Julianne, normally calm as a summer’s breeze, stood, pushing the chair out behind her. “Watch your words, rearick. Have you no sense of loyalty? No sense of trust? Your time with the other miners has made your heart harder than the gems you pull from the Heights.”
Shifting to respond, Karl instinctively reached for his hammer.
“I’ll go with him,” Parker interjected, drawing all eyes to him. “If Julianne and Ezekiel trust him, I trust him. You might know the Guard, Marcus, but I know the streets better than anyone. I can get you inside and where you need to go. But be sure I’ll keep my eyes on you the whole time.”
“Me, too,” Hadley added. “All three of my eyes.”
The room went silent again as Marcus looked at them.
“Fair enough, kid,” Marcus said with a grin, before turning to Karl. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. But we have the same purpose here, which is protecting the people of Arcadia. I’ve been fighting to do that my whole life.”
Karl stared at him for what felt like an eternity before breaking into a laugh. “Screw it. We could use the guns. And ya might be an experienced fighter, but Parker here will skewer ya with ‘is spear and roast ya over a fire if ye betray us. I’ve seen ‘im do it before. At least then we’ll solve our food problem too.”
Marcus smiled and raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m willing to contribute to the cause, but I draw the line at being eaten. I’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”
Amelia cleared her throat, and with it, the tension in the room. “Not everyone is made for fists and swords. There are some nobles among us, and most of them will have had training at the academy.” She glanced at Karl. “Before anyone mentions the possibility that they, too, are plants from the mighty Adrien, I’ll be the first to admit that they could be. Hell, any of the folks who have joined us could be spies or saboteurs, and we’d never know. But we cannot waste resources, and most of the nobles here have been trained, at least to some extent, in the arts of physical magic. We need to use whatever they know for our cause.”
“Good point,” Hannah affirmed. “You want them?”
Amelia laughed. “Probably more need than want. But yes, I can take them. Like most nobles, those sons of bitches probably only learned enough to make it in the high-class world. It was a flaw in Adrien’s design from the beginning. He only taught those who had all they wanted. But now? Now there is a reason for them to learn more. I’ll set up classes, see how much they know, and start lessons back up.”
“School’s back in session, bitches!” Hannah said with a grin.
“That’s right.” Amelia smiled back. “And hopefully we have some scholars-in-waiting here. Who knows what potential we have in the building, but even if I only have a week or two, I can get them up to speed on the most basic defensive moves, at least.”
“What about the others?” Hannah asked. “The non-nobles. Surely Adrien’s restriction doesn’t apply here.”
Amelia looked like she was going to spit. “Absolutely not. But I don’t know if we have enough time to seek out and train those who’ve never tried to unlock their potential. But the Unlawfuls… I bet they’d know enough to learn how to fight. Anyone who’s been practicing undercover, in their basements and the back alleys of the Boulevard, send them my way. We’ll see how they do once they’ve got a real teacher to help them. Then, after this is all over, we’ll start looking for anyone else with untapped potential. But for now, they’d serve better in other non-magical ways.”
The group nodded their affirmation.
Ezekiel stood. “It’s settled then. Karl will lead the training of the able-bodied men and women. Teach them how to fight as dirty as they can.”
“All I know is dirty,” Karl offered with a sneer.
“Parker and Marcus will take Hadley and a small team to infiltrate the city walls.” He glanced at the three young men sitting at the other end of the table. “Be careful. Arcadia has never been on this level of high alert. Trust no one. Take no unnecessary risks.”
“Me? Take risks? Never!” Parker joked with a wink. “And I think I know just the volunteers for this sort of thing.”
Ezekiel turned toward Amelia. “You will take the nobles and anyone else we can find with an aptitude for the arts. Nothing tricky. Take the simplest forms and make them so damn good at them that you yourself would be tentative to fight them.”
“And me?” Julianne asked.
“Your job is subtle, but maybe the most important.”
She raised a brow.
“Move among the people and use your arts to raise morale. Right now, discouragement is their only food, despair their drink. Use the arts of the mystics. Make them strong and brave. Help them remember their love for Arcadia. Remind them that it is worth living for, worth dying for. Eleanor, you can help here as well. Do what you can with the rations, and find some folks to try their hand at hunting or laying traps.”
Maddie raised her hand tentatively. “What about me?”
Ezekiel smiled. “You’re going to be our envoy. Head to the nearest farms and villages. I can’t imagine anyone with half a heart denying your requests for aid. But Hannah, you should go with her for protection, in case you run across anyone who lacks even that much heart.”
Turning to the young engineer, he went on. “Gregory, you’re coming with me.”
The boy’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the older man. “No shit?”
There was a snort from down the table. “I don’t deal in shit, son. We’re going to see if we can wrestle up some new allies,” Ezekiel replied, his eyes glimmering. “The people I have in mind could help you with your defenses.”
He scanned the table and regarded the way the lines in their faces had deepened even after only a few months of knowing most of them. “Take care out there, every one of you. Your gifts are key to the work that lies ahead. Arcadia won’t be liberated without each of you. And may the Matriarch and Patriarch guide your steps.”
They all stood, as inspired as if Julianne had tweaked their brains. Ezekiel had helped them remember why they were there and what they were fighting for.
As the group moved toward the door, Ezekiel reached out and grabbed Hannah’s shoulder.
“You,” Ezekiel requested, “stay behind. We need to talk.”
CHAPTER THREE
The room grew quiet as the rest of the team shuffled out. Hannah took her seat and waited for Ezekiel’s attention. Finally, they were alone.
“We never came here,” Hannah said, her eyes scanning the place.
“There are a lot of places in the tower we didn’t go. Most of them weren’t needed. But now—now, we need more room.” Ezekiel laughed and shook his head. “Funny how it happens. Didn’t imagine we’d be back here, not like this.”
“It seems like it was a lifetime ago that you first brought me here, Zeke. It‘s like I was a different person then.”
His eyes sparkled in the light from the windows. “Hannah, you were. You have come so far. Grown so much. And given everything. The girl I watched heal her brother in the marketplace and transform a common newt is no more. Sure, there are traces of her deep inside you. But you are like a mighty oak at this point. Then you were just a sapling, growing its first few rings. Now look at you!”
Ezekiel pulled out his chair and sat. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he asked, “But how are you really doing?”
She nodded. “Good. Well, as much as can be expected, anyway. I wish Adrien’s head was rotting on a spike at the city gate, but a girl can only ask for so much.” She tried to form a smile, but she couldn’t push it through her words.
The man who had killed her family and destroyed the Boulevard was still out there, and she was thirsty for his blood.
“I know,” Ezekiel agreed. He dropped his hand. “That time will come. And when it does, you will be ready. But right now, there is something more important. I’m taking Gregory, and we will be away for a while. I don’t know how long, but
I think I can find some people to help us. While I am away, you will have to make this place your own. You will lead them.”
Her response was emphatic and quick. “Me? Hell, no.”
He grinned. “Hell, yes. You were made for this, and it is time for you to embrace your calling. To accept the challenge.”
“But Amelia…Karl…Julianne! They are real leaders, not me.”
Ezekiel stood and took up his staff from the floor. “They have experience, that is true. But they don’t have what you have.”
“And what is that?”
“The people.” The corner of his mouth curled as he tucked his robe into his belt. “They might not all know it, but they are here because of you. They’ve followed you. All their lives they’ve been waiting for a savior. What they don’t realize yet is that you are the one who has been sent. You will help them free themselves from their bondage.”
Hannah smirked. “Not sure if I’m comfortable with you talking about bondage, Zeke, or the Queen Bitch for that matter. But I will do what I can. Making this bunch of asshats into an army is a tall order. I’ll start by making sure they don’t tear each other’s heads off.”
Ezekiel reached out and gripped her arm. His eyes burned with the passion of decades of strife. “Now is not the time for screwing around, Hannah. I need to know that you are up for the task at hand. If our mission in Arcadia taught you anything, I pray it was the seriousness of our cause.”
Hannah swallowed hard. “I know better than most how serious our cause is.”
“Good,” Ezekiel responded. “The odds are against us, but if we do everything right, we might just be able to tilt the scales in our favor. Understand?”
Hannah only nodded.
“Good,” Ezekiel said again, then turned and left Hannah sitting alone in the room.
****
Parker placed his arms around Hadley and Marcus’ necks as they finished walking down the tower’s long stairway. “Gents, if we’re going to pull off this heist, then we’d better do it soon.”
“Soon?” Marcus asked with a grin, keeping pace with him. “We should have done it six days ago when the Capitol was still tripping over their own dicks. I have no idea what Adrien is doing right now, but you can bet your sweet ass that the Capitol Guard is on double shifts getting ready for just about anything from us. Magicians are quirky, but the military is predictable. They have the shit we need on lockdown. Mark my words.”
Mulling over Marcus’ information in his mind, Parker continued to walk in silence. In his life, he relied upon human nature. By nature, most humans didn’t notice shit unless they were trained to. His marks in the market square and even the disciples were humans in their most true sense. Ready and even willing to be deceived.
But the Guard was something totally different.
They had their humanity trained out of them. Parker wasn’t on a mission to pickpocket some gold from the pants of an unsuspecting tourist. He was preparing to go against a trained fighting force on high alert for the Witch Bitch and her crew.
“Well,” Parker finally said, “I’ve always loved a good challenge. If they have it on lockdown, then we just need to unlock it. Piece of cake.”
Marcus laughed. “I don’t doubt it for a second, Parker the Pitiable.” He paused in the corridor, and Hadley and Parker paused with him. “But we need to make a choice.” Crouching on the stone floor, he started to draw imaginary boxes on the ground. “There are several different weapons stashes that I know of.” He pointed at two imaginary spots. “These are smaller stores, but I guarantee they won’t be as well guarded.” He drew a bigger box far off to the side of the others. “This one is the motherlode. And it’ll be staffed by some badass Guards. At least, it was the last time I was there.”
Nodding, Parker replied, “Then the choice is made. If that one has the best shit, that’s the one we hit.”
Hadley grinned. “I knew you were going to say that.”
“Well, you are a mind reader, right?” Marcus responded.
“True. And you’ll be happy to have my mystic abilities once we’re inside the wall. My magic can give us a bit of cover and maybe some intel. But it can’t carry weapons. We’re gonna need more hands.”
“No problem.” Parker grinned. “A dangerous mission into enemy territory... I know just the folks. They’re some of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “There’s nothing like fighting with good men at your back.”
Parker laughed, and it echoed down the hallway. “Who said anything about men?”
****
Hannah and Amelia walked around the exterior of the tower. People had made their way outside by late morning and were trying to find some use for their idle hands. Hannah was concerned. She knew they had to give the people a purpose, and fast. But patience was still a virtue.
I’m screwed without Ezekiel here, she thought.
“No, you’re not,” Amelia answered the thoughts inside of Hannah’s head.
“Son of a bitch! I thought you were a physical user.”
Amelia laughed. “When I was young, I picked up on magic fast. Faster than most of the kids around me. It just kept coming and coming. As far as we know, I was the youngest to be taken into the Academy as a student. Adrien himself proctored my enrollment exam. Said I showed great potential.”
“He wanted to control you,” Hannah replied.
Amelia nodded. “It was a pretty terrible existence. At least, I thought so back then. Three years younger than any of the other assholes in the academy. Can’t say I really fit in.”
“I know the feeling. That’s how you became Dean so young?”
“Sure.” Amelia grinned. “I guess so. But more likely it was Adrien getting power over me. If you bathe people in accolades and promotions, they’ll follow you forever. At least, that’s what men like him think. Anyway, my best ability is learning, and learning fast. That’s a gift I never gave up. Plus, Julianne is one hell of a teacher. She’s been showing me the basics, and if you have the gift, the basics aren’t that hard. But you know that, don’t you?”
Sure do, Hannah agreed in Amelia’s head.
The Dean laughed. “You’re a freak of nature, aren’t you?”
“Who the hell are you calling freak?” Hannah asked with a faint smile.
“No, really. I mean, there was something that Ezekiel saw. Something different than anyone else. It was potential he hadn’t seen before. He has a job in mind for you.”
“Like ripping Adrien’s asshole out through his throat? Yeah, I think he does.”
Amelia stopped and looked deep into Hannah’s eyes. “No. Something else. Something bigger. Don’t be fooled. If saving Arcadia were Ezekiel’s end game, he would have taken the path of least resistance. Something big is happening here. I don’t know what it is, but that wily old man has a long game, and you’re a key part of it.”
Hannah grew silent as she wondered what the hell Amelia was talking about. For a second she thought about asking, but decided to wait. The Dean was much like Ezekiel, not prone to speak until the moment was right.
They walked side by side until they approached a group of Arcadians huddled in a mass outside of the large doors of the tower. The women paused and watched the group do not much of anything at all.
“So,” Hannah finally asked, “your job is to find folks who can do magic. How the hell do you do that? Do we just ask for a show of hands?”
“That might work, actually. But at the school, we could usually sense if someone had potential way before they did anything. It was something in their eyes.”
She looked at the crowd of common folk, then back at Hannah “One thing we know is that magic is inside everyone. Whatever enables it runs through everyone’s blood. I keep asking Ezekiel how this happened, and he promises to tell me, just not yet. But it’s there, and I trust him. That threw me off at first. I spent my life learning that magic had to be restricted, that it was only for the best of us. Wh
en I was young, I was glad to hear it. The restriction made me stand out from everyone else.”
Hannah’s stomach churned as she remembered the day not so long before when the Hunters cornered her in the alleyway off the market. “But you don’t think that anymore.”
“Hard to, now.” Amelia shrugged. “I’ve seen too much. Learned too much from Ezekiel.”
Hannah nodded toward the mass. “So, how do we know?”
“What? Who has magic?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Hannah replied.
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
Hannah stared back without an answer.
“They all do. We all do. Our job isn’t to find out which ones have it. That would be foolish, like asking which fish can swim. Our job is to find the ones able to use it, the ones ready to explore power and possibility. Like Ezekiel did with you.”
Hannah shook her head a little. “Ezekiel has told me about this before, but it doesn’t make sense. If they all have it, why don’t we have a million Unlawfuls walking around and blowing shit up? They should have been kicking noble ass years ago.”
“Why didn’t you use it?” Amelia asked with a grin. “Magic was in you all along, dying to emerge. But the story you’d heard since your birth denied that. It was for the select few. The nobles. If we told our kids from birth that they couldn’t walk, what do you think would happen? Or to put it a better way, if we told them from day one that they could fly, what do you think they’d be capable of?”
Hannah stared, ignoring the question. They both knew the answer.
“In the same way,” Amelia continued, “our people—your people, the ones in the Boulevard— believed it was impossible for them to wield magic because they’d been told they couldn’t all their lives. And the few brave enough to try were punished, often killed on sight. But now we need to change that.”
Revolution - C M Raymond & L E Barbant Page 3