by Megan Crewe
They feared the power we could wield. Would they really risk losing the chance to gain the same power themselves?
But we didn’t have much time to make our case. Just after I’d gotten off the phone with Finn, Commander Revett had given the word that the special ops unit would launch its strike on twelve different enemy targets with the aim of demolishing the buildings and everything in them, along with anyone who tried to get in the way. The assault was scheduled for tomorrow night.
Thirty-six hours—that was our deadline.
Sam tipped his head to Desmond. “Can you access the database once we’re out of the base?”
“I managed to email some of the data to myself,” Desmond said. “It’s only a small chunk of the total, but there’ll be enough for people to verify our story. It’d be better if we had numbers on the people who are actually in the Dull government, though. Too bad that database only covers newborn testing. I doubt there’s anyone all that important in the White House who’s under forty. The records from the first tests during the Unveiling must be somewhere else.”
“There won’t be numbers anywhere for people much over fifty,” I said. “Even during the Unveiling, I don’t think the Confed evaluated anyone older than sixteen.” My parents, who’d been in their preteens during the Unveiling, had told me that the Confed had claimed anyone over sixteen who hadn’t shown spontaneous signs of talent was almost certainly Dull. Not enough of a chance to bother testing hundreds of millions of people across the continent.
“As far as we know,” Prisha muttered.
Desmond nudged me. “I grabbed my medical file too, for when you have time to check it over. It might have some details about my treatment.”
I gave him a grateful smile. Maybe if this plan went off without a hitch, I’d be able to focus on how Finn’s connection to the magic might be restored. I wished that didn’t seem like such a big maybe.
We drew to a halt outside the dorm room Brandt shared with a few of the other male operatives. Sam rapped on the door. “Brandt? It’s Sam. Open up.”
Brandt edged open the door. The other guy who’d come down to the basement with him sat on the edge of one of the beds behind him, along with Tonya, the other girl, and a couple guys I hadn’t talked to much. They were all braced and tense, as if we’d caught them at something they wanted to hide.
Plotting their own special assault, no doubt.
“We need to talk,” Sam said.
He might not have been a senior official, but his status as regular mission leader obviously gave him some clout. Brandt’s gaze darted from him to the rest of us in the hall, but he stayed at the door.
“What about?”
“I don’t think you want us talking about it out here.”
Brandt’s mouth flattened. “There’s nothing I want to talk about with the rest of them.”
“Well, too bad,” Sam said. “Because this is a package deal. You can talk with us, or you can have a very interesting conversation with Commander Revett in a few minutes.”
With a sigh, Brandt backed up to let us in.
As the door thumped shut behind us, my heart started to thud just as loud. The magic niggled along my arms. I inhaled slowly, gathering myself, trying to tune out how crowded the room felt with eleven of us in here now.
Trusting these people could be the biggest mistake of my life. I already knew I didn’t agree with their tactics, and they didn’t agree with mine. I could be setting in motion an even bigger disaster, or at least a different one.
But I couldn’t do this on my own. I had to admit that now. I needed them—and they needed me. So I was going to do my best to make this work. That was all the magic or anyone else could ask.
“You’ve come up with a plan to get off the base, right?” I said. “To make it back home? I want in on it.”
Brandt’s followers exchanged glances that said enough. Brandt folded his arms over his chest. “Now you want a part of this? Not that I’m saying we are planning on doing anything like that.”
“I want to get back home too,” I said. “I want to take on the Dull government. But not the way you’re thinking. I’ve got something better—something that isn’t going to turn them against us.”
“You’ve got no idea what we want to do,” Brandt snapped. “But, of course, your plan has to be better.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes at him. “I’m not stupid. You want to attack them. Even forgetting any arguments about valuing life or harming the magic or whatever, how far do you really think the six of you are going to get? Maybe you take down a couple of their officials—maybe you even take down the president—and then the rest of them will declare some kind of national emergency and eradicate every mage in the country.”
“Sounds like scare tactics to me,” Tonya said, her hands balling at her sides.
“Does it really matter?” Sam said evenly. “I’ve got the feeling there’s no way any of you are making it out of here without Rocío’s skills on your side.”
“If we have to, we’ll make it work,” one of the other guys muttered, but none of them looked all that convinced.
“You’ll have a better chance if I’m helping, won’t you?” I said. “What’s more important—stopping that assault tomorrow or doing everything exactly your way?”
“What’s your great plan, then?” Brandt asked.
I raised my chin. “If I can talk to the right people in the Dull government, I swear to you I can make them call off the attack. I’ve got connections I think can get me in there. I’ve got leverage. I just need to get back into the country.”
I didn’t see any point in sharing the secret we’d learned about the Dulls. This particular audience might want to shut down that information rather than letting it get out. Being able to use magic allowed them to stay superior to all those supposedly nonmagical people they resented.
Just like it did the whole Confed. Why else would the higher-ups among the mages have made the decisions to set a cut-off point and lie about the results?
The girl next to Tonya made a scoffing sound. Brandt scowled at me. “And we’re supposed to just take you at your word, Lopez?”
I stared right back at him, letting every ounce of my conviction color my tone. “You’re supposed to believe that I wouldn’t risk my magic and the safety of everyone I care about going AWOL unless I was sure I could follow through.”
Silence fell over the group. I thought I saw Brandt waver, but not enough for him to back down. I inhaled slowly and played the last card I had, the one I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to put on the table.
“You’d be coming with us. All the way to the Dulls who call the shots. If I don’t follow through on my promise, then I’ll have gotten you into the perfect position to switch back to your plan, won’t I?”
Brandt’s stance loosened a little. He rubbed his mouth. Had they even come up with a solid strategy for getting at the people they wanted to take down once they were on home soil? I might be handing him up everything he’d wanted on a platter.
Please let me not regret this.
“Okay,” he said, sounding suddenly hoarse. “I’m going to hold you to that. If you try to leave me behind or screw me over—”
“I’ll be there too,” Sam said beside me. “I’ll make sure everyone keeps their word. You know I’ve always been fair, right, Brandt? Rocío gets her turn, and if that doesn’t pan out, you can get yours.”
Brandt lowered his head in acknowledgment. The others were gaping at us as if they couldn’t totally believe that what they’d talked about might actually happen. I didn’t want to give them a chance to delay Brandt’s agreement.
“All right,” I said. “Now how do we get out of here?”
“Duerme tranquilo, duerme entretanto,” I murmured, directing the magic toward the lump under the covers of my bed. The presence I’d conjured shifted with a rise and fall of simulated breath, meant to look as if it were my own body sleeping there where I was supposed to be. The s
ight made me shiver.
I’d created similar conjured figures in Sam’s, Desmond’s, and Brandt’s beds as well. With our usual schedules, no one would expect us to be up for at least another couple hours. My castings should last long enough.
This was the work Brandt’s group had needed me for. They’d worked out how to leave the country but not how to do it before the commanders realized they were gone and raised the alarm. The measures I’d put in place had already brought a sharp ache into my chest, and we had a lot more casting ahead. I could see why they’d been worried about attempting to do this much without help.
The three guys coming with me had joined us in the room while I finished, ready for our escape. As I turned toward the door, Leonie grasped Desmond’s arm and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Prisha met my eyes and nodded. The two of them were counting on us to make sure they didn’t have to charge out into a potential massacre tomorrow.
I murmured the lyrics I’d chosen as the four of us slipped into the hall. The artificial brightness of the recently replaced lights glared down on us. The strands of magic I was conducting shifted around us with a gentle hum, fading us from view while giving off as little residual energy as possible. If I wasn’t careful, the soldiers monitoring the base would catch the signs of a huge casting.
I hadn’t been sure I could pull off even that delicate maneuver, but the magic grazed my shoulders with a touch that felt almost affectionate, as if it knew I was doing all this to save it. It had bent to my will more easily than ever before.
We were almost to the stairwell when Colonel Alcido stalked around a corner up ahead. All four of us froze. I whispered my concealing ’chantment, a more powerful adaptation of the one we used when in the field, as he marched toward us. Brandt’s jaw worked, his hard gaze fixed on the Dull intruder in our midst.
My pulse stuttered at the naked anger in his eyes. He wasn’t going to try some stunt out of revenge now and get us caught before we’d even gotten out of the building, was he?
What we were setting off to do seemed to matter at least as much to him as it did to me, I reminded myself. In a tiny gesture of solidarity, I rested my elbow against his with just enough pressure that he’d feel it. Brandt glanced at me and made a face, but a little of his rage dimmed. The four of us stood still and silent until Alcido had ducked into a room down the hall.
We darted into the stairwell and emerged into the yard under thin mid-morning sunlight. A sheen of frost crackled under my feet with each step. Brandt swiped his hand over the short spikes of his hair and reached into his pocket for the key Tonya had been able to “borrow” from a sympathetic pilot friend. We found the jeep parked right where she’d said it would be, just off the main drive that led to the gate.
My voice rose and resonated, expanding the concealing bubble around us. I had barely enough attention left to find my way into the back seat of the jeep. Sam eased me in the right direction with a hand on my arm. As I settled next to Desmond, our former mission leader got into the front seat next to Brandt, who’d insisted on driving.
I propelled even more focus into my words, letting the melody twist and stretch as the engine rumbled. Desmond started murmuring in a similar rhythm. The joint casting took me back to the Exam, when he and I and the rest of our team had worked together to freeze our enemies rather than fight back. I couldn’t say that memory was a good one, but there was something reassuring about it.
The hardest part lay ahead of us, though. We had to get through that gate without anyone realizing it had been penetrated.
I squared my shoulders and extended my awareness out toward the thick steel door, carried by the hum of the magic. That familiar energy reverberated around me and flowed forward to draw a vast cloak from one side of the wall to the other. Desmond’s voice mingled with mine, and then Sam’s too. We called more and more magic to us, conducting it into an immense concealing shell that would reflect only what anyone looking would expect to see out here.
Somewhere behind us, a garage door squealed as it opened. My nerves jumped. I sang louder, holding my voice as steady as I could. A pinch of a headache was forming between my eyebrows. I motioned Brandt onward, restraining myself from glancing behind us to see how close we were to being discovered.
Brandt pressed the controls to open the gate and drove slowly up to it. The door swung open. The three of us around him murmured on, all of us rigid in our seats.
The jeep eased past the wall into the sprawling, hilled landscape on the other side. I braced myself for a shout to carry from the base. All I heard was the gate whirring shut behind us. The moment it clinked into place, I released that part of my casting with a ragged exhalation.
Desmond was grinning. “Wow. That was something.”
“It was something, all right,” Brandt muttered. He gunned the engine. “We’ve still got to make it to the airport and onto a plane before they catch on. I hope your tricks worked, Lopez.”
A slightly hysterical laugh escaped me. “So do I.”
“Should we fly as directly as we can into Washington?” Sam asked.
I shook my head. “I mentioned I had connections? We need to get to New York. I’ve got an in with the Pentagon.”
A thin layer of snow blanketed the grass beyond the park’s well-trampled paths. In the fading daylight, icicles glimmered like knives on the bare branches of the trees. I stamped my feet to drive more warmth into them. Ten days until Christmas. ¡Feliz pinche Navidad!
“How long is this going to take?” Brandt said, his shoulders hunched to bring his collar up to his ears. He should’ve bought a hat when we’d ditched our special-ops-issued clothes for civilian wear.
“He’ll be here soon.” I glanced again at the prepaid phone I’d bought as soon as we’d gotten to the airport. No new texts, but no reason to believe anything had gone wrong. Yet.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Sam said to Brandt lightly. “You’ve made it through five Estonian winters. I think you can handle New York in mid-December.”
“If this actually works, I’m never leaving California again,” Brandt retorted.
My spirits leapt at the crunch of footsteps in the snow. A tall, lanky figure in a gray wool coat came into view between the trees. He’d said he’d come right away, but he must have dropped everything to get here this fast, simply because I’d said I needed him. The knot of tension in my chest released, even though we were still far from victory, replaced by a rush of warmth and affection.
More than affection, really. Maybe there were other things I should have admitted to myself by now. Like that the boy raising his head with a smile that could rival the sun had captured every bit of my heart.
Finn’s smile faltered a little when he took in the company I’d brought with me. I hadn’t wanted to risk saying much of anything when I’d asked him to meet me, in case someone was keeping an eye on his phone. He stopped in front of me, close enough to reach for my hand.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be back this early,” he said. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t quite manage to smile in return, not when I was about to lay so much of this mission on him. “I need a favor. We have to talk to your sister.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Finn
I’d once thought of my sister Margo as the Lockwood patron saint of Justice. Today I was simply hoping she’d be a saint of Nearly Lost Causes. We were appearing on her doorstep, a Burnout and a special ops soldier gone AWOL, and I wasn’t entirely certain what justice even was anymore.
I’d gone to see her right before the Exam, and she’d helped me then without really wanting to. With a little luck, she’d do the same today. Of course, last time she’d been expecting me.
Margo answered my buzz with a bleary, “Hello?” It was six in the morning, late enough that I didn’t feel too guilty about waking her but early enough that I knew she wouldn’t have left for work.
“It’s Finn,” I said. “And a friend. Can we come up?”
Margo sounded more alert in an instant. “Finn? What’s wrong? Yes, come up, of course.”
By the time we made it up the stairs to the door to her loft, she’d pulled back her ash-brown hair into a hasty bun and thrown on a sweater and jeans. Her worried eyes searched mine for a few seconds before her gaze slid to my companion.
“This is Rocío,” I said quickly. “We were—” I gritted my teeth at the ’chantment that prevented me from even saying we’d been in the Exam together. All I could offer were the facts on public record. “She just made Champion.”
My hand curled around Rocío’s, my fingers twining with hers. She offered her other hand to Margo. “I’m sorry we’re meeting for the first time like this, but it really is good to meet you.”
Margo blinked and accepted the handshake. I could tell our joined fingers hadn’t escaped her notice. She motioned us into the warmth of the loft. She’d always liked the heat at least a couple of degrees higher than my parents preferred.
“What’s going on?” she said. “What are you two doing here?”
“I’ll explain,” I said. “Can I get a glass of water? This could take a little while.”
“Sure, no problem.”
As she hustled to the kitchen at one end of the open-concept space, I let go of Rocío to sit on one of the cushy leather armchairs in the living area. Margo set the sweating glass on the distressed wood coffee table and sank down on the couch across from me. Rocío lingered behind the other armchair as if she didn’t feel quite comfortable sitting down.
I picked up the glass, turned it in my hand, and took a sip. The water burned cold down my throat. The scrabble of tiny claws carried from Margo’s bedroom where her two rats were darting around in their cage. My stomach twisted with memories of how her former third pet had met its death—memories I wished I could wipe from my head.
“Rocío has seen things, heard things, since she was named Champion,” I started. In truth, our story wasn’t all that long, especially since Rocío wasn’t capable of telling me many of the details of her situation beyond her plan for what she did now, but the argument afterward might take some time. “Something’s about to happen with National Defense that could deal a real blow to the magic. Weaken it, possibly even destroy it.”