by Megan Crewe
“Every time we perform castings that destroy things, hurt people, disrupt the natural harmony of the energy we’re using, it hurts the magic too,” I said. “All I’ve tried to do is find ways to avoid that damage where I can and to not piss off the people we’re supposedly trying to help. If we destroy the magic, how the hell do you think we’re going to fight at all?”
“Operative Lopez,” the man said. “Those considerations are for your senior officers. You don’t have the experience or the training to make the clearest decisions.”
By what standard? I was the one the magic had reached out to. I was the only one who seemed to be paying enough attention. Most of my senior officers probably couldn’t hearken it well enough to follow its patterns even if they tried.
“I thought I was being accepted as Champion specifically so I could help with that,” I said, not that I thought the protest would do me any more good here than it had with Hamlin. That’s what they told me. Just one more of the examiners’ lies. I could’ve thrown my most recent discovery in their face. How did these senior officials feel about the diminishing of their magical ability?
But from the stony expressions facing me, I didn’t think that revelation would get me anywhere. They might feel even more threatened that I’d figured it out.
The woman obviously still had some ability left. She murmured one verse and then another in Latin, and the energy around my neck vibrated along with the rhythm of her words. When she asked the next question, her voice had a singsong quality that echoed her casting.
“Do you have any sympathies for the insurgents we’re fighting?”
The ’chantment gripped my throat in a different way from the silencing one. My answer spilled out automatically. “The ones who’ve killed people? No. I want to stop them. Just not the way we’ve been doing it.”
She was using a truth-compulsion ’chantment. Those were complicated castings. A chill washed over me. They must have been really worried about my loyalties. I didn’t think they could ask me anything that I couldn’t answer truthfully without getting myself into major trouble, but how could I know for sure?
“Do you have any intention of assisting the insurgents?” the woman asked.
“No, I never would.”
“Why have you gone against your orders?”
“I don’t think I really have,” I said honestly. “But when I picked a different tactic, it’s always been to try to spare the magic more distress.”
The woman leaned forward, her gaze intent. “Where did you go in the city today after you left your home?”
Oh, so they had been trying to track me. And I had slipped their attempts to do it. I might have laughed if my mouth hadn’t already been forming my answer. “To see Finn.”
For the first time, the sternness of the woman’s expression softened just a tad, with what looked like… amusement? “Do you mean Finnegan Lockwood?”
“Yes,” I said, because I had to. So much for keeping our continuing relationship secret.
“Is that the only thing you did before you were brought here?”
“Yes.”
“What did you want to see him for?”
“Just to see him,” I said, my voice going terse. “To hear his voice. I missed him, and I care about him. I didn’t get any orders about that.”
The pressure at my throat was fading. The woman didn’t renew the ’chantment, only leaned back in her chair.
“How did he react to seeing you?” she asked, and I remembered with a jolt that Finn wasn’t supposed to have remembered me at all.
At least from the Exam. The waning ’chantment gave me just enough room to put together a story that was true enough—and that would give us room to see each other again without raising more questions.
“There were things we couldn’t talk about, of course,” I said. “But I knew him from before, when I used to study in the library at the Manhattan Academy, so it wasn’t totally awkward.”
Thankfully, the officials didn’t ask whether Finn had known me back then. The woman drew her hands back into her lap. “Thank you for answering our questions.”
Did they believe me? They had to know I wasn’t a traitor after my answers under the truth compulsion, didn’t they? “So, what happens now?” I asked.
The two officials exchanged a glance.
“Your concern for the magic is commendable,” the woman said in a gentler tone. “But we cannot have our special ops members breaking protocol and ignoring their seniors to follow their own inclinations. You’re a skilled mage, Operative Lopez. We very much want your talent on our side. You’ve seen with your own eyes the destruction our enemies are capable of. Don’t you want to stop that destruction?”
If I’d still been under compulsion, I’d have had to spit out an emphatic No. Even if I’d agreed with all the Confed’s strategies, I would never really want to be out there in the field carrying them out. Thankfully I could dodge answering. “I think protecting the magic is more important.”
“More important than the actual human lives you’re saving?” the man asked. “More important than the lives of your squad-mates? Do you really want to be responsible for their deaths for some small adjustment that may not make any difference at all?”
It does make a difference, I wanted to say, but my throat tightened of its own accord. How much of a difference had my attempts really made so far?
What he was saying wasn’t untrue. If I really gave the military service my all, I probably could save lives in a much more tangible way than I’d been able to defend, let alone heal, the magic. Was I being selfish by refusing?
This was just more of the same rhetoric they’d been giving us all along, wasn’t it? But my thoughts were all jumbled now. I could say one thing for sure: “If someone’s life is at stake, I’ll do whatever it takes to help them.” I had before, during the attack on the base. I had blood on my hands.
“We need to know we can count on your loyalty,” the woman said. “As great a contribution as you could make to the fight against those who want to spread chaos, there’s no room for loose cannons in our ranks. Are you going to stand with us?”
What choice did I have? To instead be as burned out as Finn was, helping no one at all?
Say what they need to hear so you can get where you need to go, Javi would’ve told me. They lie to our faces all the time. Why should they expect anything else from us? All we can do is look out for ourselves out there.
“I will,” I said. “I still want to be a Champion.” More than I wanted the alternative, anyway.
The man gave me a measured look. “We’re grateful for your service. Remember how many lives and livelihoods may be riding on the actions you take, Operative Lopez. Not just those abroad, but your parents, the Lockwood boy… Every action or inaction can have wide-sweeping consequences.”
My back went rigid. Was that a threat? He could have meant that if we didn’t restrain the terrorist networks enough, the insurgents might hurt people here too… but he’d purposely left his wording vague. The hard glint in his eyes made my heartbeat stutter.
What would happen to Mom and Dad, to Finn, if the Confed decided I was a traitor after all?
“I understand,” I said in a tight voice. “I know what side I’m on.”
“All right then.” He pushed back his chair to stand up, and the woman followed suit. “Because it appears you could benefit from additional time in training, we’re cutting your leave short by one day. You still have the rest of today and tomorrow with your family. Make the most of it.”
The little transport plane shuddered with the air currents outside. I curled deeper into my padded seat, both looking forward to and dreading the moment when it would land at the base.
I should have squeezed every ounce of joy I could out of my last day with my parents, but even the big family get-together had barely managed to distract me from the implied threat hanging over me. I was backed into a corner.
I didn’t even completel
y understand what I was fighting so hard for.
The magic thrummed around me up here as it did everywhere. I’d picked a seat with a little space from the five other soldiers joining me on this flight. Now, I shut the window shade against the bright sunlight we were flying into and closed my eyes. Dragging in a breath, I clasped my fingers around my sunburst necklace and reached out to the energy that had called to me so often. That had made me its champion before the Confed had ever stuck that label on me.
The magic tingled over my tongue with its familiar melody, the lilting rhythm it fell into naturally when we weren’t conducting it to our will. I whispered lyrics from a dance song Dad had liked to listen to while he cooked, years ago. “¿Por qué me llamas? ¿Por qué me hablas?”
Why have you called out to me? I thought as I tried to speak to the magic. What are you trying to say? What do you need me to do? Please. I needed to understand better than I did. If it could express something to me that would help me decide where to go from here, maybe I’d be able to sleep tonight.
Tingling wisps grazed my scalp and sank through my skin. The magic wrapped around my head like thin gauze. Images burst in my mind like film from a stuttering projector.
A conjured blast smashed a stone wall, shattering the bonds that had melded the particles of its structure—and shattering the threads of harmony all through the magic in and around it at the same time. A man jerked as a ’chantment strangled him, the energy shuddering out of tune with each spasm of his body as his own life energy snuffed out. Discordant notes jarred against each other, their distress echoing farther and farther through the atmosphere, as streaks of magical fire hailed down on a city block, searing the very oxygen from the air.
The horror of those moments radiated through my chest. For a few seconds, it felt as if my own ribs would be torn apart, my limbs twisted from my core, my entire being mangled in a mess of—
My eyes snapped open, my lungs heaving with a gasp for air. One of the soldiers in a seat across the aisle frowned at me, and I quickly jerked my gaze away. A sweat had broken over my skin, thick enough to paste my sleeves to my arms. My pulse was hiccupping in my ears.
The magic hadn’t shown me anything I hadn’t already suspected. But I felt it now, down to my bones—the agony that wrenched through it when mages pushed it to batter the rhythms of substance and energy that held our world together.
Its presence was clinging to me now, clutching my shoulders in a desperate embrace. Why me? I thought. Why only me? But I didn’t think it could answer that.
I was one of the strongest mages of my generation. Maybe it had seen something in me that had told it I would care. Maybe it had needed a novice who’d be in the closed environment of the Exam to make those initial observations. And now that it had deepened the connection between us, I only hearkened it more strongly than ever.
But I was still just one mage. A mage who had too many factors to weigh, too many people whose lives might hang on my decisions out here. Remember how many lives and livelihoods may be riding on the actions you take, Operative Lopez. Your parents, the Lockwood boy…
I didn’t have much more time to dwell on my uncertainties. My ears popped as the plane soared down toward the ground. I braced myself for the jolt of the landing and for the building waiting for me once I stepped outside.
We hadn’t been able to stay in the old base after the attack. It wasn’t safe now that the militants knew that location. Commander Revett had moved our unit to an older base that, as far as I could tell, hadn’t been used by the Confed since at least the ‘90s. Fixing up the place hadn’t been a priority after we’d moved in last week.
I tugged my hoodie closer around me as I headed down the hallway with its dingy beige walls. One of the light panels overhead sputtered, its glass cover cracked. The others cast a stark glow that made every face look a little ghastly.
This base was smaller too. Prisha and I were sharing a dorm room with Leonie and Joselin here. At least we’d managed to bring the soft, thick comforters from our beds with us. I could snuggle up under that blanket and let it blot out the rest of this place for at least a few hours.
A man I didn’t recognize stepped out of a room up ahead—the one Hamlin had taken over for an office. This guy looked about ten years younger, his face all sharp angles and his tan scalp completely shaved. He eyed me. “Lopez?”
I gave him a quick salute, and he nodded. “I understand you’re supposed to resume training immediately. Get changed and meet me in the gym.”
He strode off, leaving me staring after him. ¿Cómo? Who was this guy? I peeked into Hamlin’s office, but our usual trainer wasn’t there.
Desmond ambled out of the cafeteria with a sleepy expression, Tonya, the communications and monitoring senior operative who’d mentored him on his first few missions, right behind him.
“Welcome back?” he said.
Tonya cut her dark gaze from us to the office and back. “Hamlin’s gone.” She jerked her thumb toward the outer walls.
My heart hitched. “Was there another attack? Did he—”
Tonya was shaking her head, sending the short, coiled twists of her hair swaying. “Not that kind of gone. Fired. Apparently, an order came down from the Dull government that he didn’t agree with, so he made up his own plan, and they got pissed off.” She motioned in the direction the new trainer had gone. “The new guy showed up with a Dull rep who’s going to be ‘supervising’ operations for a while. Lucky us.” Her tone couldn’t have been more bitter.
Hamlin had defied government orders? I swallowed hard. I’d heard him complaining about the president that one time, but he’d also encouraged us to be proud of proving our value to the Dulls. What had they asked him to do?
“It’s too bad,” Desmond said. “I kind of liked him.”
“Yeah,” I had to admit. “Me too.” He’d been the only one of the senior officials who’d acted as if he saw us as people and not just tools.
Had all my attempts to adjust standard procedure ended up tripping him up somehow too? I’d never know. And now I’d have not just the Confed’s officials but also a Dull one breathing down my neck.
Lucky us.
Chapter Fourteen
Finn
One of my favorite teachers at the Academy used to remind us, What you don’t say can matter as much as what you do. When you cast, you must keep in mind both the words you choose to reflect your intent—and the gaps you leave that the magic may respond to as well.
I’d appreciated the sentiment at the time, but it seemed even more meaningful now, applied to a great deal more than just casting. When you had a ’chantment literally dictating what you could and couldn’t say, even silence spoke volumes. The quick text Rocío had sent me a week ago, letting me know her leave had been cut short, had been so vague I’d been left worrying about what lay in the gaps.
My phone rang with an actual call for the first time since then while I was sitting in the back of a cab that smelled like pastrami, on my way to a Freedom of Magic League meeting. The call display listed the number as unknown.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey, Finn.”
My heart flipped over with relief at the sound of Rocío’s voice. “Is everything all right?” I asked before she could say anything else. She was alive and well enough to talk to me, which calmed the deepest of my fears, but I had plenty of lesser anxieties clamoring for attention.
“Yes,” she said, with a pause that I read more into. “Are you okay?”
It was a strange question from someone who was literally going to war to someone who was safely back home on the relatively peaceful streets of Manhattan. “Of course. I’m not doing anything dangerous. You don’t have to worry about me, Dragon-Tamer.”
“I think maybe I do,” she said in a careful voice that made me twice as alert.
I sat up straighter against the worn leather seat. “Did something happen?” I wasn’t sure if I should press any further than that. How private was
this call?
“No,” she said. Her tone shifted again, artificially casual. “I got some questions about seeing you. Had to tell them about how we met in the Academy library.”
The Academy library? Oh. That was one shred of memory from the Exam I’d kept: the two of us huddled near each other on a hard floor, a tingle of excitement shooting through me when she’d mentioned seeing me, noticing me, back then.
Then the full implications clicked into place. If someone who knew about the Exam’s procedures found out the two of us had talked, they might wonder why I’d talked at all with a girl I shouldn’t have remembered. Unless they believed we’d known each other already. A surge of gratitude for Rocío’s wits swept through me.
“Did you bore them with all the details?” I asked. How much had she needed to make up?
“No, they were happy enough with the gist.”
Not much then. She paused. “Anyway, I— Just look after yourself, okay? I’m going to do my best to make sure everything’s good the next time we see each other.”
The sense prickled down my back that she was protecting me again, like she had so often in the Exam, only this time from some threat she couldn’t even tell me about. She should have been focusing on keeping herself safe.
“If I get into any trouble, I’ll just have to talk my way out of it,” I said brightly. “I’m told I can be very persuasive.”
That comment got me a laugh, genuine enough that I could smile in turn. “Are you trying to put that talent to use on me now?” Rocío teased. “I’m going to worry about you the whole time we can’t see each other. You’ll just have to deal with it.”
“I suppose that’s fair, since I’ll be worrying about you too.” I leaned back in the seat, my gaze following the arc of posts along the edge of the bridge the cab was cruising over. The untarnished spots on the metal glinted in the stark noon sun. What time was it where she was right now? She wouldn’t even be able to tell me that, since it would mean admitting she wasn’t at the college.