by Megan Crewe
“I give it my best,” I said, which seemed like a reasonably appropriate way to say, I really want to continue this placement so please sign off on that.
“Well, it’s almost five. I think you can wrap things up for now. I’m sure we’ll have plenty more for you to tackle during your next shift.”
I strode out of the building with my spirits still high and then hesitated at the sight of a dark gray Honda sedan parked by the curb outside.
That was definitely Dad’s car. That was definitely Dad sitting inside it. Had anyone else noticed him? Being picked up by my parents was hardly going to get me the respect I wanted to cultivate.
I hurried across the sidewalk, deciding that removing myself from the view of my potential future colleagues was a higher priority than protesting his arrival. Dropping into the front passenger seat, I yanked the door shut. “What are you doing here?” I said.
Dad wasn’t oblivious to my discomfort. He started the engine immediately and pulled onto the road, away from the office building, before he answered.
“I finished my work for the day a little early,” he said. “I thought I might as well save you the cab ride. I was only a few minutes away.”
All of those things might very well have been true, but the evaluating look he gave me suggested there was more to his impromptu visit. Even though I was seventeen now, the magimedic who’d seen me when I’d ducked into the Confed’s local clinic three days ago had insisted on contacting Dad. She’d checked me over to ensure Ary and her friends’ beating hadn’t left me with any major internal injuries, but she hadn’t healed the marks I’d been hoping to avoid showing off until after he’d arrived. He’d turned up out of breath and pale, so quickly he must have magically teleported part of the way.
The beating itself had done more damage to my looks than anything else, and even that had been temporary. After half an hour of castings, I’d felt essentially normal, other than a sliver of pain that hadn’t quite faded around a bruised rib. That hadn’t prevented Dad from being in a furor over the situation.
I fell, I’d told him. Slipped on some stairs and banged my face on the door frame at the bottom. Me and my two left feet!
He hadn’t looked as if he’d believed me, and honestly, I hadn’t tried that hard to sell the story. I simply hadn’t offered any other one. After several rounds of questions, he’d seemed to accept that if something else had happened, he wasn’t finding it out from me.
Nonetheless, he was clearly still feeling rather protective. If he could have held me back from every danger, as Croesus had with Atys, he likely would have—with about as much success.
I forgave him a little when he motioned to a plastic-lidded cup in the holder beside me. “I picked up one of those peppermint hot chocolates for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, snatching it up. I’d gotten addicted to the stuff ages ago, to the point that ten-year-old me had gone off on something of a rant about how no one carried it in July. I’d endured ribbing about that for quite a while afterward, but it hadn’t dampened my enjoyment any.
The heat of the cup soaked into my hands. The liquid would have burned my tongue, so for the moment I simply breathed in the minty sweet scent. A light rain started to patter against the roof as Dad turned the car toward home.
“How’s the placement going?” he asked. “Do you think Media Outreach is a track you could settle into?”
“I do,” I said, my good spirits returning as I thought about my day. “There’s a lot I like about what they do there. If I can gradually have more of a hand in things, I think I could make a real mark.”
The Confed’s Media division produced and distributed news to the mage community as well as managing public perception of us and our activities among the Dulls. The gap that lingered between magical and nonmagical society, the fears and prejudices that lingered on both sides—we were going to need to get past all of that if anything was really going to change, weren’t we?
Naturally, my supervisor hadn’t given me any tasks that would help smooth over political relations yet. Today, along with the pet guy’s concerns, I’d discussed mage views on gardening with a woman writing an article for a house and home blog and directed a guy doing an indie documentary on mage architecture to some appropriate resources.
I could work my way up, though. My supervisor seemed reasonably pleased with me so far. If I hadn’t been a Lockwood—if the higher-ups in the Media division hadn’t figured they might be able to call in a favor from my parents or my older siblings after they’d found a spot for me—they might not have accepted me on this trial basis in the first place, so I couldn’t really complain.
A pinch of frustration came with that thought. I sipped a little of my peppermint hot chocolate to wash it away. I was going to make my own name for myself. I’d earn promotions based on what I could do, not what connections I brought with me, and then I’d be doing work I could take pride in and talk about freely with my family, no matter what else I was up to on the side.
If I didn’t, everything Ary and her friends believed about me might as well be true.
“I get to talk to people,” I went on. “Half of the job is just being friendly and putting them at ease, which I seem to be decent at. I’d much rather be helping that way than pushing papers around.”
After all the time I’d spent with the Freedom of Magic League, by now I probably had more experience at friendly chatting with Dulls than most of Media Outreach’s senior staff.
Recalling the League meetings brought a deeper pinch, one no amount of minty cocoa could alleviate. I’d sent a few texts to Luis on my way to the clinic, but Ary had already gotten a hold of him to spill my supposed dark secrets. We need time to discuss, he’d written back. I’ll be in touch if we decide in your favor. Three days seemed like more than long enough for him and the other established members to reach a decision.
I’d heard nothing more. That must have meant I was out, for good—because of the same damned name.
“It sounds like you’re off to a good start there,” Dad said, drawing me back to the present. “If any stories that need an international perspective come up, you know you can always call on me.”
I wasn’t planning on making even greater use of my privilege. “Thanks,” I said anyway. “I appreciate that.”
He turned onto 81st Street, and my gaze slid over the houses before ours, sticking for a moment on the townhouse where Callum lived on the second floor. No doubt he was still welcome at the League meetings. Being born into a prominent family had turned out to be a larger crime than attempted murder.
I winced inwardly at my own bitterness. Thinking that way was hardly fair to the League. No one there knew what Callum had been like in the Exam or before it. I supposed they hadn’t really known me either. I’d been so careful not to share too much about my identity that I must have looked incredibly guilty in hindsight. I had hidden things from them. How would any of my friends vouch for me when they had no idea who I was outside of the image I’d presented, which had clearly been only part of the picture?
The only person there who really knew me was my enemy.
My body went still against my seat as Dad pulled up at our house. Actually, having an enemy vouch for me would be a whole lot more convincing than any friend, wouldn’t it?
“There’s something I was supposed to drop off for Prisha,” I said when we got out. “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
Dad’s forehead furrowed as if he wasn’t entirely sure whether to believe me, but he could hardly insist on escorting me to my best friend’s house two blocks down the street. “All right,” he said.
I set off toward Pree’s house as if I were actually going there, listening for the thump of our door. Then I veered left at the corner and looped back around.
I didn’t have Callum’s phone number. I’d never had occasion to want it. All I could hope was that he wouldn’t be too annoyed by my stopping by unexpectedly to hear me out—if he was home at all
.
His townhouse had a panel by the door with three names and buttons. I pressed the one labeled Geary.
A disgruntled sounding man answered a moment later. “Yes?”
“I’m here to see Callum.”
“Callum?” he said, both startled and grim. “Who is this?”
“Finn Lockwood,” I said. Here, my name might help me in a way I appreciated.
The lock on the door buzzed open. I ventured into the stairwell.
While Callum’s family didn’t have the prestige mine did in mage society, this was an Upper East Side home. Even the landings boasted crown moldings. Still, it appeared the families who lived here spent all their time working to afford an 81st Street address with none left over for keeping up the place. The hardwood on the stairs was scuffed, and the paint on the walls faded from white to gray. The carpet outside the Geary’s apartment door rasped under my shoes with grit that hadn’t been vacuumed in who knew how long.
Callum answered the door, his father a boxy shape hovering farther down the front hall. “What the hell are you doing here?” my former classmate said in greeting.
“Callum,” his father said sharply. Callum’s gray eyes turned even flatter than they’d already been.
“I’d be happy to explain if we could talk for a minute or two,” I said in my most conciliatory voice. “I promise I won’t stick around long.”
“Well, I’m not inviting you in,” Callum said, ignoring the heart attack he appeared to be inflicting on his father. He stepped forward, forcing me to back up, and closed the door behind him. “What do you want, Lockwood?”
I glanced around, hardly eager to have this conversation right here. I wouldn’t have put it past his father to press his ear up to the seam of the door. “Let’s…” I motioned to the stairs.
We ended up standing on either side of a dusty window in the landing between the first floor and the second. A faintly musky odor hung in the air, which made me wonder about the pet-keeping habits of the mages who lived here.
Callum propped himself against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. I cast about for a pose that felt comfortable and determined that such a thing did not exist for this situation. There was nothing to do but launch into my plea however awkwardly it would come out.
“Did you go to the last League meeting?” I asked.
“I did,” Callum said. “I noticed you didn’t bother to show up. And everyone seemed pretty hush-hush about it. That Ary girl looked ready to blow her top when your name got mentioned, but the leader guy and a couple of the others shut down that subject quickly. How did you screw things up this time?”
I couldn’t help making a face at him. “I didn’t do anything. Ary figured out who I am. Now she’s going around telling everyone I’m some sort of mole for my granduncle.”
Callum barked out a laugh at that. I was relieved to see he found that idea ridiculous, but his mention of Ary brought back my suspicions about her latest scheme.
“Getting friendly with Ary and her crew, are you?” I added.
Callum gave me a quizzical look. “I’m still figuring out if the dopes at those meetings are worth investing any more time. Maybe not, when they keep a loose cannon like that around. She’d probably punch your granduncle in the face if he was in front of her.”
“She punched me in the face,” I muttered, remembering the throb of the blow.
“Did she really?” Callum grinned. Then he shook his head. “It’s not the right way to get the Circle’s attention, that’s for sure. You can’t bully a bunch of bigger bullies into changing things you don’t like.”
There was a sneer in his voice, but something had softened in his expression when he mentioned changing things. Could Callum be more invested in the League’s fight than he was willing to admit?
He definitely didn’t sound as though he’d have trusted Ary to carry out some plan on his behalf. The more time I spent talking to him, the more ridiculous that idea was feeling. Callum enjoyed cutting people down a peg when he was there to appreciate the sight. He’d taken a cutthroat approach to the Exam because he’d thought it was his best chance at making Champion. What in Hades’s name could he gain from the deaths of half my immediate family? He might be sadistic, but from every observation I’d made of him, he was practical about it.
“That’s true,” I said. “I was supporting other sorts of tactics—and they were working. They need the kind of access I have.”
“Why are you telling me?” Callum said. “Talk to them about it. If you’re so important, they’ll let you back in.”
“They’re never going to believe me saying I’m innocent. I’d say that whether I was or not.”
Callum’s eyes widened. “You want me to speak up for you. That’s why you’re here.”
He sounded so disbelieving that my heart started to sink. I spread my hands in appeal. “You know me. You have known me for at least the twelve years we spent at the Academy together. You don’t like me, fine, but you can’t pretend to believe my granduncle would ever trust me to be his lackey. You know I could have walked right into the college, and I gave that up because I thought it was wrong.”
“Sure,” Callum said. “You’re not an evil Confed spy. The question is, what do I get for putting my neck out?”
“How about actual change?” I said. “How about a world where your family isn’t ashamed of you simply because you were shortchanged when it comes to magical ability?”
Callum flinched. “Don’t you start about my—”
“For Fates’ sakes, Callum, do you think I don’t mean me too?” I flung my hand toward the window. “Haven’t you seen the way my granduncle looks at me, the way he talks to me—or about me? I’m not going to pretend it’s as bad as whatever you’ve had to deal with, but it isn’t good either. Do you think I’d have put myself through that wretched Exam otherwise?”
There was a pause. Something shifted in Callum’s gaze. “How do you know it was ‘wretched’?” he asked.
I blinked, thrown. “What?”
“The Exam,” he said. “How do you know it was wretched? I can’t—” His voice cut off. He grimaced at the things he couldn’t say. “Maybe you spent the whole time eating grapes on a feather pillow.”
The laugh that burst out of me was more raw than amused. “Dear Zeus, don’t I wish. But that’s not the point.”
“It’s a point to me,” Callum said, studying me. “You remember.”
He looked both hesitant and hungry. I couldn’t imagine what it was like, having that entire experience be a blank. Grappling with the gaps in my recollections had been torturous enough. If I’d had no idea at all…
I wasn’t so certain he’d be happy to know the details of his performance, though.
“I can’t talk about it,” I said. He’d understand that as well as any former examinee would.
“I’m sure you could manage to say something if you really wanted to.”
I weighed my words. “If all I had to go by was your conduct in there, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
As I said it, I realized how true it was. The examiners had pushed all of us to our worst. Some of us had resisted and some hadn’t, but Callum hadn’t set out to be a murderer.
His mouth twisted. “Wonderful.”
“That’s why we have to stop them.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re the one to do it? Experto credite?” The acid scorn made it clear he didn’t believe I was an expert of much of anything.
“No,” I said. “Just believe that the League’s chances are better if I can contribute. Look, I can admit it was probably stupid of me to think I could see a revolution through without anyone figuring out I had ties to the other side. And it was wrong of me to try. You help me get back in with the League, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to take down the system we’ve got now. Even if it means going right at my granduncle. Even if it means I’m not just a disappointment but also a traitor in my family’s eyes. You c
an’t ask for more than that.”
Callum’s jaw worked. His gaze slid to the window and back. “If we break down that system, and certain ’chantments are removed in the process, you’ll fill me in on the parts I lost?”
The ’chantment not to speak on certain subjects could be lifted at any time by the mage who’d cast it or anyone else who knew the key. Wiping memories, on the other hand, was essentially permanent. Over time, minor fragments might surface—which had to be why the examiners added the ’chantment as well—but what they’d taken from Callum, he was never getting back.
“All right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”
I held out my hand. Callum considered it for a second and then grabbed it with one sharp shake.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rocío
The base’s underground level stank of mildew and sickly sweet cleaning fluid. The dim fluorescents overhead flickered more often than not. And whichever official had decided my current assignment had scheduled me on the night shift after the regular janitorial staff was done, so it was also lonely.
When I looked up from the wall I’d been scrubbing with a sponge to see four figures ambling toward me, I wished the basement had stayed lonely. Brandt was leading the pack, a couple of the other younger operatives just behind him, and Tonya trailing at the rear as if she wasn’t completely sure she wanted to be here, but she didn’t want to miss the show either. ¿Y ahora que?
I turned away from them, dipped the sponge into the bucket, and started on the next grimy patch on the wall. You could tell this place hadn’t been used in almost thirty years. Every time I finished a shift, I dove straight into the shower.
“Nice setup you’ve got here,” one of Brandt’s bunch said. “No terrorists around throwing magical projectiles or ’chanted grenades at you.”
“Maybe she screwed up on purpose so she could get out of the real Champion work,” the guy beside her said.
“Too bad Stravos had to go down for her to manage that,” Brandt said.