That was where Slugger would come in, using his powers to reduce the mass of the cage until he could lift it easily, then bring it down over Divi’s head. As soon as he came close to Divi, his own power would fade away, making the cage gain weight rapidly once more. But so long as he could get it over Divi beforehand, that played to our advantage—since the cages were naturally heavy. Without Slugger’s power, they would be too heavy for Matteo or Divi to lift. As a contingency, I’d be using forcepoints to help move the cages but knew that my powers would not last long above the Litious.
We would wait until they made their move, until they advanced on Francesca. Ennia’s power would clear the floor of any objects, giving us a level field with plenty of space to trap them. And with them in the middle of an attack, the natural move by the police would be to arrest them, long after we had departed.
I drummed my fingers on my legs as I waited, biting the side of my cheek. So far, there was no sign of Francesca, Blake, Renalt, or the Litious. Looking up, I saw Francesca’s apartment, the tip of her building peeking over the edge of the theater wall. Just behind where the choir would be singing as if it were her own box seat, visible from the entire theater as if her fans would cheer her to sleep each night. In the distance, I already heard cheering from our right, a professional soccer game starting, which had clogged the streets on our way here. A blimp sparkled against the sun above where I knew the arena must be, and the crowd roared with what I assumed was the first goal of the night. Somewhere in that sky, Arial would be making rounds around Francesca’s building, watching for her departure and ensuring she reached us safely.
Then my eyes returned back to the stage, and the choir started to trickle in, polite clapping accompanying their swishing robes as they took their positions. But Arial had yet to return, and Francesca was not in their midst.
Chapter 60
The choir settled into their seats as the sun reached its zenith, bearing down upon us with an oppressive heat and humidity, the shadows around us disappearing under the blinding light. The crowd quieted and shifted, craning their necks to see past the crimson robes of the choir that stretched from their ankles to neck, soaking in the sun absorbed from their curved stands. But their search proved fruitless—at the choir’s peak, the position for Francesca to fill remained empty, with only five minutes left until the start.
They worked paper fans as they waited, and after a few minutes, I saw Dacil picking his way through the crowd, taking a seat saved for him near the front center. Four guards accompanied him on either side, wearing sunglasses to shield them from the brightness, the same that had intercepted us when escaping the opera house. They had yet to turn back to look at us, but I kept my face shielded by a baseball cap and program, something that helped me blend in further with the crowd.
Still, no Litious, no Instructors, no Renalt, and no Francesca.
“SC,” hissed Slugger suddenly, prodding me. “Oi, SC, do you see that?”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen anyone either,” I said, following a finger he pointed towards the choir stands. There, the singers stood at attention in the heat, with Ann and Marshall near the back keeping them in line.
“No, SC, look,” he said. “Third to the right, second row. Do you see her?”
I squinted, studying the girl that Slugger was pointing out. She looked familiar, but so did most of the members after I had seen their performance in front of Renalt. But there was something particular about this one, as if her features were slightly off, not quite lining up with my memory.
“It’s her, I’m damn sure of it. The one that got away from us back home. That’s Amelia!”
Squinting, the image came flooding back to me as I had seen it through Slugger’s eyes while connected by Roland. Her features were far less pronounced, a result of seeing them through my eyes rather than his thoughts, my mind picking up on different aspects of her than his had. The blue eyes, bangs, and pale cheeks. But now that I had seen it, I knew it to be true, and confusion wrinkled my brow as stared, my head tilting to the side. They’d brought her here, to Rome, after capture.
“Of course!” Ennia exclaimed next to him, slapping her forehead with her palm. “It all makes so much sense! It’s so simple, how could I miss it?”
Slugger and I shared a glance, and he whispered. “Intern, you going to explain it to us full timers?”
Ennia flushed, then reached out her eye, fishing out a contact lens as the rest of us looked on in confusion. She set it down on her knee, curve up, and gestured to it. Around us, the crowd had started murmuring as Marshall announced that Francesca would be ten minutes late, and to help themselves to half off refreshments. Ennia started to speak in hushed tones as we leaned towards her.
“Without Siri, the Instructors know that the Titans will break free of their control. They’re concerned because those are insane assets of pure essence, which they will fight not to lose. With Siri, her sheer power could hold them in check—since she is a Titan Silver Tongue, they would be susceptible to her influence. But without a strong one, they tried another path—instead of one powerful Silver Tongue, they thought to use many.
“Think of it as the difference between a lens and a laser. A laser has enough power to burn in a single beam like Siri, but when we took that away, they had to make a collector. They had to combine many voices in the form of one to achieve a similar result. I knew there was something odd about how those choir seats were arranged at Francesca’s performance—they were in a perfect parabola, focusing in on a single point where Renalt sat. They were renewing his bonds there, imprisoning him again. All of them.”
“Francesca did say she prepared a solo for him in French,” I said, checking around to be sure that there had been no developments. “And I had no idea what she said to him. She would have shackled him right under our nose and probably added on the bit about Blake being his nephew right there too. And if she didn’t write those lyrics, they could be broad enough that she didn’t even know what she was saying.”
“Oi, slow down,” said Slugger as my excitement picked up. “If she were so powerful, why didn’t they just send Francesca to go sing to him in the comfort of his home?”
“Because she’s not powerful, that’s the point. She just powerful enough to be the conductor,” Ennia said, pointing to the choir. “That’s your entire missing crowd of Silver Tongues! They built a lens out of all of them together for her to direct! They’d have the weakest in the front, the middle grade behind them, and the strongest in the back—and in concert, all singing together, the impact of all of them at once could have the power at a single focal point.”
“Which means,” I said. “Alone, Francesca is useless. But she’s the cornerstone of their operation here.”
“And why the Litious wanted to kill her.” added Ennia, and Arial’s words from Divi flashed back across my mind.
If that Special fails, it will have a greater effect than any action we could take, and I assure you, will be heard around the world.
Then my breath caught, and I looked towards the center of the crowd. Titans, I think you’ll find, typically will be people of great significance, Lynns had said, and I gripped Ennia’s arm, turning her towards Francesca’s father, the senator, as he waited for his daughter to perform.
“Renalt isn’t who they planned to re-shackle today. They already took care of him. Now their target is someone else,” I said as Dacil fanned himself in the blazing sun, unaware that he sat in the precise focal point of the Silver Tongue choir.
Chapter 61
“Oi, SC, what was it that Lynns said we were doing around Renalt? Lighting matches around a powder keg when Lucio muddled with his mind?” asked Slugger, and nodded to Dacil. “Just imagine what he’s going to do if they try to kill his daughter in front of him. We don’t even need to be here.”
At that moment, the remaining bits of the Litious’ plan slammed themselves together in my mind, their actions over the last few days becoming clear.
“That is their plan! It’s—it’s going to be a massacre.” I stiffened, feeling suddenly as if I stood in a rickety bridge above a large chasm, that the wrong move could send me tumbling to my death. “That’s what they want. It’s the perfect double strike. They take out Francesca and set off a Titan in the process. This theater, it’s filled with Specials. They’re the only ones who could afford tickets. Divi will kill hundreds in a single stroke.”
“Already the news stations are tuned in to this. He’s been building them up over the last few days,” Ennia said. “But, SC, it’s not just going to be this theater that goes up. It’s going to be entire blocks at the very least.”
I turned to Ennia, an idea forming as I looked back towards Francesca’s father. “Ennia, can’t you change him? Alter his essence?”
But she shook her head as panic started welling up within me. “No, an essence has to want to be changed. After being caged so long, his is going to be angry —I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it, and if I did access it—it would make an exothermic reaction like a bomb as it was released as bad as if Divi had set it off.”
I stood, pulling them with me, my eyes on the exit.
“Then we need to prevent Francesca from ever coming here,” I said, my heart thumping, unnerved by her late showing. “If we can head her off before she arrives, the chances he gets set off are eliminated. The Instructors can work out later how to subdue him.”
“And how are we supposed to head her off?” Slugger asked. “We don’t know where she is. We might just run right past her.”
“Arial was supposed to come back immediately if she was missing or something had gone wrong,” I said. “It’s a straight shot back to her apartment from here. Hell, we can even see it from our seats, I bet she’s still right up—” My voice trailed away as I pointed up to where Francesca would be high above. In the safehouse provided to her, one only accessible through elevator, with enough Specials around the base to deter a small army. I assumed there would be Fliers standing guard around the building as well, just as we had stationed Arial.
As I followed my own finger, gesturing at the top of the skyscraper, my heart stopped. There, only a hundred feet away from the building, was the glinting blimp I had seen above the starting soccer match. Now its nose angled directly towards Francesca’s window, travelling on a crash course towards her, still several hundred feet out but closing the distance quick. Squinting, I could just make out the letters painted on the side in black ink, the swirling font matching Divi’s tattoo.
OVERCOME.
Matteo ran his own errands. Something to do with advertising, Arial had said. Something like painting the side of a blimp for a gameday. A business like that could easily be run by Regulars, and even if they were not in charge, flying a blimp would likely be left to them. People who would be sympathetic to the Litious’ cause, or easily bribed to take on two extra passengers.
“Ennia!” I shouted, loud enough for the crowd to gasp. “I need a lift, now!”
She raised her fingers to her lips as Dacil’s guards rounded on me, and released a piercing whistle that cut through the crowd. Two blocks over, where we had stashed her in a deserted courtyard in case of an emergency, Lilac released an answering roar.
“We need to get them out of here,” I said, pointing to the choir. “Use Lucio, do whatever you can, get them to the colosseum, and we’ll take them back to Roland before the Instructors know what happened. Sound the alarm, evacuate her; if Dacil snaps, then everyone inside is dead. And see if there is anything you can do to prevent him from seeing what’s going on up there.”
“Aye!” said Slugger as I saw Lucio running towards us from the inside concessions, a drink cup still in hand from where he had forgotten to drop it off.
“Those instructions were for Ennia and Lucio. Slugger, you’re with me—make me light, and we’ll still get there quickly. We’ll need all the firepower we can get.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Ennia. “Everything I can.”
“Not a bad first job for an intern,” I said, then took off running towards the stage with Slugger just behind me, his fingers brushing against me to reduce my weight. Then the mass of orange and black streaked downwards, just as Dacil’s guards started to round on us, ready to summon their powers. We leapt, the amphitheater letting us soar far out, Lilac swooping underneath to catch us and pivot towards Francesca’s apartment. The crowd screamed at the sight of the tiger, scrambling backwards, starting a panic that would aid in Ennia’s evacuation efforts.
Then we were off, Lilac’s wings beating furiously as I directed her up and away, making a straight line to where Francesca would be waiting, racing Matteo and Divi as their blimp prepared to crash.
Chapter 62
Wind rushed through my hair as we accelerated, the city tracking below us, crossing over thousands of years of history in minutes. The Pantheon, the Fountain of Trevi, statues, and more zipped past, the crowds of tourists turning their heads upwards as the shadow passed over. Seeing a Flier above them would be rare enough —in public, flying was similar to running, and typically out of place for traveling short distances even for those with the power. But seeing Lilac, her bat-like wings pumping and my two dark orbs building at each side of her, warping the light to shimmer around us, drew their attention immediately.
“We need to go faster! Pull away more of my weight, see if you can absorb Lilac. We’re not climbing quick enough!” I shouted to Slugger, who straddled Lilac behind me. More of my weight leeched away, so much that my shirt flapped violently in the wind, my hair standing on end as if it were statically charged and every up-flap of Lilac’s wings threatening to launch me upwards. The tiger growled as Slugger pulled mass from her as well, then we shot upwards, more like a balloon than a missile.
Behind me, I heard Velcro and turned to see him pulling the pair of gloves Lynns had given him from his pocket, strapping each one on and flexing his fingers. True to Lynns’ word, the knuckles were hardened with lead under the surface of the fabric, and I could see thick plastic reinforcements holding them in place.
“Oi, he thought of everything,” Slugger said, and held out his knuckles to me. On each was a letter, written backwards, so that they would leave an indentation on what they connected.
S L U G
“We’ll need to get you a stealth pair,” I shouted back. “You’ll be leaving marks all over our crime scenes now!”
“Not if I hit hard enough,” he retorted. “Won’t be anything else to read.”
Lilac’s breath came heavy as we reached the height of the skyscraper, then continued above, still far out as the blimp pulled alongside Francesca’s apartment. Two Specials darted in from the sides to intercept it, Fliers that targeted the blimps undercarriage then fell away as their powers deactivated, barely catching themselves before they splattered on the ground. From our elevated position, I looked down to see the glass of Francesca’s window shatter, the sparkling shards raining down on the Fliers as they darted away for cover into the building lobby. Then two figures leapt from the blimp’s undercarriage, sliding along ropes into the now open window and into the apartment.
“Dive!” I shouted, and Lilac’s nose turned downwards, swooping from the sky towards the freshly formed entryway. We rapidly gained speed, wind roaring in my ears, the blimp growing in size with each passing second. I could see the operator in the undercarriage, but no one else occupied it, and could barely make out a scream as we came level with the window. I pushed my orbs in front of me to absorb any leftover shards of glass, then we burst into the apartment at highway speed, Lilac’s claws scrabbling across the hardwood and leaving deep tracks as we came to a stop. Slugger and I leapt off her as Francesca backed against her elevator, Divi and Matteo advancing, and Blake standing just in front of her with his arms raised. Blood already trickled down from cuts on his forearms where his diamond power had bled away and been restored, and he bared his teeth against the two advancing. But with Divi, even from a few feet aw
ay Blake’s diamond ability flickered.
“You can’t hold us off forever,” said Divi as he spotted me, addressing us and Blake. “We will win. Whether it is today or in ten years, it does not matter. The revolution is coming. Specials will be no more when others discover how you can be contained.”
“And you aren’t fit to shine my shoes,” retorted Blake, and the crystals grew out another inch from him in their battle of wills. “I’ll see to it that anyone with something so much as resembling your tattoos is put to death. Starting with the two of you.”
“Back off, back out the window!” Francesca shouted, and I felt her voice take grip of me. But the words flowed off the Litious, and I was only held in their grasp for an instant, enough to make me hesitate but not to act.
“Stop that,” hissed Blake. “It doesn’t work on them. Get that elevator working.”
“I’m telling you, it’s been broken for the last half hour. Ever since you came up here to help escort me after I vouched for you with the police,” Francesca answered, jamming her thumb on the button repeatedly. “Eddie was supposed to bring it up.”
“I’m afraid that he won’t be coming up here anymore,” said Divi as Francesca’s eyes widened. “He was loyal, I give him that. Now no one comes up, no one comes down. And we carry this out for everyone to see, both up here and down there. Let them know that three Specials were defeated by two regulars.”
He waved to the security cameras that lined the inside of her apartment with that statement, squaring us off after.
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