by Megan Crewe
“Just you,” he said. “The others will wait outside.”
“Fine with me,” I said, shooting a glare Brandt’s way.
Brandt started to protest, but Sam cut him off with a light cuff to his head. “If this works, she’s saving the whole unit’s hide. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Brandt’s mouth snapped shut. He scowled, but he left with Sam and Desmond.
When the Secretary of Defense and I were alone in the room, Zacher lowered himself into his immense leather chair.
“I can’t say I can give you a lot of time,” he said. “But let’s see where we get with this.”
“Okay.” I wet my lips, my heart hammering all over again. “Close your eyes. Focus on your breathing to start. There’s a particular rhythm: two short breaths in, a long breath out. We can start there.”
My three fellow operatives were waiting just outside the door when I emerged. The secretary shot them another perturbed look, but they seemed oblivious.
“So?” Desmond said quietly. “How did it go?”
“I think he’s almost convinced,” I said. “He sent me out here so he could make sure he could do it on his own—that I wasn’t the one controlling what was happening.”
In the last few minutes of our practice session, Zacher had managed to conduct the flow of the magic enough to nudge a piece of paper and to make the surface of the coffee in his mug ripple. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to test his apparent skill out without me watching.
The door behind me opened sooner than I’d expected. “Come back in,” Zacher said. “All of you.”
Inside his grand office, he stopped in front of his desk and turned to face us. A strange light had come into his eyes, a little wild.
“I have a lot more questions,” he said. “I understand it’ll be difficult for you to answer most of them. But until I can get those answers—I’m putting all major military action on the Confederation’s side on hold, as long as there are no significant offensives against us. You can rest a little easier for now.”
My shoulders sagged in relief. I could’ve hugged him if I hadn’t been sure that would not go over well.
“Thank you,” I said. “So much.”
“I don’t want to lose track of you four,” Zacher added. “I assume your commanders will be looking for you. I can place you in a safe house or similar until we have the issue sorted out.”
The thought of being locked up somewhere near the capitol made my stomach twist. “I need to get back to Manhattan,” I said. “I have a friend who might need my help.” Finn’s rally would be starting soon. I couldn’t just disappear on him.
“We can arrange a safe house there easily enough,” Zacher said. “I’ll send a few guards with you. Don’t try to slip them, and you’ll be free to move around. Wait a moment while I make the necessary calls.”
I backed up a step as he picked up his phone. My eyes caught Sam’s, and he gave me an encouraging nod. Desmond was beaming. Brandt’s expression was clouded, his mouth slanted as if he was torn between relief at our victory and anger at the secret I’d revealed.
Our mission wasn’t over. There might still be some way the Confed could screw up the progress we’d made. But for the first time since I’d entered the Exam, maybe the first time since Javi’s death, a weight so familiar I’d stopped noticing it lifted from my chest. In that first instant, when the full reality of what I’d just accomplished hit me, I felt as if my feet might float off the ground.
I’d championed the magic and won—this round at least. I could only hope Finn came out of his battle in one piece too.
Chapter Thirty
Finn
I’d never fully appreciated the power of surprise until that crisp mid-December day when Luis, Tamara, Ary, and I huddled in a café near the Confed building to see our con play out.
The decoy rally had been Luis’s idea. About two hundred protestors, with Ary’s boyfriend and Mark leading them, were converging on Times Square with posters and raised voices around the time we’d originally planned to begin our real protest. As we watched, the police cars stationed near the Confed building roared off—first a few, then another, and another, until just a couple remained.
“Those dumb mages, getting paranoid about nothing,” Ary muttered. “That’s what the Dull cops will be thinking. That the Circle couldn’t even get their intel right.”
“Hey,” I said. “It works in our favor.”
“True,” she said, with a cool smile that made it difficult to enjoy her agreement. She’d never apologized for or even acknowledged the beating she and her bunch had given me. No doubt she felt it had been justified by the information she’d had at the time, and therefore there was nothing to apologize for.
Mark called in to report that the police had dispersed the small crowd in Times Square. The four of us waited an hour longer, until the cops should have gotten wrapped up in their regular duties, and then, with a ripple of texts that started with our contacts and ended who-knew-where, we summoned everyone we could reach to the streets around the Confed building. Everyone who’d been ready for the rally had gathered in shops and restaurants within a ten-block radius of the place, ready for their cue.
I wasn’t hanging behind or hiding in the background today. This time, I marched at the head of the first rush as we streamed toward the building’s main entrance: a pearly white-and-gray marble arch overlooking matching steps. The air was crisp but the sun bright in the clear sky, streaking warmth through the chilly currents of the breeze. Hundreds of feet thundered over the pavement around me.
The heads of the cops in the nearest police car jerked up as we swept around their vehicle. They scrambled out with a few shouts that we ignored. I couldn’t see how there was a whole lot they or the two cops farther down the street could do on their own. The guy who’d been in the driver’s seat fumbled for his handheld radio. He was calling for reinforcements, I supposed. Well, we were prepared for that.
Other cars were pulling up around the fringes of our crowd. Camera crews and photographers spilled out alongside reporters waving microphones. Every move we made here was about to be recorded.
The flip side was, every move the Circle and their allies made would be too.
Luis strode right up to the steps. Two of the cops hustled past him to block the doors.
The League’s leader raised his hand, and most of the crowd hushed so his voice could carry to our audience. “Where’s the Circle?” he called out. “They decide our fate, but they can’t be bothered to face us? Let them come out here, look us in the eye, and tell us we don’t deserve the same magic they have.”
A cry went up through the rally. “Come out! Come out! Let’s see the Circle!”
The police by the doors stirred restlessly as even more protestors poured into the street. The mass of bodies must have extended all the way around the building by now. I climbed up a couple of steps to stand just below Luis and get a better look at the protest.
Several more police cars were parking as close as they could get to the edge of the crowd. Other cars, gray and black compacts, appeared nearby. The figures who emerged from those wore the uniforms of the Confed’s security forces. Even they looked bewildered by our numbers.
There would be more security inside the building, but I imagined they were hanging back behind the doors, setting up defenses to ensure we couldn’t burst through.
I raised my voice to join the chanting. Near me, Tamara added a clap of her hands for more volume—and to disrupt any castings the mage security team might attempt. A sharper wave of sound spread through the gathering.
“Come out!” Clap. “We want the Circle.” Clap. “Show your faces.” Clap. “We want the Circle.”
The police and their mage counterparts drifted on the outskirts of the crowd looking a little aimless. An argument appeared to spark between a few of them—each side probably blaming the other for not having controlled the situation.
We hollered our chant over
and over. Despite the sun and the closeness of our bodies, the winter chill gradually settled in. My cheeks stung from the breeze and my hands from the clapping. My throat was getting hoarse.
There’d been no sign of anyone from the other side of those doors. The Circle was waiting us out.
Knowing my granduncle, I had to admit it was possible they could out-wait us. They could hole up in there from now through the weekend if they really wanted to show their disdain for us.
A sensation grazed my jaw: a faint tingling like the lightest brush of fingertips, too warm to be the breeze. I turned my head toward it, and my gaze found her in an instant.
Rocío stood down the street at the fringes of the rally. A frowning woman with stiffly straight posture was poised just behind her, as if guarding her, but Rocío smiled the second her eyes met mine. She tipped her head with a little nod, and I knew she’d come to tell me her mission had succeeded.
A smile split my face in return, even though my heart sank slightly, knowing that my mission here appeared to be failing right in front of her. Well, it would be what it would be. One victory should be enough for any day.
I couldn’t give up yet. The last time I’d made a real difference, it was only because she’d passed on her power to me. This time…
This time I had a sort of power she lacked, didn’t I? I hadn’t ever really wanted the clout my family’s name gave me, but it was still mine. Even Tamara had said my old-magic status was one of the ways I could best help the League. Why in Hades’s name wasn’t I using it?
I couldn’t try to speak for everyone here, but I could make sure we were heard.
With a stutter of my pulse, I swiveled and leapt up the last two steps to the door. Luis dipped his head as if to say, Go for it. One of the police officers held out his arm to obstruct me.
“Why can’t I go in?” I demanded, pitching my voice as loud as I could. “Don’t you know who I am? My granduncle is Raymond Lockwood—he’s in there sitting with the rest of his Circle. If he won’t come out here and talk to me and my friends, we’ll go to him.”
The people nearby had quieted as I spoke. The moment I finished, a cheer rose up.
The cops shifted their weight, but they stayed between me and the door. “No one goes in,” one said.
“I have a right to enter,” I said as the cheer faded so people could listen. “My granduncle and my great-grandfather before him served on the Circle. My father works in there too. Let us in, or bring the Circle out!”
As I hollered those last few words, my chest clenched, but the roar of the crowd behind me loosened it with a wave of exhilaration. A new chant filled the air: “Let us in or bring them out! Let us in or bring them out!”
Cameras were filming and snapping. Reporters were taking their notes. I stared defiantly at the police officer in front of me, and he glared back, his stance tense. It was still a standoff—unless I found a way to push farther.
In one swift movement, I reached for the handle behind him.
I saw the blow coming a split second before it landed. If I’d wanted to, perhaps I could have dodged at least enough to deflect the full impact. I didn’t, though. In the instant I registered it, my mind gave over to the moment, to the pain that was about to come—to the story it would present to everyone watching. Anánkāi d'oudè theoì mákhontai.
The cop’s baton whacked me across the head. My teeth nicked my tongue as I reeled backward. My feet slipped. Hands caught me, holding me steady on the stairs.
I straightened up slowly, pressing my hand to my temple—the other side, not the one that had already been marked. A smear of blood colored my fingers. A coppery flavor was trickling through my mouth. My head throbbed, but inside I was smiling again.
Had the reporters out there seen that? The law enforcement called in by the Circle had struck down an unarmed member of one of the most prominent families of the Confederation, simply for trying to access the building where his father worked.
I took a step forward, and the officer tensed. “Don’t do this,” he said.
The chant washed over me as hundreds of voices took it up. “Let us in or bring them out!”
“I have a right to go in there,” I said. “You have no right to stop me.”
The wound on my temple stung with the cold. I took another step, ready to spring for the entrance. The cop’s arm twitched. Then, like a miracle, the door opened from the other side.
The first face I saw was Granduncle Raymond’s. To say he looked furious was a grave understatement. Another man and a woman from the Circle stood beside him. Confed security flanked them in a semicircle.
“This stops now,” my granduncle rasped. The man with him peered out over the crowd, his lips parting as if in amazement. The protesters erupted into a cacophony of cheers and shouts at the sight of them.
I swiped at the blood on my forehead with the back of my hand, holding Granduncle Raymond’s gaze. “Come out and talk to us. Hear us out. We’re not going away, no matter how much you’d prefer to ignore us.”
“There might be some room for discussion,” the woman said. “But not like this. Stand down, and we’ll see what we can do.”
“That’s not good enough.” I motioned to Luis and Tamara just behind me. “You come out here and look the people leading this movement in the eye. You commit to discussing policy changes with them where everyone can hear you. We need it on the record.”
“You fail to recognize that you have very little bargaining power here,” Granduncle Raymond snapped, as if I hadn’t already brought him out of his chambers to this doorway.
My mouth slanted into a crooked grin. There was so much he didn’t know I had in me.
“I know,” I said, letting my voice drop so only the three of them could hear me. “I know the Dulls aren’t really Dull. I know the Circle must have been aware of that for at least as long as the Confed has been testing people. If you don’t come out here and give us a story you actually mean, I can give them that one. It’s your choice.”
My granduncle’s face turned deathly sallow. The woman looked as if she’d swallowed her tongue. The other man made a sputtering sound, his gaze darting to the edges of the crowd where the cameras were watching.
If I made a statement now, the news would be all over the world within the hour.
“Raymond,” the woman choked out.
My granduncle glowered at me, his eyes gone flinty. “Do you have any idea—what chaos you’d cause? The destruction of everything we’ve worked so hard to build? You wouldn’t dare.”
I glowered right back at him. “Try me.”
For the first time I could remember seeing, something wavered in his expression. The other man grasped his forearm. A silent agreement seemed to pass between the three of them. They moved forward, and I backed up to give them room to cross the threshold.
Luis and Tamara came together to meet them on the front step. I glanced around, expecting Ary to shove her way in too, but she must have gotten caught up elsewhere in the crowd. I eased farther back still, giving all the space to the other two. My part here was done.
Luis raised his hand, and the chanting quieted. “You have something to say to me?” he prompted the Circle members.
“It’s clear that the policies we’ve felt were in the best interests of our societies—both magical and nonmagical—are causing distress to a significant number of people,” the woman said in an expansive voice, clearly speaking to the cameras as much as to Luis. “We invite you and four colleagues of your choosing to sit down with us on Monday and discuss the potential changes that might be made.”
“Potential isn’t enough,” Luis said. “Are you willing to change the policies or not?”
“We can’t say exactly what adaptations we might make without further consideration,” the other man said. “But I’m sure there are some accommodations we could implement.”
There. We had their agreement in a public statement. The battle wasn’t over yet, but we’d won more
ground than I suspected any of us had really hoped for even a day ago.
“All right,” Luis said. “That’s all I ask. We’ll leave you in peace for now.”
He held his hand up to the crowd again, both in a victory gesture and a motion that the rally was concluded. Whoops and laughter carried through his audience, and bodies began to shift toward the adjoining streets.
“Bloody rabble,” Granduncle Raymond muttered sotto voce, turning back toward the doorway without so much as a glance at me. His colleagues moved to join him.
I was just heading down the steps when a streak of magical light split the air overhead.
The conjured bolt struck the marble arch over the doorway. The stone fragmented in an instant. With a sinister rattling, shards sharp as daggers rained down on the Circle members.
A cry broke from my throat. The woman and the other man stumbled back against the sides of the arch, but one of the slivers pierced Granduncle Raymond’s chest.
He crumpled.
Mage security burst through the doorway. Three of the officers dropped down around my granduncle.
“Get those people out of here!” one of them yelled. “We need an ambulance.”
The crowd was churning now with murmurs of confusion and distress. “We’re done here!” Luis shouted to them. “Head home. Clear the street.”
The mage security team hustled past him, urging the mass of bodies into varying streams. They had to be searching for the perpetrator too.
My gaze followed them—and snagged on a head of long, violet-streaked black hair in the crowd. Ary’s familiar face sported a wide grin as she turned to be swallowed up in the crowd. My heart stopped.
Her Dampered “friend” with the stone affinity must be here. She’d carried out her plan after all, with an even grander target.
“Move out, move out!” the security officer next to me hollered.
I grabbed Luis’s arm. “It was Ary,” I said. “She organized this. You’ve got to tell them—we’ve got to find her—”