by Megan Crewe
“Am I friends with those people, you mean,” she said.
“Yeah. It’s— People have died, right? There’ve been so many attacks. We’re just trying to be careful.”
Polina didn’t look as if she totally accepted that excuse, but she sighed. “For a while, I was… together? With a guy who is friends with them. Sometimes I go along when they talk. They think maybe I will help too. But I was not sure, the way they act. I don’t like Americans being here, but those people, they are not good guys either. They push us around too; they take things from us; they… After some time, I think they are worse. So…”
She made the closest thing to a shrug she should’ve been able to manage if her shoulders had still been clamped to the chair.
The starkness of her wan face in the thin light jolted me back through time to another girl, slim and pale but tough as nails when she’d been pushed to the brink. Lacey. She’d seemed way more victim than villain when we’d started the Exam, but by the end, she’d gone wild with fury at how she’d been treated—by the examiners, by the boyfriend who’d dragged her into the Exam in the first place, by the rest of us on her team. She’d said, right up until the end when she’d nearly killed Finn, that she just wanted to stop being pushed around.
I’d screwed up with Lacey. I hadn’t realized how far she might go, I hadn’t found the right way to show we were on her side, and I’d ended up pushing her too.
But Polina wasn’t Lacey. She’d already trusted me. And I knew better now—I could do better. I could make sure the Confed didn’t grind her down with its machinations like it had so many in the Exam.
She didn’t want to hurt anyone. All I had to do was make sure she never felt she needed to. Keep her on our side, find out what I could from her to stop coming attacks, and I’d be protecting the magic too.
Lacey’s rage hadn’t started with the Confed, though, not directly. It had started with her boyfriend, the one who’d left finger-shaped bruises on her arms. I kept my voice as even as I could. “Are you still ‘together’ with this guy?”
“No. He was getting too pushy too.” Polina’s jaw worked. “But I still must be careful. If he—his friends—if they found out I am speaking to you, there will be trouble for me. A lot of trouble.”
“I understand,” I said. “Why don’t we finish here quickly then? You came to the squad—you wanted to speak to me. Was there something specific you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes.” Polina paused again, and I started to think she might not tell me after all. Then she wrinkled her nose. “I heard there is another meeting, like I recorded. More details to talk about. In Uzbekistan. They mentioned Qarshi. I’m not sure when, but soon. Maybe a few days?”
By the wall, Sam murmured into his mic. A tip like that, we’d want everyone to know about ASAP.
“Thank you,” I said. “Is that all the information you have?”
“I am lucky to hear even that much,” she said. “I don’t like the sound of how they are talking. What they will do… I know if your people get angry, it will not just be bad guys they hit back at. We all suffer. No. Better if you can stop them.”
“I’m sure we will.” I wished I could guarantee that, for both her sake and the magic’s. As long as she was willing to keep helping us, we had a much better chance of that. I glanced over at Sam. “Can we let her go now? I think she’s telling the truth that that’s all she knows.”
“She’s in with these terrorists,” Brandt protested. “We can’t just leave it like that. What’s she going to go tell them about us now?”
Polina twisted her head around to scowl at him. “I have nothing for them.”
“Hey!” I said, holding up my hand. If he kept shooting his mouth off, he’d unravel whatever progress I’d made here. “We’ve got no reason to think she’d act against us. And as long as you haven’t been spilling important secrets, I don’t know what you think she could tell.”
“Hold on.” Sam tugged his mic closer to his mouth. I bet he was speaking directly to Commander Revett now. After a minute, he lowered his arm and came over to join me.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he said to Polina. “We have no reason to believe you’ve assisted with any crime, and you’ve shown us good faith in bringing this information to us. If you hear anything else, there’s an easier way you can reach out. We can arrange for Rocío to be the one who talks to you if you call this number.”
He sang a few words to release the bindings he couldn’t tell I’d loosened. As Polina got up, rubbing her arms, he offered her a card.
“I can’t have this,” she said. “Let me see it.” She peered at the number, her lips moving as she recited it to herself. After several times, she nodded. “I think I will remember.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. “You’re free to go now.”
Polina darted out of the building without a backward glance. The rest of us tramped out a moment later. “We’re all heading back together,” Sam told Tonya. “The base called your chopper back.”
“Lots of company,” she said with a grimace. “Sounds like fun.”
No one said anything else until we were loaded onto the helicopter and it had lifted into the air.
“That’s it?” Brandt burst out the moment no one on the ground could have overheard us. “She’s got intel like that, and we just let her go? And what the hell is this weird obsession she has with Lopez?”
“The data people back at the base have been scanning for any connection between her and the Borci—or any other insurgent group—since we got the recorder,” Sam said. “They haven’t found evidence of involvement with any attack. Her story checks out.” He gave the younger officer a baleful look. “And I wasn’t going to tell her, obviously, but I put a tracking ’chantment on her when we first grabbed her. We’ll be able to watch where she goes. If she’s more mixed up with the Borci than she said, she’ll lead us right to them.”
My stomach dropped. “They might detect the ’chantment on her. If they think she let us track her, what’ll they do to her?”
“What the hell does it matter?” Brandt said. “You heard her. She’s just looking out for herself and whoever she thinks her people are. We look out for ours. That’s how it’s supposed to work, if you don’t have your head up your ass.”
“Brandt,” Sam said firmly. The other guy frowned but looked away. Sam turned back to me. “I used a light touch. Even if someone does notice, it’s not the kind of ’chantment you’d see on someone volunteering.”
Right, because these insurgents were such levelheaded people that they’d take that into account. Even the slight trust Polina had offered the Confed might already have sealed her doom.
At my expression, Sam leaned forward on the bench across from me. “I get why you’re worried about her. And it’s impressive that you’ve been able to gain her trust like that. We need those kinds of relationships if we’re going to come out on top. You did good work there.”
“Good work,” Tonya repeated in a mutter. “Now we’ll be off to Uzbekistan to deal with Lord knows what garbage. I’ve been almost blown up enough times this year already, thank you.”
“Are they going to send us out there?” Joselin asked. “Isn’t there a base down in Afghanistan or somewhere that’d be closer?”
“They’ll probably send a squad from both here and somewhere closer to Bonded Worthy territory,” Sam said. “Since we’re dealing with multiple groups.”
Brandt rubbed his hand over his face with a weary look. “And multiply the crossfire too. But hey, if it makes Alcido and the rest of the Dulls happy, what does anyone care about us?”
“It’s our job,” Sam reminded us. “And it’s not as if the commanders want us to be in danger. We already lost Hamlin. Can you imagine how the Dull government would come down on the Confed officials if they found out we didn’t follow up on a lead like this? They’d probably label all mages traitors and round us up.”
Next to him, Leonie shuddered.
Jose
lin flopped back against the wall. “It isn’t right that they get to call the shots.”
It also wasn’t right that National Defense pretty much forced us Champions to do their dirty work, but I kept my mouth shut about that, considering the guy who’d already tattled on me once was three feet away from me. I didn’t exactly like having Alcido breathing down our necks either.
“There isn’t a whole lot we can do about it, is there?” I said.
Tonya sucked a breath through her teeth. “We’ll see about that.”
My gaze jerked to her.
“What does that mean?” Sam said, his voice light but his eyes serious.
The other officer shook her head. “Nothing. Just saying.”
But it hadn’t sounded like nothing to me.
Chapter Eighteen
Finn
It was amazing, in a maleficent sort of way that I’d rather have never experienced, how the presence of one person in a room full of friends and allies could turn the atmosphere foreboding in an instant. The arrival of a would-be—and possibly actual—murderer in the League’s midst might as well have burned out all the exhilaration I’d been feeling from the crowd around me.
Of course, nothing had changed for anyone else. To my collaborators, Callum was simply another Burnout novice joining us because of the League’s newfound publicity. A moment after our eyes had met, he was swept away by a bunch of older members who appeared to be directing him toward the refreshments table. Words of good cheer continued to bounce off the high ceiling as my peers proceeded with their victory celebration.
Callum’s red hair made him easy to track even in the throng. I sipped my cola, exchanged more chatter with my comrades, and finally swung around to grab myself a hamburger when the line diminished, but most of my attention was trained on that starkly crimson head. At any moment, he might comment on the Lockwood in attendance. At any moment, a ring of shocked faces might ripple out toward me from his spot in the crowd.
It wasn’t even a question. It was only a matter of time.
The hamburger was perfectly charbroiled, but each bite stuck in my throat. My cheeks started to ache with the effort I was putting into my smile. I didn’t hear Noemi saying my name until what must have been the third or fourth time, given the exasperation in her tone. “Finn!”
I jerked my gaze to her with another tight flash of a smile.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you all right? You don’t seem like you’re all here.”
Oh, I was here, just mostly on the other side of the room at the moment. I let out a chuckle I hoped was convincing. “It’s been a long day. I’m wondering how the Circle will respond, what our next steps should be—it’s difficult not to think ahead.”
“Maybe you should get some rest before you get into all that.”
Mark had ambled back over too. “It looks like people are starting to head out,” he said.
Luis jumped up on a chair near the door where we could all see him. “It’s been an amazing day, Freedom of Magic League!” he hollered over the din. “But we need to recuperate so we can come back even stronger. Keep your eyes open for opportunities you’d want to present to the group, and we’ll see each other in a few days.”
I traced Callum’s path from the corner of my eye as I meandered toward the exit and managed to contrive to leave the building just ahead of him. My chest clenched around my thumping heart.
My usual policy had been to avoid the guy as much as possible. The last thing I wanted to do was speak with him. I couldn’t leave him floating around in the League like a ticking time bomb, though. If there was anything for us to hash out, we’d better hash it out now, or I’d be in an even worse spot before I knew it.
As I reached the sidewalk outside the rec center, I glanced back and caught his gaze. “We might as well share a cab since we’re going to nearly the same place, don’t you think?”
Callum considered me warily. Then his mouth curved with a smirk. “If you’re paying.”
If I hadn’t wanted to keep this conversation as peaceful as possible, I might have rolled my eyes. The Gearys didn’t have quite the fortune the Lockwoods had amassed over the generations, but they were hardly badly off. Still, it was a reasonable gesture of goodwill.
“Simpler than splitting,” I said evenly.
Most of the League members were streaming off toward the nearest public transit stops. I ambled around the corner to the busier street there and hailed the first taxi that cruised by. Callum stood a few feet away from me as we waited for it to maneuver over to the curb, his shoulders slouched and his hands shoved in the pockets of his loose jeans. The bite of the wind was turning his ear-tips nearly as red as his hair. He didn’t speak.
I slid into the cab first and gave the driver Callum’s address while he followed me in. For the first minute of the drive, we sat in silence. I cycled through a thousand things I could say and rejected all of them. I’d been sort of hoping he might broach the subject himself and save me the trouble of settling on an appropriate opening.
In the end, I went with a bald, “Do you think you’ll come to another meeting?”
Callum turned his head toward me with one of his typical narrow looks. “I can if I want, can’t I? You’re not running the show.”
“I wasn’t trying to say you couldn’t,” I said quickly. “I just wondered if it met your expectations.”
“It’s something,” Callum said, his gaze drifting away again. “Not where I expected to see you, that’s for sure. The Academy’s golden boy hanging out with a bunch of ruckus-raisers. What do they make of the fact that your granduncle is at the top of the pyramid they’re trying to topple?”
I opened my mouth but hesitated for a second too long. Callum blinked at me, and understanding momentarily lit his face. “They don’t know, do they? That’s what this ride is all about. You’re afraid I’m going to spill your little secret.”
A flush crept up my neck. “It’s common practice for everyone in the League to stay relatively anonymous.”
“But everyone else there would be worried about people like your granduncle coming down on them.” His lips pulled into a sneer. “Are you some kind of mole for the Circle? I should—”
“No!” I interrupted. “For gods’ sake, I’d sooner be reporting back to Hades himself. My granduncle hasn’t got a clue I’m involved with them. I want to change things just as much as everyone else there does—I just don’t know if they’d give me the chance to keep helping if they found out.”
Callum studied me. “I heard,” he said slowly, “that you were Chosen. Like anyone would’ve figured you would be. Everyone says there’s never been a Lockwood who wasn’t. But you declared anyway.”
I couldn’t tell whether that possibility impressed or annoyed him. “That’s true,” I said. “I could have gone to the college. But I hadn’t earned it. You know that—do you think I didn’t?” Even if I hadn’t realized quite how much my abilities had ranked below my peers’ until the Exam had brought me into brutal awareness, I’d known enough. “I only wanted to go if I’d proven I belonged there.”
“What a brainless decision that was, huh?” Callum said, with such bitterness my pulse skipped. Did he remember what had happened in the Exam after all—what we’d learned about the true “prize” the Champions earned?
He slumped lower in his seat. “Both of us now with nothing to show for it. I should’ve taken the Dampering.”
Ah. He didn’t remember—he simply regretted making the attempt at all. He couldn’t know how close he’d come to making Champion.
He couldn’t know how large a role I’d played in ensuring he hadn’t. Had the examiners’ magimedics managed to fully reconstruct the muscles in his thigh? The thumb I’d lost during the testing and then regained thanks to their hasty casting still twinged oddly every now and then.
I’d seen Callum a lot of ways over the years we’d been classmates: raging and sulky and brash. I’d never seen him look defeated the way he di
d right now. Even before the Exam, his parents had treated him like a stray dog they couldn’t quite convince to leave them alone. He’d spent almost our entire Academy career at the bottom of the ranks. Somehow I doubted they’d become more supportive now that he’d returned without any magic to speak of.
“It’s tough,” I ventured.
“Yeah. I bet your parents are just thrilled to have a dud on their hands too, huh?”
It seemed wisest not to mention that Dad and Mom had been quite considerate about the situation. “I’d gotten used to being a disappointment,” I said, which was true enough.
“Well.” He sat there in uneasy silence for a few minutes. Then he said, “I don’t give a monkey’s ass if you want to get in on some rebellion. I don’t want anything to do with you. You want a truce? I’ll keep my mouth shut about your family, and you keep yours shut about any opinions you have about me. I know you’ve never liked me either.”
That was a rather skewed observation from someone who’d gone out of his way to harass and outright injure me every chance he’d had for as long as I could recall. I could let that biased take slide, though, if he kept his side of the bargain.
“If you’d prefer, we can pretend we’ve never met, so there’s nothing to say in the first place,” I said.
The corner of Callum’s mouth twitched upward. “That works for me.” The cab slowed as it reached his house, and he gave me one last glance with an ironic little wave. “Here’s to pretending we’re not seeing each other around, neighbor.”
Stepping out into the underground parking lot of my mother’s office building, I couldn’t help exhaling with a rush of relief into the damp, dim space. Thank Jove that day was over with.
“Well,” I said as I climbed into Mom’s car. “I’d have to say that was a mismatch of epic proportions. Clearly, Hugh got all the financial affinity you had to impart.”
Mom gave me a wry smile. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure what they’d come up with as a suitable placement.”