“That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it,” Menchú said.
“My point is that the magical world knows what you’ve been doing.”
“We have not advertised ourselves.”
“But people know. Do you expect them not to talk?”
“Quite the opposite,” Menchú said. “I think that was always part of our plan.”
“But you have yet to entertain the possibility that your plan has backfired,” Fox said. “I know that our most virulent adversaries think of us as censors, even prison guards. Agents of authoritarianism. But the more moderate among them, as you’ve reported to us, understand us as keeping things in balance.”
“You yourself do not believe in keeping balance,” Menchú said. “You believe in eliminating magic altogether.”
“Of course,” Fox said, “but they don’t have to know that. And it’s irrelevant to my point. What I am suggesting is that, by making inroads into magic, your team has upset the balance. Your activities have caused other magic users to escalate their own activities. You have created an arms race, heading toward a war in which, perhaps, this is the first shot.”
“You have no evidence for this,” Menchú said.
“My dear Father,” Fox said, “right now there is no evidence for anything.”
“I resent your implication that I have been so careless.”
Fox smiled. “Don’t mince words. I wasn’t implying it. I was saying it.”
Angiuli gave Menchú a look heavy with pity. Menchú changed tactics.
“Fine,” Menchú said. “I am less interested in being right than I am in saving lives. So I hope that your greater understanding of the situation leads you to have a plan for dealing with it that improves on mine.”
This seemed to bring Fox up short.
Menchú couldn’t resist. “No?” he said.
“That,” Fox said, “is your domain. And your responsibility. I expect you to exercise it. My team is ready the moment you need us. But this stands as the first real test of your team’s unorthodox approach to your mission, and if you fail, I will do everything in my power to ensure that it is its last.”
“Understood,” Menchú said. “Are we finished here?”
“I hope so,” Fox said.
Menchú headed back to the Archives with a single thought in his head: Asanti better have some answers.
• • •
Asanti was on the phone with Izquierdo when Menchú arrived back in the Archives with Grace. The Orb’s light wasn’t blinding anymore, but it was throwing out a glow like a woodstove. As if whatever event had triggered the initial burst of energy was still happening, still bringing more magic into the world. Asanti pictured a broken dam, a wound that wouldn’t close. She wondered what the event that triggered the Orb looked like for the people nearby, who were living it.
“There’s been a lot of talk about it here, too,” Izquierdo was saying. “Do you know where it happened?”
“We have an idea,” Asanti said. “China, Ireland, and Mexico. Magical flare-ups have been noticed in Poland, too, but you know as well as I do what that was.”
“Yes. As to the others, China is easy to explain, even if you don’t know where in China, right?”
“You … know about the situation regarding magic use there?” Asanti said.
“I think that’s why some people consider me an expert,” Izquierdo joked.
“That leaves Ireland and Mexico,” Asanti said.
“Yes, Mexico,” Izquierdo said. “I see why you called me.”
“Do you have any information?”
“I do if you tell me I can trust you not to overreact.”
“You can trust me,” Asanti said.
Izquierdo cleared his throat.
“I suspect,” he said, “that what your source detected is … well, it’s me.”
Asanti looked at Menchú and said nothing.
“It was an experiment, an attempt to … take a trip, to visit another place.”
“Why?”
“I had questions that needed answering.”
“I understand,” Asanti said.
“Also, I was just curious. Too curious not to act on what I’d learned from my research.”
“I understand that, too,” Asanti said. “Will you tell me what exactly you were trying to learn?”
“No,” Izquierdo said. “Not yet.”
“Did you find the answers to your questions?”
“I did,” Izquierdo said, “though of course they only led to more questions.”
“You appear to have become much more adept in carrying out your experiments than you were when we last spoke.”
“Relatively, yes. Though not enough, it seems, to avoid detection.”
Menchú shot Asanti an impatient glance. She raised her hand in front of her face and twirled it. I’m going as fast as I can, okay?
“Are you coming for me now?” Izquierdo said.
“No,” Asanti said.
“Whatever happened must be pretty big.”
“It looks that way, yes,” Asanti said. “Thanks so much.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
She hung up the phone.
“Whatever is happening, it’s in Ireland,” she said to Menchú.
“How sure are you?” Menchú said.
“Sure enough to get on a plane,” she said.
“If you’re wrong about this, we will have wasted a day moving in an unproductive direction.”
“I know that,” Asanti said. “But if we wait much longer, I’m worried that it’s not going to matter anymore, one way or the other.”
The tension in the air rose between them. Asanti could feel it. They spat out what they had to say almost at the same time.
“We never should have used magic,” he said.
“We should have started using magic years ago,” she said.
There was nothing else to say about it.
Frances looked up from the Orb’s manual. “Are we going?”
“Yes,” Menchú said. “Now.” He turned to Liam and Sal. “And you’re sure it’s the Network that’s responsible for whatever has happened?”
“I couldn’t be much more sure,” Liam said. Sal nodded.
“All right,” Menchú said. “Let’s go.”
“Do we need the Orb?” Frances said.
“For what?” Menchú said. “It’s caused enough trouble already.”
4.
“Do you think it’s working, Opie?” Christina said.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Opie said. “It’s Opus. You know that. Everyone in the Network knows that.”
“I know,” Christina said. “It’s because I like you.” It was also because she liked teasing him, enjoyed toying with him a little bit. Opie made for a good target, Christina thought. She was that kind of person.
Opie shook his head and looked out the window. “The sky looks right for what we’ve done,” he said.
“But do you see anything else yet?” Christina said.
“It’s hard to say,” Opie said. “We did everything correctly. I’m sure of it.”
“If you say so, then I believe you,” she said. “I have faith in you.” Well, I have faith in myself, she thought.
Christina and Opie were camped out in a room on the second floor of a bed-and-breakfast in Middle Coom. It was a tidy little place—Christina thought of it as sparse—with two single beds against opposite walls and a small desk between them with a chair and a clock. On the desk was a book that Christina and Opie had brought with them. The thick ribbon with which they’d tied it shut now lay on the desk beside it. The briefcase that had held it was now on the floor next to the desk. They’d been told they couldn’t open the book at all until they were ready to unleash what was inside it. The Network was pretty sure they had the right book. More to the point, that they’d made the right kind of book. When used correctly, it would be a conduit, a door that opened the way for magic i
nto the world. But its effects—like the effects of all the books the Network had made, or thought to make—had only been worked out on paper. The only thing that seemed clear was that, once the book was open, the power within it would spread from its pages to engulf the area around it. How far? How much? That was what Christina and Opie were there to find out. But they didn’t know what to expect.
They had waited for the rest of the bed-and-breakfast guests to settle in for the night while they drank strong black tea from a carafe that the B&B’s owner, Mrs. Headley, had been kind enough to give them when Opie explained that they were going to have to stay up late for work. They watched from their window as, one by one, the lights up and down the street switched off. By two in the morning the street below them was the quietest they’d seen it. Every few minutes a car glided down it, or someone walked by on the cobblestone sidewalk, their footsteps in the near-silent night making them sound like tap dancers.
“This is as quiet as it’s going to get,” Christina had said. “Let’s do it.”
Christina turned to the book on the desk and cast spells of protection for herself and Opie. Then she began the series of incantations she’d been practicing and gestured for Opie to sit in front of the book, positioning it just so on the desk; the instructions for the spell insisted that the top of the book face due south. Opie had tried to protest, but Christina was having none of it. On a command from her, he opened it. And waited. Seven hours later they were still waiting. And, at last, got the sign they were looking for.
“A girl just flew by,” Opie said.
Christina ran to the window.
“Too late,” Opie said. “She’s gone.”
“See anyone else?”
“No. But I don’t think that means anything.”
“How was she flying? Did she have wings?”
“No,” Opie said. “She flew like you and I might swim through water, but if the water was lighter, somehow.”
“Was she … attached to anything?”
“Now that you mention it, yes,” Opie said. “Long strings of something were reaching up to her from the ground.”
“Connected?” Christina said. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know,” Opie said. “But she looked … I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how she looked?”
“She had a weird face,” Opie said. “Like it almost wasn’t a face.”
“Did she seem happy about it?”
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t part of what we talked about, Christina thought. And right then a small sliver of doubt slid into her convictions. Whatever magic they’d brought into the world, she wasn’t sure she wanted to experience it herself—not until she knew more about what the effects would be. Was she being hypocritical? She didn’t think so. She thought of the geniuses who had designed the atom bomb, who had changed the world. They didn’t stand around the bomb site to see what the effects of the blast would be.
But they did use test subjects. She looked at Opie.
“I think I need to go outside,” she said.
“I’ll come with you,” Opie said.
“You can’t,” she said. “Someone has to stay with the book.”
“Why?”
“Because this is a test, right?” Christina said. She was suddenly worried that she had tipped her hand, but nothing in Opie’s expression changed, and she felt a little better. “What if something starts to go wrong?”
“You’re the one who did the incantations,” Opie said. “Shouldn’t you be here to fix them?”
“I don’t think we can fix the book by chanting at it. I think one of us just needs to be here to close it.”
“Why can’t it be you?” Opie said.
“Opie—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’m sorry,” Christina said. “Are you worried about what’s going on out there?”
“Yes,” he said.
Aha, Christina thought. Good.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Christina said. “I am, too. I’m worried that maybe everything’s working too fast, faster than we anticipated. What if the magic is stronger than we think? We need to know if that’s true. Or maybe the opposite—maybe it’s not strong enough. Or maybe it’s just not working right. Do you think that you understand this book, and what we’ve done, well enough to assess that?”
“I’m not sure,” Opie said.
“I think I’m only a little more sure than you are,” Christina said.
“Then we should go together,” Opie argued.
“We’ve been over this,” she said. “Someone needs to stay with the book.”
Opie opened his mouth to talk again. She cut him off.
“If I see that anything’s not going according to plan,” she said, “or if I think you’re in any real danger, I’ll come back for you. We’ll close the book together. Okay?”
“I don’t like this at all,” Opie said.
“I don’t either,” Christina said. She was already putting on her jacket to head outside. She put a hand inside a pocket and discovered, to her satisfaction, that the key to their rented car was in it, just where she’d left it.
“I won’t be long,” she said.
“Call me to check in so I know you’re all right,” Opie said. “Who knows what’s going on out there.”
Christina almost felt bad for him, that he cared that much. “I can’t,” she said. “Remember? Our phones won’t work now. And I need to tell the rest of the Network if the experiment is working.” She added that last part almost as an afterthought, hoped Opie wouldn’t take the time to think through what it meant.
He didn’t. “Well, come back as soon as you’ve done that, okay?” he said.
“Okay,” Christina said. “Are you all right?”
Opie hesitated, and for a moment Christina thought he might suspect her of something; she had never asked after his well-being, not when they arrived in Middle Coom, or cast the spells, or while they were waiting to see its effects. But then he relaxed. He seemed more like he was just irritated that he didn’t get to go out with her. Christina thanked whatever gods might be watching over them that Opie—good, dim-witted soul that he was—trusted her.
“Give me an hour,” she added.
“All right,” he said.
She put her hand around the car key to keep it from clinking in her pocket, or making any other sound that Opie might hear, and slipped out. Headed downstairs to the front door fast. She had her hand on the front door of the house when a voice stopped her.
“Are you going out in this?” it said. Christina recognized it as belonging to Mrs. Headley, who, when she wasn’t doing anything else, seemed to sit in the same blue upholstered armchair, her feet up on a cushioned ottoman, facing the door. But the voice was different now somehow.
She turned. There was Mrs. Headley, in the same place Christina had seen her the night before, when she and Opie had gone upstairs to wait out the townspeople and begin the ritual. The lady was still in the chair.
“Out in what?” Christina said.
“This strange weather we’re having,” Mrs. Headley said. “It’s been like this all morning.” She spoke as if through the haze of a sedative.
“It doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Christina said.
“I didn’t say the weather was bad,” Mrs. Headley said. “I said it was strange.”
“Okay,” Christina said.
“I just don’t know why you’d want to go out in it,” Mrs. Headley said. “I’ve never felt more at home.”
Which was when Christina noticed that Mrs. Headley’s feet were missing. Her legs extended out from under her dress and ended, it looked like, right above her ankles. Her stockings bunched at the knobbed ends as though the amputation had been swift and ragged, and the fabric had closed itself around the end, made a tight bunch of nylon like scar tissue.
“Mrs. Headley, are you all right?” Christina said.
Mrs. Headl
ey smiled. “Never been better. Did you know that, all these years, I thought my neighbor Joe was not all that fond of me? It turns out it’s been quite the opposite. He’s had feelings for me for ages, but has been too shy to tell me, the silly bastard. Good thing it’s not too late now. His wife and my husband are both long gone. We’ve still got plenty of years left.”
“How did he tell you?” Christina asked.
“What?” Mrs. Headley said. “Oh, no, he didn’t. I just know it now. I was wondering if you did, too.”
Connections, Christina thought. Everyone connected to everyone else. One mind. Just like we wanted.
On the front two legs of the ottoman were Mrs. Headley’s shoes. The shag carpet all around her wavered, like grass in the wind. The wall behind her was moving, flowing, as if Christina were seeing it through water. The effect stopped somewhere between Mrs. Headley and her. On a hunch, Christina crouched down to look closer. Sure enough, at the border of where the rug was coming alive, new threads were beginning to rustle and move.
Everything connected to everything else, she thought. A byproduct. But we’ll take it.
The spell was working. Not everywhere. Not all at once. But it was spreading. It was just a question of how far, how fast.
Christina opened the door to the street and walked outside. The cobblestones beneath her feet were solid, and to the right of her, all the way up the street—except for the pinkish-orange light flooding the air—it was just another quiet morning in Middle Coom. She looked left. There was a rip in the earth, a rip in the air. As if what Christina was seeing was just a canvas, and something was on the other side of it, flowing in. No. Something was flowing out of it, and the town around it was flowing in. Right around the tear, everything was melting together, and the force of it was spreading. She could see how the far side of the house where she was staying, where Mrs. Headley was sitting, was fading into her neighbor Joe’s house, and the far side of that was a slow blur of color, a smear of paint. She wondered where Joe was in that house. Or what had happened to him by now.
Out in the street, Christina watched as some small tipping point was reached for the car nearest to the tear in the world, and the entire vehicle began to slide into it, blurring, stretching, collapsing as it did.
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