by Megan Crewe
He knew how to land a low blow. I restrained a wince, refusing to give them my attention. That was what they wanted, right? To have a little fun, feel a little powerful by making me uncomfortable before they went off to tackle our real enemies—the ones who’d fight back. I’d gotten plenty of that kind of treatment from my Dull peers back in school.
Keep your head high and don’t give them any satisfaction, Javi used to tell me. We know we’re better than those pendejos.
I didn’t feel better than anyone right now. I’d tried so hard, and I had screwed up.
The magic should have chosen someone else to champion it, because I didn’t seem to be up to the task.
Tonya ran her hand over the tight twists of her hair. “Come on. If you’re just going to heckle her, I’m going to bed.”
Brandt leaned against the wall I’d just wiped down, his head cocked toward me. “I’m just wondering if she even cares what the assholes upstairs are doing. She always talked such a big game about being out there ‘helping the magic’ or whatever.”
“It wasn’t a game,” I said quietly. “And I’d rather be out on missions than doing this. If you’ve got an idea about how to make that happen, feel free to share it.”
He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think you’re angry enough. No loyalty to anyone but yourself when the chips are down.”
My gaze jerked toward him before I could rein my emotions in. “Who are you to talk about loyalty?”
Brandt glowered at me. “I’m nothing but loyal, kid. Loyal to this unit, loyal to people stuck here like us, because this is the best family most of us have ever had. I stand up for everyone who stands up for me. We’ve got the Dulls on one side trying to grind us down, and the insurgents on the other, and we’re not getting through it unless we have each other’s backs—and you’re off doing your stupid crap as if some asshole terrorist’s life matters more than ours.”
I stared at him. Was that really how he saw the things I’d done, the adaptations I’d tried to make? No wonder he hated me.
“I was trying to do the right thing,” I said, though the words sounded feeble now. “For everyone. But for us, most of all. I didn’t think—”
“Yeah. You didn’t think that risking our lives for your idiotic ideas about the magic was that big a deal. Why should you be angry now either?”
“She probably doesn’t even know what we’ve got to be angry about,” Tonya broke in. She sucked her teeth and raised her chin toward me. “The officials got some intel out of the last few missions. They figure they’ve ID’ed a bunch of facilities that are critical to the Borci and the Bonded Worthy. We’re supposed to go off on some huge mission to blow them all to smithereens.”
“Suicide run, more like it,” the younger girl muttered.
My stomach clenched. One huge strike—that was what the officials had been pushing for all along. What the Dull government had been pushing the Confed for. We were actually going through with it.
The magic around me shivered.
“Right now?” I said, my voice strained.
“Within the week,” Brandt said. “They’re having us follow a few more leads first. Make sure we’re hitting everything we can at the best time. As far as they’re concerned, we’ll bring terrorist networks crashing down or we’ll die trying. At least, we will if we go along with the assault. You’d want to stop it from happening, wouldn’t you? Too ‘destructive’ for your tastes?”
“I wouldn’t want to try to take them down by blowing up a ton of stuff.” I lowered my sponge with a sudden flash of understanding. They had a plan to stop the strike. That was why they’d come down here.
They wanted me to help them with it.
“We all know none of this is what our commanders want,” Brandt said. “Why the hell are we here at all? The mage insurgents haven’t stirred up much trouble back home. But the Dull government is terrified of them, terrified of the Dull groups they associate with, so they make us come out here and risk our lives dealing with problems that started before anyone even knew mages existed. We’d be off at the damned college if it weren’t for them.”
“There’s not a whole lot we can do about that,” I said. “So, what’s your point?”
A slightly manic gleam lit in his normally stony eyes. “Maybe we’ve been thinking that way too long. Maybe it’s time we went straight to the source and used that power they’re so scared of to defend ourselves.”
A chill crept over my skin. It sounded like he was talking about some kind of attack on the Dull government. “You can’t seriously think that’s going to fix our problems,” I said.
Brandt’s expression shuttered. Whatever response he’d been looking for, mine obviously hadn’t been it. “I’m only saying we make a clear case,” he said. “But if you’re not interested in being part of that, fine. I just thought I’d extend a hand.”
He shoved himself off the wall and stalked back the way he’d come, the others falling into step behind him. I watched them go, my fingers curling into the damp sponge.
Had I misread Brandt’s tone? Nothing he’d said spelled out what they were hoping to do. I didn’t think I’d gotten the gist of it wrong, though. He’d been testing my loyalties, like he’d said. And when I’d shown the opposite of enthusiasm for doing anything to hurt the Dull leaders, he’d retreated.
Had he really thought I’d be up for it? Maybe he’d figured I might be pissed off enough after this punishment.
Or maybe they weren’t sure they could pull off their plan without the skills I could offer, so he’d decided it was worth a shot, no matter how slim the chances.
I started scrubbing the wall more vigorously than before, my thoughts spinning.
Brandt had been with the unit for years longer than me. If I tried to tell Commander Revett or any of the other officials about my suspicions, it’d be my word against his and his three witnesses. He’d have some way of turning it around on me, or he wouldn’t have risked saying as much as he had.
What the hell could I do?
I was so lost in that dilemma that I didn’t notice I had new visitors until they were halfway down the hall. When I glanced up and saw Sam’s face, my back stiffened. Was he also pissed off with me, because I’d messed up the mission—gotten one of the squad killed, nearly gotten him killed too?
But his expression was mild, and he had Prisha and Desmond with him. I relaxed a little when he gave me a nod and bent to grab another sponge out of the open package by the wall.
“Need a little help?” he said.
“I wouldn’t turn it down.”
The three of them got to work beside me. I didn’t know why they’d come down tonight, but I figured Sam would get around to telling me when he thought the time was right—even if I had to keep biting my tongue to avoid demanding an explanation.
“I saw Brandt and a few of the others coming up from here a little while ago,” he said eventually. “Were they hassling you?”
“That and some other stuff,” I said. “They weren’t happy about this massive assault the commanders are apparently setting up.”
Sam grimaced. “I don’t think any of us are happy about that. I mean, if I was sure it’d tip the balance in our favor in some significant way, no problem—but we’re rushing in so fast. How can they know enough about what we’re up against?”
“And we don’t know what that kind of casting on that large a scale could do to the magic,” I said, bracing myself for disbelief.
All I got was a shrug. “I can’t feel it the way you do,” Sam said. “But I can see that could be a concern too. Not a big enough one to get us out of this mess, though.”
“Not when the commanders don’t care, as long as they get the Dull officials off their backs,” Prisha said.
“I think…” I hesitated. But, hell, if I didn’t trust the three people around me, who could I trust? “Brandt made a couple comments. It sounds like he wants to target the Dull government somehow. Like he figures if they go and, I
don’t know, blast away the White House, there won’t be anyone calling on us to fight their wars anymore.”
Desmond’s eyebrows jumped up. “Do you really think they’d try to assassinate someone?”
“I don’t know. He was being vague. I just… I didn’t like the vibe I got at all. Whatever they’re thinking of doing, it’s going to hurt more people than it helps—I’m willing to bet on that.”
Sam let out his breath. “I’ve seen the four of them and a couple others huddling more than usual. But they’d have a hard time getting anywhere off-base before the assault. None of us has any leave time scheduled between now and Christmas.”
“They could make a break for it,” Prisha said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I wondered if that’s why they were seeing if they could get me on board. It’d take some casting to sneak out of here, wouldn’t it?”
“For sure,” Sam said. “If they’re willing to talk like that, who knows how far they’d go?”
The three of them glanced at me, and I realized they were waiting to hear what I’d say. Waiting for me to suggest something we could do. Because I’d been the one trying to call the shots since I’d been made Champion.
I paused, leaning my hand against the wall. A wave of hopelessness rolled over me. In the end, I was still just one mage. A mage who’d gotten a friend killed. If Javi’d had any idea this was where I’d end up—if my parents had—
My fingers tensed against the wall’s cool surface. This was where all our sacrifices had gotten us. The commanders didn’t even trust me to go out in the field. I couldn’t turn back an enormous multi-squad assault. I couldn’t convince the officials to look into less destructive castings to accomplish the same goals, not in the time we had. I sure as hell wasn’t going to talk Brandt and his gang out of anything.
But looking at my hand braced against the mottled plaster, I found myself thinking of Finn. Of Finn at the end of the Exam, grasping the barbs of the metal hedge and shouting to the examiners that he was going to expose them all, even though he must have known he didn’t have the power to do it. He’d thrown himself into the attempt anyway. And we had ended the Exam, the two of us, together.
He’d found another point of leverage. He’d maneuvered around the examiners’ plans instead of tackling them head on.
He’d always found the bright side, a reason to hope, no matter how desperate our circumstances had been.
“What do we have?” I said abruptly, straightening up. “Anything, even if you don’t see how we could use it yet. What do we know or have that matters even a little bit to the commanders, or to Brandt’s bunch, or someone else who has some say in what’s going to happen?”
Sam frowned. “Brandt isn’t the most talkative guy. We haven’t even managed to get on a first name basis. I’ve heard a little about Tonya’s family back home—enough to know she isn’t on great terms with them. I might have some sway with all of them as a more senior operative, just stepping in and expressing disapproval.”
That wasn’t going to cut it—and it didn’t help us at all with the officials. I glanced at Prisha.
She held up her hands. “If we were back home, I could call in favors, but here… It’s possible my family’s money could be useful, but I don’t see how. Bribe someone into listening?”
“I can get us access to the private server in the magimedic lab,” Desmond said.
The three of us gaped at him. “How’d you manage that?” I said.
He smiled a little sheepishly. “After they healed me up, I got kind of bored while the magimedics were going around for hours doing all their tests. It’s not that hard to sense what keys someone taps to enter a password if you know the right casting and can do it without looking like you’re casting.” He wiggled his fingers. “I was actually thinking… Maybe they’d have something in their records about the burning out procedure, since this whole operation is tangled up with the Exam. If you knew how the procedure works, maybe you could switch it around. You’d want to do that for Finn, wouldn’t you?”
My face flamed even as excitement shot through me. I’d said a little to him about Finn, but nothing intense. “Why would you— Do I talk that loud when I’m on the phone or something?”
Desmond laughed. “I was there, before,” he said, meaning, in the Exam. “You’re crazy about him. I might be legally blind, but I’m not blind, Rocío.”
“Right. Right.” I willed the flush in my cheeks to recede. “But there could be other information in there too.” The way the senior officials’ connection to the magic was fraying—the magimedics had to be aware of that, right? “I’ve noticed things about the commanders that could call into question their competence. If we get our hands on proof of that, we’d have some leverage, wouldn’t we?”
The corner of Sam’s mouth slanted upward. “Sounds like as good a place to start as any. So, we’re doing this?”
For a second, something in me balked. What if I couldn’t handle it? What if I just got us into even more trouble?
But Sam and Prisha and Desmond had believed in me enough to reach out. They were standing with me now. From under the grief and shame weighing on me, a flicker of hope had started to shine again.
Maybe I’d tried to take on too much by myself, but I wasn’t on my own anymore.
“Count me in,” I said.
“Use that one,” Desmond murmured, pointing to a computer terminal on the desk beside one of the operating tables. “That’s the one I hearkened them on, so it should definitely work.”
We slunk across the unlit medic room to the desk. The magimedics had left for the night after the squads that had been out had returned uninjured. Sam and Prisha were keeping watch in the hall.
The monitor blinked on at a tap of the mouse. A log-in screen came up. Desmond drummed his fingers against his leg as he rattled off the password he’d gleaned earlier, as if he needed the rhythm to jog his memory.
“Thank you,” I said. “For thinking of me—of Finn. I know that’s not what we’re here for right now, but… it was a really nice thought.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “It’s bad enough having people back home you care about but can hardly see. Knowing they’ve lost something as important as their connection to magic has to be even worse. Even if there is a way to reverse a burning out, I’m not sure you’d be able to do it without getting arrested for going against the Confed—but at least it’d be good to know.”
“There’s got to be a way.” I scanned the folders on the computer’s desktop. “You were burned out. Maybe not the same way, so maybe the techniques they used wouldn’t work for someone burned out by the Confed, but the magimedics healed you. You said you haven’t noticed anything different with the magic, right?”
Desmond tapped his fingers again, knitting his brow. “No. How do you know that? They didn’t mention anything about my magical abilities being affected.”
“I don’t think they want to spread it around that burning out might be reversible,” I said. “Not when that’s their favorite way to threaten us into sticking with the special ops unit. But I—I can sense in other people the part of our minds that we use to hearken. Yours had gone dark.”
He touched the side of his head. “Damn. I’m glad I was unconscious for that.”
I opened a couple files and wrinkled my nose. “A lot of the records are written in magimedical lingo. I don’t know all the abbreviations—and Dios mío, they use a lot of Latin. What is it with old-magic mages and their obsession with dead languages?”
“Beats me,” Desmond said. “You’re not seeing anything we could use?”
“There’s a file on Commander Revett and the other senior officials, but I don’t see anything there that fits with what I’ve observed… It could be disguised in the terminology, though. Or maybe they’re not keeping track of those factors on the base.”
“What exact factors are we looking for?” he asked.
I hesitated, but I couldn’t see how it hurt anything t
o tell him. “You know what I said about being able to sense other people’s ability to hearken? Well, I noticed a little while ago that the senior officials… their connection is worn down. Commander Revett’s is almost gone—her castings are really weak. I think it might be an accumulating backlash from having used a lot of combative castings over the years.”
Desmond whistled softly. “Then we’d end up that way too if we stuck with this job long enough.”
“It seems like it.”
“You know, it’s a weird feeling,” he said. “In some ways, I’ve gotten to do more here with my magic than anyone ever gave me the chance to back home. They treat me like I can handle just as much as any other mage. It sucks that the opportunity has to come with so much crap.”
My throat tightened. “I’m sure you can find something else like that, somewhere people aren’t trying to blow you up on a regular basis.”
“If it exists, I aim to find it. Here, let me take over for a minute?”
I slid my chair to the side, and Desmond bent over. The glow of the screen cast a bluish glow over his dark skin as he peered closely at it. He double-clicked on an icon at the top right of the desktop.
“There was another server they logged into at one point. I think this is it. I’d bet it has more records—we could turn something up.”
“Maybe if we search for—what do they call it scientifically?” I frowned. “Magical capacity? There might be separate files just on that.”
Desmond nodded, his nose just a couple inches from the screen. His fingers clattered over the keyboard. He clicked open a file, enlarged it, dismissed it, and opened another. Then he paused. He scrolled down, stopped, and scrolled a little farther. The furrow in his brow deepened, and then he eased back his chair.
“Rocío, what does this look like to you?”
I scooted closer. At first glance, I could see he’d opened up some kind of database, with a list of names down the left-hand side and columns of other words and numbers stretching out to the right.
“Names, dates, locations,” I said. “Both city and… Wait, those are hospitals. Dull hospitals.”