The first strange, static crackle of Mercy's blood reminds Yelena just a little of the sparking copper snakes that had infested Steel's demesne, and her gaze drops, scanning the grass for motion, shoulders tense. For a moment, the alien howl that follows in the wake of the incantation is almost a relief - but then it keeps rising, and the air flickers like the wake of a severe blow to the head.

"It looks wrong," she says, eyes fixing on that strange, distorted space. Her hands flex, open and empty for the moment, though the small knife she'd offered for the sacrifice is hardly the only one she's brought along.