by Megan Crewe
My stomach knotted. We’d seen footage of that bombing during training—the cars thrown off the rails, some of them collapsed and smoking. Dozens dead, hundreds injured, because of a magical explosive on the tracks. The Borci Za Spravedlivost, which apparently loosely translated as “Warriors for Justice,” had left their mark.
The Borci were a militant mage group based primarily in Russia but operating throughout the countries that had once been part of that empire. The Kremlin and their official mage association have publicly denounced the attacks, Hamlin had explained during training, but evidence suggests they’re pulling the strings behind the scenes. Conveniently, more often than not the Borci chooses targets the government would want to intimidate.
The train bombing had happened just a few days after Estonia had refused the terms of a major trade deal with Russia.
The politics made my head spin. The situation sounded complicated enough without us shoving ourselves into the mix. But the Borci had also targeted US ambassadors and European branches of American companies, and the nonmagical militants they associated with were waging their own kind of digital war on us over the internet. I could see why our Dull government was taking action.
Hamlin ran his hand over his buzzcut. “We have no reason to believe these men will be on the premises tonight. You’ll go in, question the inhabitants to determine if they have any useful intel or are sympathizers themselves, search the premises for illegal magical items, and then get back out. Rojanwan?”
Sam stood up at his name. He was only a couple inches taller than me, and his frame was slim, but you could tell just from that motion how strong those lean muscles were. He managed to smile even now, but his expression was tighter than yesterday.
“Lopez, you’ll be going in with me and Brand,” he said. “You can shadow one of us the whole time. Powell, you’ll stay with Sekibo in the chopper, taking care of monitoring and communications.”
“There’s our team,” Hamlin said. He looked at each of us, his gaze coming to a stop on me. He tipped his head slightly, and I remembered his sort-of pep talk yesterday when he’d told me I was ready for my first field mission. You’ve got the skills. It’s been a pleasure training you, and I’m looking forward to seeing how far you can go. So keep your head on straight out there. I don’t want to lose my best student, all right?
It was kind of nice knowing someone in charge cared whether I survived, even if he thought I was slightly delusional.
“Take it slow and steady,” he added now. “Maybe we’re not going to catch these killers tonight, but you can get us one step closer to shutting them down. Work together like you’ve trained, watch each other’s backs, and make us proud.”
At his gesture, we all stood up. My pulse rattled through my ears as I followed Sam out the door.
It was really happening. I was about to set off on an actual military mission, like a soldier. No, not just like. I was a soldier now.
What would my parents have thought seeing me hustle toward the waiting chopper? What would Javi have said? This wasn’t the future they’d ever have wanted for me. It wasn’t what I’d wanted for myself, Dios lo sabe.
As we jogged across the dark concrete yard, I dug my hands deep into my pockets and turned to the mantra I’d been repeating since the first days of training.
I could be more than a soldier. I could be more than a magical talent the Confed used for its own purposes.
This was my first chance to really interact with anyone in the division other than the other new Champions and Hamlin. Maybe tonight I could start winning support for my purpose.
Our shoes rasped against the sidewalk in the quiet of the street. The yellow light from the streetlamps glanced off the dark windows and pastel clapboard of the houses we were striding past, none of them more than two stories tall. Not much nightlife in this little town.
A chilly breeze licked over me, and I tugged the zipper of my hoodie the last few notches up to my chin. I had the hood pulled low, the thick fabric providing a helm of magical protection. But if the concealment ’chantments we’d cast on ourselves did their work, no one should notice us passing by at all.
Sam, Brandt, and our translator marched ahead of me without hesitation. A loose shingle rattled somewhere across the street, and it took all my self-control not to flinch.
“No unusual activity so far,” Desmond said through my earpiece. “It looks as still as Hoth out there.”
He and Tonya were monitoring the area via satellite feed and also periodic magical scans. I guessed it made sense the commanders would assign him that job. With all his practice monitoring his surroundings with magic to supplement his vision, he was probably more experienced at those kinds of castings than a lot of the senior operatives were.
Sam pointed to a house near the corner, blue paint flaking around the windows. “We always do a close scan before entry,” he murmured. “You conduct your own, Lopez, and we’ll compare results.”
He sang out a brief line under his breath in a language I didn’t recognize. The magic coursing through the air around us quivered in a way that amped up my nerves. I closed my eyes and drew in a breath, letting that energy flood over my tongue before I shaped it to my intent.
The casting we’d learned in training was a much more focused version of the scans Desmond and Tonya would be conducting. It should pick up pretty much any trace of magic, but even checking a single building took a fair bit of effort. I stretched out the syllables of the lyric I’d picked, raising and lowering my pitch in a controlled rhythm, waiting until the magic around me resonated in harmony. Then I sang faster, making the rhythm turn staccato.
The energy flowed out toward the house. It quivered through my thoughts at the same time, sparking a vague impression of a hollow space expanding behind my eyes. Nothing in the three rooms on the ground floor. Nothing at the front of the second floor. Then a glimmer shone against the emptiness as my conjured wave washed over the back rooms. Just a faint flicker before I lost it again. The wave washed away, and my eyes popped open, taking in the outside of the house again.
Sam was watching me. He must have conducted scans like that so many times it barely took any thought at all.
“There’s something ’chanted or conjured,” I said. “Small, not much power to it—I only barely caught it—in the room at the back of the second floor. The rest of the house looked clear.”
Sam’s eyebrows twitched upward for an instant before he caught them. “Back room on the second floor,” he said. “Are you sure?”
Hadn’t he noticed it? “I definitely felt something,” I said. “I’ve got no idea what it was.”
He made a humming sound. “We’ll have a look, then.”
It’d been impossible not to realize during training that my magical ability went way beyond any of the other new Champions. I hadn’t thought about whether that might extend to the older operatives. But almost everyone who entered the Exam had been rejected by the college for having too weak a talent, not too strong. Specialized practice would have gotten my senior operatives pretty far, but I might outpace them quickly too.
I didn’t completely like that idea, but I clung to the little boost of confidence that came with it. If I impressed Sam and the others with my connection to the magic, they’d be more likely to believe me when I shared what else I’d learned about it.
Sam stepped up to the house and rapped on the door, calling out a request in Estonian and then Russian to cover all the bases. This town, like many near the border, had a large Russian population.
After a moment, he knocked again, louder. A woman’s voice carried through the door. She sounded both groggy and worried. Sam said something in an even voice and motioned to the translator to add a few comments. The door swung open.
As we filed in, the family we were intruding on assembled in their living room around the worn but sturdy-looking furniture. The scent of roast meat lingered, I assumed from their dinner earlier. The husband and wife looked a little o
lder than my parents, a faint spidering of wrinkles lining the corners of their eyes and mouths. Those creases deepened as Sam flashed his ID. They didn’t look guilty, only frightened.
Their shoulders tensed even more when their teenaged son tramped downstairs. I pegged him as thirteen or fourteen, but the dark scowl he aimed at us wasn’t at all childish. A bruise colored his cheek purple around a freshly scabbed scrape.
“There are two men who’ve been seen coming and going from your house,” Sam said, with our translator echoing him. He held out a photo of the men. “You’re not in any trouble. We’re just trying to find out their current location and anything else you might be able to tell us about their regular whereabouts or plans.”
The husband and wife exchanged a look. Their son bristled. As his father shot a glower his way, his mother started to speak in a wavering voice.
“She doesn’t know anything about what those men do,” the translator said. “She and her husband don’t ask. They would get into trouble if they interfere. They’d rather be left in peace, but they don’t have much choice.”
That response didn’t seem to surprise any of my colleagues. They hadn’t expected these people to be terrorist sympathizers. They were just victims we’d barged in on in the middle of the night. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, not sure what I could contribute here or whether I even wanted to.
“You haven’t overheard anything at all?” Sam said to the wife. “If we find them, we can make sure they don’t bother you anymore.”
When she shook her head with another apology, he turned to her son. “What about you? Have you talked with them?”
The boy’s chin jutted out. “You don’t belong here,” he said in stilted English. “Why don’t you go?”
His father clamped a hand on his shoulder with a hushing sound. Sam’s calm tone didn’t falter.
“We have an agreement with your government to help them investigate potential criminals,” he said.
The boy looked uncertain until he got the translation. Obviously his English wasn’t that great. Once he had it, he wrinkled his nose at us and spat out a string of Russian.
“He says they’re not his government,” the translator said, with a hint of exasperation. “This place should be for Russia.”
“Well, we’re not here to debate international politics,” Sam said. “We just want to catch some killers.”
“The kid’s obviously the one who’s been encouraging these guys to come around,” Brandt said. “We can’t let him off the hook.”
Our mission leader gave the blunt-nosed guy a mild glance. “I don’t think badgering him is going to convert him to our cause.” He turned to the parents. “We’d like to do a quick search of the house to make sure these men haven’t left anything unsafe behind.”
At the translation, the husband nodded wearily. I wondered if we would have let him refuse if he’d tried to.
Sam motioned for me to follow him. “You keep an eye on the family,” he said to Brandt. “Maybe we’ll turn up something we can use to encourage the kid to open up.”
Brandt let out a huff of breath, but he didn’t argue.
Sam and I moved through the dining room and kitchen, and then upstairs to the bedrooms, starting at the front. We opened and closed cupboards, checked dresser drawers and closets, even peeked under the mattress in the master bedroom. Sam moved with a deliberate care, leaving the rooms no messier than we’d found them. That fact only made me a little less uncomfortable.
As we headed to the last bedroom, the one at the back where I’d sensed some sort of minor magic, a thump and a curse carried up the stairs. Sam froze, but before he had to call down, Brandt’s brusque voice traveled to us.
“Everything’s under control. I get the impression there’s something up there the kid doesn’t want you to find.”
A jitter rippled around me with a pinch of discomfort. Brandt had conducted a casting the magic wasn’t all that happy about.
We’d already searched the bedroom that must have been the boy’s: an unmade twin bed with the smell of stale sweat on sheets that hadn’t been washed in a while, band posters tacked over the desk. Sam caught my eye outside the last bedroom. He gripped the doorknob, but it jammed. Locked.
Sam inhaled, and I could sense the shape of the casting he was about to draw forth—a punch of pressure to snap the lock. The energy in the air cringed.
“Wait!” I said. “I can open it as fast as breaking it.”
“We don’t have time for—”
I’d just have to prove it. My mouth dry, I barreled into my own casting. To loosen, to open. “Que se abra la puerta…”
I directed the magic into the keyhole against the dips and ridges that could turn the tumbler. With a few last forceful words, I flipped it over.
“Lopez!” Sam said, his voice low but severe. “I’m your mission leader here. What I say goes.”
I’d never seen him look even remotely stern before. I jerked back from the door, my hands dropping to my sides. Mierda. The last thing I wanted was for him to be pissed off at me.
“Sorry,” I said, a flush spreading over my face. “I thought the point was to unlock the door. I wasn’t trying to go against your orders.”
Sam tested the knob, and the door squeaked open. For a second, he just blinked at it. His expression started to soften. “I’ve never seen anyone work that kind of casting that fast.”
“I just figured, since I could…”
He set his hand on my shoulder, and in that moment, the genuine concern in his dark brown eyes brought back an echo of Javi’s presence. “Look, I get it. This time, a few seconds didn’t make a difference. But sometimes even one second matters. Locks can be fixed. Lots of other things can’t. Like this, for example.” He knuckled the side of my head above my ear in a way that only intensified the brotherly impression. “Let’s see what we’ve got in here.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d made any progress at all with him, but at least he hadn’t completely chewed me out. And I’d proven I could make an alternate, nondestructive casting work.
We entered the room more cautiously than the others, but it looked pretty ordinary: a bed, this one neatly made except where it looked as if a couple people had sat on the edge, a bare desk and chair in the corner, and a matching wardrobe. A few scraps of paper remained on the desk. Sam checked them, frowning, and took photos of them with his phone. “Just in case,” he said.
I murmured to the magic, a wisp of my earlier scan. The energy shivered when I directed it toward the bed. I knelt to peer underneath and fished out a notebook with a creased cover.
Sam and I flipped through it together. Nothing about the pages looked menacing to me. They held little pen sketches, rough patterns and pictures. Then Sam pressed his thumb next to one, and the lines twitched and jumped with a faint ’chantment. Oh.
“Is that some kind of code?” I asked.
The mission leader shook his head. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before—practice exercises to focus the mind. Looks like the kid is trying to develop a talent.”
“You think he ’chanted these pictures?”
Sam gave me a crooked smile. “That’s how these groups often rope in new recruits. The kid probably didn’t know much about what he could do. No opportunities here to grow a talent. These guys take notice and start treating him like he’s important. Teaching him, earning his loyalty.” He dropped the notebook onto the bed. “And then they’ll order him to use his talent to destroy anyone who stands in the way of their goals, whatever those happen to be that day.”
He snapped pictures of the sketches and tucked the notebook back under the bed where I’d found it.
“That’s it,” I said. “That must be the bit of magic I sensed. There’s nothing else here?”
“It looks that way,” Sam said. “That happens a lot. Things like that notebook are why we can’t jump to conclusions from an outside scan. At least half of the time we don’t turn up anything we can
use, and the rest, what we do turn up isn’t very conclusive. But the missions are worth it for the times when we hit on something good. We can keep a closer eye on the son, and that might lead us somewhere. He might even end up volunteering information if we play things right.”
He led the way back downstairs. The couple was still standing where we’d left them, tensed and worried, in the middle of the living room. The translator was talking with them in a soft voice. Brandt stood next to the son, who was sitting very stiffly in the armchair.
It only took a glance and a taste of the uneasiness in the room’s energy for me to figure out what had happened. The boy had made some kind of move, and Brandt had magically bound him to the chair.
“We’ll talk to their son alone for a few minutes,” Sam said to the translator. “Tell them he isn’t being arrested or anything.”
The father’s face tightened, and the mother’s eyes widened, but they moved into the kitchen after a few brief comments back and forth. The translator came to join us.
Sam caught Brandt’s eye and cocked his head. The younger officer released the ’chantment with a mutter under his breath. Latin, it sounded like—he must have been an Academy graduate.
The boy started to spring up, but Sam held up his hand, and the kid paused. He met the mission leader’s eyes with a defiant gleam in his. Sam bent so their faces were level.
“We found your notebook upstairs,” he said quietly. “You have a talent—you can work with the magic. You don’t want your parents to know?”
The boy paled a little as the translation came, but his mouth stayed clamped shut. Every country had its tensions between mages and the nonmagical, prejudices that could go as far as violence, and Estonia obviously wasn’t one of the more relaxed ones.
“We won’t tell them,” Sam went on. “But if you want to learn, there are ways you can do it without tying yourself to criminals. Those men, they’ve hurt people—killed people. I don’t think you really want to be a part of that. If you reach out to the Confederation’s magical forces, we can help you and teach you without asking anything in return. Here’s the number. You can call it any time. Say Samak gave it to you.”