'd been holding his head down while shuffling blind through the shadows. He rolled his shoulders and hopped a couple of times on the balls of his feet.

"Ok, I promised I'd wait for you two, so now what?" Finn's eyes were wide, and he was shifting his balance from foot to foot as he talked.

"Well, you already know how we all use the fog, right?" said Sarah. "Our colors, the way I put it in stuff, Alexa absorbs it, and I guess you concentrate it in the air."

Finn just nodded, and made a little circular motion with his hands, asking her to go on.

"Ok, so you did whatever you did in the hospital. Me, well, you see my coat, right? I put blue fog into it, obviously," said Sarah, indicating her leather jacket. The blue gleam of it cut through the grey light, making it clear to Finn what Sarah meant. She took off her jacket, setting it on the ground and standing well back. It folded itself up, neatly, like it was sitting on a shelf in a shop somewhere. Then it unfolded itself and walked back to Sarah, standing on its tail and moving with a sort of gorilla motion. The jacket used its arms to propel itself until it reached Sarah's legs, where crawled up her body and set itself neatly on her shoulders.

"That's what I can do," said Sarah. "Well, more than just that, but you get the idea, right?"

Finn had leaned back, holding his hands up in front of himself when the leather started moving. He'd leaned forward when it slithered up Sarah's body and he was about to step forward and inspect it more closely when Alexa cleared her throat. He froze and whipped his head over to look at her. Alexa picked up an old piece of rebar from under a rusty pile, inhaled all the green mist they could see, and proceeded to coil the rebar up into a tight spiral.

"And that's what I can do," said Alexa. "With that in mind, I hope you understand why we didn't really want you messing around. Especially in my car."

"Yeah I get it, but that's why we're here, right?" Finn was swinging his arms now, back and forth in sync, like he was stretching again.

"That's why we're here," repeated Alexa. She looked around at the black mold climbing the brick walls, at the jagged steel beams that still stretched overhead, and at the piles of trash and rust scattered about. She pointed at a door in the back of the warehouse, and said, "Ok, here's how we'll do this. Sarah and I will go over there, through the door, but we'll leave it open so we can see you. You stand kinda close to the door and you'll try and aim everything for the far wall. Start small, as small as you can manage. Don't really go crazy until you know you won't collapse this whole place doing it, ok?"

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Alexa didn't wait for an answer and moved directly to the door. It didn't give when she tried the lever, so she just tried again and pushed until the whole door squealed and fell off its hinges. The door slammed against the ground, and Sarah could see the treeline just a short way through the open doorway. This building must be right on the edge of the complex. Sticking her head outside, she could see the bit of parking lot that surrounded this side of the building, the trees, and the hills in the distance. But no other cars, buildings, nothing but nature. Alexa had stepped outside, and the wind was streaming her hair off to the side.

"Here, Sarah, look at this," said Alexa. She pulled out a little silk bag from her pocket and handed it to Sarah. "I was practicing the other night, making sure I could be careful and not break stuff, and I thought you'd like this."

Sarah took the bag and opened it up. Inside were maybe half a dozen little paper swans, descending in size. Each was perfect, with perfect creases, with perfect proportions, and the smallest couldn't have been bigger across than a dime.

"You made these?"

"Yeah," answered Alexa. "Just for practice, but I thought you might want to see if you could do anything with them."

Sarah smiled, but before she could answer a loud noise cracked from inside the building. They both turned in time to see the flash of white light fade away.

"Cool," said Finn. Looking inside, she could see scorch marks and smoldering leaves on the floor in front of him. He reached his hand out and more red mist gathered into a round ball just beyond his fingertips. And then before Sarah could hardly make out the shape, sparks erupted from his hand and arced out again, grounding itself into the floor.

Finn looked over at the girls watching him, his eyes shining bright in the darkness, and he gathered another ball, this time gathering up from as far as Sarah could sense. She and Alexa both turned their heads and covered their eyes as lightning flared again. This time the lightning was bright enough that Sarah could see the light through her hands and eyelids, and the sound was loud enough that it knocked her down.

"Sorry, sorry!" shouted Finn before Sarah could process what had happened. When Sarah opened up her eyes, she noticed that the newest scorch marks weren't any farther from him than before. Even if some of the weeds and leaves were actually burning.

"Well, at least it'll be an hour before you can do that again," said Alexa. Finn frowned and held his hand out again. Somehow Sarah knew he was pulling just as hard as before, but he still only managed a tiny ball of red light. The spark it produced disappeared before it got six inches from Finn's fingers.

"You use your eyes, right?" scoffed Alexa. "You'll have to wait for the magic to come back from wherever it comes from. Actually, don't, keep practicing. Now you have to work small and I don't have to worry about blowing out my eardrums."

Sarah turned away from the two of them to look at the little swans in her hand. She took the biggest and dumped a pinch into it, turning it blue. It took three more pinches to fill it all the way up, and she put the remainder into the little silk bag. The little swan flexed its wings up and down. Then it unfolded itself in her hands. She held up the paper to Alexa, showing it to her as even the creases disappeared, leaving a pristine square of origami paper.

"Can you fold it up again?" Sarah handed the paper back to Alexa. Alexa took the paper and frowned at Sarah too.

"I'm already dealing with one dumbass, and now you wreck my present?" Alexa stuck her tongue out at Sarah, then looked around. "And no, I can't do it again. I need somewhere clean to set it down and fold it again."

"Fine," said Sarah, suppressing a smile. The paper started to shift again in Alexa's hands, folding itself back into a swan, perfect creases back in place.

"Right, of course. You're not just wrecking my present, you're showing off," said Alexa. "Should have just brought you a ream of printer paper."

"They're beautiful," said Sarah. The origami swan in her hands flexed its wings again, and then launched itself into the air, leaving a trail of blue light as it spun a circle around Alexa.