by Megan Crewe
This wasn’t who I wanted to be.
The other insurgent heaved himself back to his feet. The magic clamped around me with a frantic pressure, and I groped for all the strength I could find through my horror.
Dios mío, let this work. I called out the other lyric I’d picked, setting my feet at a slightly different rhythm, and hurled all the energy I could conduct at the final attacker.
It walloped the masked man flat against the floor, pinning him in place, but his groan told me I hadn’t killed him. The magic’s grip loosened around me with a whiff of relief. I dashed to the doors without time to enjoy it. I didn’t know how long my conjured vice would hold.
I yanked open the door to the communications room. “If the goddamned Dull president would just listen,” Hamlin was rasping. His voice cut off at the squeak of the hinges. He, Commander Revett, one of the other senior officers, and two combat soldiers were braced in a row inside.
“The hall’s clear!” Desmond shouted from behind me.
The officials rushed to join us. Our reprieve only lasted a few more seconds. Another barrage of castings shrieked toward us from down the hall. The magic jerked around me in a spasm and smashed into the wall, denting the wood.
Hamlin leapt in front of me and Desmond to shield us from the worst of the attack. I choked out a defensive casting. The mages around me were singing out lyrics in the languages they each turned to. At my right, Commander Revett thrust out her knobby hand with a hasty line in Ancient Greek—and the magic barely shifted at her command.
Just ahead of me, Hamlin was hollering too, but his castings wavered as they flew to meet the enemy. Had the attackers damaged their connection to the magic somehow?
I conducted more barriers into being with my hoarsening voice. Yells echoed off distant walls. “Reinforcements are arriving,” Sam announced through my earpiece.
The magical attacks ebbed as our assailants must have shifted their focus in the other direction. Commander Revett strode forward with no sign of distress at the possible loss of her magic, only determination. Had she not even realized she’d been weakened?
I mumbled a quiet verse as Desmond and I hurried along with them. With the melody, I reached my awareness toward Revett’s head and then Hamlin’s, hearkening for that glowing spot where their minds were attuned to the magic. The spot where, in the last desperate moments of the Exam, I could have burned out one of my fellow examinees if I hadn’t caught myself.
The energy I conducted quivered against that glow. I didn’t sense any ’chantment clouding it. But in both Revett and Hamlin, the pulse of the energy felt tenuous and tattered. Not what I’d have expected from one harsh blow; it was more as if their ability had been worn down by a gradual battering. When I turned my attention to the other official, who looked to be in his forties, I felt the same thing.
The fraying was worst in Revett, who had to be at least ten years older than the others. Her connection was stripped down to a trembling thread.
Age made a difference, then? But I’d never heard of a talent declining as a mage got older. From what my parents had said, their Dampered abilities had been the same since they were teens.
My gaze tripped back down the hall to the spot where the magic had bashed the wall like a wild creature. My mouth went dry.
I’d felt the way it tore at me in its anguish. What if it struck out even more directly at the mages who repeatedly cast the spells it hated? Lashing back at them, wearing down their ability to call on it at all?
“Last combatant down,” a voice said through my earpiece. “Other units report.”
“We’re clear here,” Sam said.
“No continuing activity in the east wing,” Commander Revett said into her mic, her pace slowing.
I couldn’t help staring at her for a second before I yanked my eyes away. My understanding of the world had just tipped in a familiar way. Like the first time one of my Dull classmates had tripped me and spat the slur “bruja-ratera” at my back, and I’d realized my kindergarten teacher didn’t have the power or the will to do anything but chide weakly and flutter her hands—and then look the other way when it happened again.
Our victory weighed on me. We’d won mainly by slaughtering our foes exactly the same way they’d meant to slaughter us. And the magic—I’d never felt it so frenzied. What if it had hit one of us with the same force with which it’d smacked the wall? What if next time it broke completely?
Slow and steady wasn’t enough. I had to get through to the other operatives soon.
But even as that realization shot through me, a tiny spark of hope penetrated my queasy exhaustion, very different from that hopeless moment years ago.
Diffusing the explosive ’chantment had tired me out, but I’d still managed to fend off at least one of our attackers without destroying his life in the process. Fighting while protecting the magic was possible. And if what I’d noticed about the senior officials was true across all the senior National Defense officers… If using the magic to do harm had hindered, over time, their ability to cast… then the young recruits like us had an edge none of us would’ve imagined.
I didn’t need to convince the high command to change tactics. Getting people like Sam and Brandt to understand what was happening to the magic could be more than just the first step in a long process—it could be a real victory right there.
Once I had enough of my fellow operatives on my side, it didn’t matter what the officials believed. If we had to, we could force them to listen.
Chapter Eight
Finn
My whole life, the one thing I’d been able to count on was that my family name would bring me advantages—often ones I hadn’t asked for or wanted. I hadn’t realized just how much of a cushion that was until I’d entered in this new life, where most of the people around me would have flinched away if I’d properly introduced myself.
To some extent, though, presenting myself just as plain old Finn was freeing. Like Odysseus returning home in disguise to take stock incognito, I drew no special attention in the more worn clothes I’d picked for my fourth meeting with the League. I moved through the crowded room, catching up in brief snatches of conversation with various members I’d talked to over the last few weeks, and no one saw me as anything other than a fellow reject of the Confed’s system. No one expected anything all that great from me, but no one expected villainy either.
Even the guy with the mohawk, who’d sneered at old-magic types during the Exam, gravitated toward me as if we were friends. I’d like to think we were becoming that. I might not have had his name—Mark—until our second meeting, but I knew how adamantly he would stand by his principles, even if his attitude wasn’t the most welcoming.
“I need to get a better bed,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders where we’d come to a stop near the refreshments table. “Crashing on an air mattress in my aunt’s basement is no way to live.”
He’d told me before that he’d decided to stay on in New York rather than head back to his mom in San Diego because there were things he still wanted to do. I supposed the main thing was finding answers about his brother, who’d made Champion some time ago. I shouldn’t have been able to remember that, though, and I wasn’t going to push Mark to open up more if he wasn’t ready to. In any case, he was making do here on very limited funds.
“Any luck with the job search?” I asked.
“Still stuck with the overnight janitor gig, and they won’t give me more than three shifts a week. So far, any place else takes one look at my mark and my hair and gets all edgy.” He grimaced and bit into the blueberry danish he’d taken from a platter on the table. His eyebrows jumped up. “Wow, this is a step up from the usual grub.”
“You think so?” I said, keeping my expression neutral. Over the past three meetings, I’d gathered that Luis and a few of the other longtime League members grabbed the desserts for these get-togethers at a major discount for being on the verge of staleness. Tonight I’d stopped at my favo
rite bakery on my way over and picked up a spread I’d ordered in advance.
We were working on important matters here—we deserved a good snack now and then. Why shouldn’t I contribute what I could?
I didn’t want to emphasize those monetary-based contributions, though. I’d gotten here early so that only a handful of people had seen me bringing in the tray. It was easier to enjoy Mark’s enjoyment without questions about how I had the means to make that donation.
“They are good,” Noemi said from where she’d come up by my other side. She licked the remnants of icing from her thumb and returned to Mark’s unemployment conundrum. “Isn’t there a law against discrimination based on magical status? I read that the Confederation pushed to have one passed just a little while after the Unveiling.”
“It’s not like they tell me that’s the problem,” Mark said. “They say I’m not a good fit or what-the-hell-ever. But I see the way they look at me.”
Tamara, the middle-aged Dampered mage who’d been spearheading the movement toward a full-out protest, was ambling by. She stopped and gave Mark a tight but sympathetic smile.
“Getting rid of the Burnout marks is one of the issues we need to push the Circle on. There’s no reason for it except to shame people—for what? Wanting to keep their bond with the magic? What’s so shameful about that?” She shook her head, the wooden beads at the ends of her tightly braided hair clicking.
“They want everyone who looks at us to have a constant reminder of the consequences of refusing their judgment,” I said. It gave them an easy way to identify those inclined toward resistance as well.
Tamara hummed. “And isn’t it convenient that none of the relatives of anyone in the Circle are ever anything but Chosen? The bias couldn’t be more obvious, and it means they’ve got no personal stake where we could apply pressure.”
My pulse hitched. It was because of that assumption that no one here would ever guess I was the grandnephew of Raymond Lockwood. Not that my situation made Tamara’s comment any less true. Granduncle Raymond didn’t give a flying toga what happened to me; he only cared about how I affected family appearances.
“There are other ways of making the issue personal,” I pointed out. “I was going through some old records”—a scrapbook of my mother’s, actually—“and it looks like Jacqueline Allerton was heavily involved in the early integration efforts. I’ll dig up as much as I can, but appealing to her activist side might get us somewhere.”
“That’s something, anyway.” Tamara looked around the room. “If we can ever get a proper protest off the ground. I think a lot of people wish this was still just a support group where all we did was vent and then go home.”
As if on cue, a voice crackled from the microphone on the stage. “Freedom of Magic people! Enough chatting. We’ve got big things to discuss today.”
I wasn’t all that surprised that the speaker hadn’t waited for introductions when I saw who it was. Ary, the skinny, sharp-eyed young woman who’d ranted against burning out during my first meeting here, had a temper I could only call irrepressible. Today the streaks in her long black hair were a deep blood-red that seemed to fit her mood better than her previous pink. Luis was leaning against the wall at the side of the stage, watching her, so he mustn’t have minded her taking the lead.
Ary’s hair swung against her back as she paced on the stage. “The first-year placement exams are coming up at the college. All those Chosen mages are looking forward to finding out what cushy careers they can get started on while we’re here begging for whatever scraps the Confederation will give us. Does anyone here actually think that’s right?”
“Hell, no!” someone hollered from the crowd, and a little cheer went up around him.
“So, let’s remind them that we exist. Let’s remind them who they’re stepping over to get those placements. Let’s bash through the Confed’s whole damn system! If we don’t get a chance at that kind of future, why should they have it handed to them? We have to get out there and strike a real blow. If you’re too afraid of the Circle to even try to stand up for yourself, what the hell are you doing here?”
She knew how to rouse an audience—that was for sure. Even Mark had perked up, his expression avid as his gaze followed her. Still, even though I agreed in essence with everything she’d said, something about her words sent a tremor of uneasiness through me.
“What did you have in mind?” Luis asked from the sidelines, loud enough that his voice carried over the rising murmurs in the auditorium.
“I have a few ideas,” Ary said with a smirk. “How about we march down there right when the college opens that morning, barricade the doors while we douse the place with gasoline, and on our way out, light it up? If we can get by without a college, they can too, don’t you think?”
She made the act of burning one of the Confed’s oldest institutions to the ground sound perfectly reasonable. When she painted that picture, just for a moment, some small part of even my spirit leapt at the thought of watching all that unearned privilege go up in flames. It was only a small part, though. The rest of me rocked with a wave of horror.
The voices echoing through the room mostly sounded eager, but I obviously wasn’t the only one unnerved. “What if there are other people in the building?” someone called toward the stage. “They’ll have security guards, won’t they?”
Ary shrugged. “I think there are enough of us that we can deal with them. And if they don’t want to be lit up too, they’ll just have to get the hell out.”
She winked as if to keep that sentiment playful, but the piercing light in her eyes made me wonder if she wouldn’t rather a few Confed employees go up along with the building. I’d seen that ferocity during the Exam on more faces than I liked to remember—usually right before that person went for the kill.
“We’d lose the whole college library,” Noemi said beside me, her body tensed. If Ary wasn’t much concerned about loss of life, I doubted the loss of some books would mean much to her. Those texts were part of the Confed’s legacy too.
Ary came to a stop at the podium and gripped its sides as she leaned toward us. “The Confed’s leaders think they have all the power here. They don’t care how many letters we write or phone calls we make. If we show them just how much power we can wield too, then they’ll have to listen to us. Hit them hard enough, just once, and we’ve got them.”
“I’m in!” a girl shouted from the other end of the room. More voices rose in agreement.
No. Every bone in my body balked. Possibly Ary was right… or possibly her plan would backfire catastrophically. She couldn’t remember the brutality of the Exam, the lengths some members of the Confed went to in order to get their way. She hadn’t seen how fiercely people like my granduncle would defend their standing in the eyes of the rest of the Confed and the world at large.
The Circle wouldn’t go easy on us if we barged into the college. They’d shut us down as swiftly and completely as they could. How many of the people here might be burned or bleeding by the end of it?
My mouth moved before I had a chance to second-guess myself. “Hold on! If we take that approach, we could ruin everything.”
Ary’s eyes narrowed as they found me in the audience. “If you’re too scared to join in, no one’s going to force you.”
Suddenly everyone around me was looking my way. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, but I managed to keep control of my tongue. “It’s not about being scared. I just don’t think this kind of move is going to get us the results we want.”
“And who are you to judge that?” Ary asked with an edge in her voice.
That was the question I least wanted to answer. Before I had to, Luis stepped forward, holding up his hand. He caught my gaze and tipped his head toward the stage.
“If you’ve got other ideas, why don’t you come up here and share them, Finn?”
A shiver that was both excitement and nerves ran over my skin when he said my name. Noemi had introduced me to the de f
acto head of the League a couple of meetings ago, but I wouldn’t have expected him to remember me among all the people here. Apparently he’d taken note.
I didn’t want to go up there. I’d come here to support people I agreed with, not to try to sway the room with my opinions.
As I hesitated, Ary raised the microphone to her lips again, still glowering at me. A jolt that was more panic than anything else unglued my feet. I pushed through the crowd, and Luis held out his hand for the mic. Ary passed it over and stalked off to perch at the corner of the stage.
The crowd in the room looked even larger from behind the podium. Luis handed me the microphone, and my fingers clamped around it. For a second, my throat was too tight for me to speak.
I didn’t have to say much about myself. I could leave my family history out of this. Just make a logical argument. It shouldn’t be that hard.
“The Confed’s leaders make most of their decisions based on what they see as potential threats.” I pointed to my Burnout mark. “They mark us so they know who challenged their rulings. They Damper new-magic mages because they don’t trust them to stay loyal. They restrict the number of mages who go to the college every year to prove to the Dull government that they’re keeping control, that the Dulls have nothing to fear—no reason to condemn us.”
“So?” a guy near the stage said.
“So, if we do something as destructive as burning down a major Confed building, we’ll be proving the Circle right about us. When they only thought we might be a threat, all they did was take away our magic. What do you think they’ll do to us if we start acting like actual criminals? They won’t sit down and listen to our demands. They’ll raze all of us to the ground.”
Ary snorted. “The Circle is a bunch of bluster and not much action. You’ve bought into their posturing too much. When push comes to shove, they’ll back down.”
The murmurs that followed sounded like agreement. The faces turned toward me were skeptical. I passed the mic from one clammy hand to the other, my stomach knotting.