The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  My breath hissed out, quiet, but I couldn’t imagine he’d missed it. “Pika’s a wiz on the streets,” I said. “Maybe she can teach me something useful.”

  “Pika is eleven years old,” Derrin said.

  “So?” I shot him a glance, saw him lift an eyebrow. “Please, Derrin.”

  He measured me all stern and quiet, and I felt like each second that passed shaved another inch off the top of me. Finally he sighed and turned away. He disappeared before I could call him back, and I got the sudden sick feeling that I’d just failed some kind of test.

  I frowned and went to hunt down Pika. She’d made her way to the mess hall, just as I’d guessed. Little sneak, she could weave the food line like a beetle without anyone noticing. I didn’t bother going in but planted myself in the doorway, watching as she stuffed a pastry into her mouth, tucked Gem’s roll into her vest and Anuk’s apple into her sleeve, then shot like a cat straight for me.

  “C’mon! I got skappers!” she called around half-devoured honey cake.

  I let her drag me down the hall and up the dark stairs toward the day. The air got colder and colder as we marched up the steps, then Pika flung open the door and shouted,

  “Snow!”

  I yelped and ran out after her, laughing and shivering and teeth chattering like crazy.

  “Hayli Hayli, look!” she cried and spun toward me, and before I could blink I was staring at her through a cold white mask.

  I scrubbed the snow from my face and pelted after her, scooping at the drifts. My boots slipped in the slush and Pika screeched, sliding and skipping toward the street.

  She stopped at the gate and I blasted the snowball at her, missing by a full foot. But then I thought it wasn’t so bad that I’d missed, because she’d stopped playing. She hung out the gate, head swinging back and forth as she watched the road.

  I sloshed up beside her. “What’re we waiting for?”

  Pika was counting so she didn’t answer, not for a good while. Then she said, “They should be up Seventh and Chase by now.”

  “How’d you ken that?”

  She flashed me a wild grin, her eyes crinkling up into little crescents. “Just…trust me.”

  And she darted off across the street. I barely caught up with her before she winked away down a side alley. For such a wee skitter she sure knew the streets, better than I knew my own face. I followed close as I could, lungs screaming at the cold, hands batting at little white flakes still fleeing the sky.

  Just when I thought I’d like to curl up and die somewhere cold and lonely, Pika skidded to a stop.

  “See, I told you! There they are!”

  I pushed past her. A whole herd of shivering souls had come out to see the car, though I couldn’t quite tell why. I’d seen the thing close as you could, and I didn’t care to meet it again. Maybe they wanted to see the royal family. A little part of my mind wondered what the prince thought about all this. Probably he loved it. Probably he was just like the rest of them.

  I stood on tiptoes to get a better goggle, but I got nothing but mounds of coat backs and furs and too-large hats. I hauled on Pika’s hand. We laced our way through knots of people, trying to get closer to the barricades.

  “I can’t see aught now, Hayli!” Pika hollered, in full-out panic. “I need a tree!”

  I scanned the street until I spotted a twisty old tree across the way that Pika could manage. We darted across the street before the coppers could catch us, and I gave Pika a leg up into the branches just as the first of the mounted guards clopped past.

  “Oh, Hayli! I see it, I see it!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

  The tree squatted on a little rise, leading up to the park at Chase, so I could see a bit better there too. The motorcar puffed and snorted along, a big black metal horse of steam and gears chugging along after the ones made of fur and hooves. Little snappy flags of Cavnal perched on its nose, a riot of green and gold against the black car and grey street. To my surprise, I saw that they’d somehow taken the roof of the motorcar clean off so we could all get a better gawk at the people huddled inside.

  I didn’t recognize the driver. It wasn’t Zagger, but some old pop in a grey uniform who hung onto the wheel like he’d drown without it. The King and Queen sat behind in the rear seat. I caught my breath, though I knew I shouldn’t. The queen was a thing of beauty, her black fur cap perched up high on her glossy hair, a little net veil hanging over her eyes. She had the tanned skin like Tarik, the sort that got all the society dolls rubbing powders on their cheeks to match. I decided she was too exquisite to be married to the King.

  I skipped my eyes right over the King, and found the prince sitting up alongside the driver. It took me a moment to recognize him. He wore a dark hat and something rather like a military uniform, all brassy buttons and medals and chains. Every few seconds he seemed to remember he was being gawped at, and he would give a feeble kind of smile and raise his hand to the folks, somewhere between a wave and a salute.

  “He’s too pretty to be the king’s son,” Pika piped up from the branches above.

  “What’d you say?” I gasped, but she just winked at me and went back to goggling at the car.

  The motorcade crawled closer. There must have been hundreds of horses surrounding the car, with hundreds of guards in plumes and blue coats—the Honor Corps. One horseman close behind the car didn’t wear the blue and white uniform, but a black coat and a plain black coach hat. I caught myself grinning when I saw him. Zagger. I shouldn’t have been happy to see him. In fact, I kind of hated him. But it made me giddy as punch to think I knew him. Knew his name. Because I’d actually met the prince. Not many folks round the Hole could say that.

  The hairs on my arm prickled.

  Then everything turned to chaos.

  The air splintered with a cr-CRACK! I doubled over, while everybody around me shouted and ran or fell on their knees. A horse screamed. It took me a good two seconds to realize that the noise was a rifle shot. Then I couldn’t hear a thing but my own pulse, plunging through my veins like a torrent. Couldn’t move. Could only watch.

  The motorcar flinched, jerking to the side. I couldn’t tell why until I saw the driver draped over the wheel. The prince leaned over him, wrestling the controls as the car launched straight for the nearest wall. At the last moment it screeched to a halt and Tarik vaulted over the door, his hands running red with the driver’s blood.

  He took one look into the rear seat, then spun and charged the crowd. A glance back at the motorcar showed me the queen frantic over the king’s body, guards swarming like bees. My heart launched into my throat. I couldn’t tell if the King was breathing. Suddenly I hoped he was.

  I jerked my gaze away and searched out Tarik. A score of guards were all hollering and trying to block him in, and Zagger tailed him, making a grab for his arms. I’d never seen anyone look as angry as Tarik did at that moment. He stared straight at something, or someone, across the street and up from where I stood, face white with rage, the wind tearing his hair. I followed his gaze and caught my breath.

  A dark figure perched on the lip of a balcony rail, rifle aimed straight at Tarik’s chest.

  Tarik stood still as death.

  The guards all clustered around him, scanning the crowds for the shooter, never realizing the prince had him in his sights. Then without any warning Tarik spun and grabbed a revolver from Zagger’s holster. He aimed, cold dark fury, and pulled the trigger.

  But nothing was there to catch the bullet. Nothing but empty bricks, because the shooter had disappeared.

  He’d just disappeared, the way only a Ghost could disappear.

  Chapter 11 — Tarik

  In the hallway outside my parents’ apartments, I couldn’t hear anything that happened inside. Besdin, the royal physician, had rushed past me into the rooms only moments ago and a few raised words had trickled out to me through the muffling wood of the door, then nothing. And in the numbing silence that followed, time slo
wed to sludge.

  I leaned my head in my hands. They still shook from the adrenaline, but my breathing came steadier now, and the fear and rage tunneling my vision had finally faded away.

  “Will he live?” I asked, the words gritting through clenched teeth, though I didn’t see how Zagger would know the answer any better than me.

  Zagger gripped my shoulder briefly and said nothing.

  From somewhere down the hall I caught a flurry of noises, then Minister Von and Samyr appeared, hurrying toward us.

  “Tarik!” Samyr cried, breaking into a run.

  Her father strode straight past me into the king’s apartments, but Samyr dropped onto the bench and threw her arms around my neck.

  “Is he all right?”

  I stiffened and turned my head away. She only meant to comfort me, but I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t want to break down and grieve. I wanted to find the Jixy bastard who had shot my father, and I wanted to kill him.

  “Dr. Besdin is in with him,” Zagger said, answering for me. “But the driver is dead.”

  Samyr released me and folded her hands in her lap, hiding behind her chestnut curls like a chastised schoolgirl.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I couldn’t tell if she meant what had happened to my father, or how she had hugged me. I imagined she meant the former, so I nodded.

  “And it’s your birthday, too.”

  “Stop,” I said.

  The door swung open beside her and Dr. Besdin emerged, wiping his hands on a black cloth. He studied me for a few long moments, while my heart hung suspended in my throat. Finally he gave a quiet nod.

  “He’s going to live, Your Highness.”

  Relief washed out of me in one shattered breath. Samyr’s hand found mine, and this time I didn’t pull away.

  “They want to see you,” he added, and disappeared back into the room.

  I exchanged a glance with Zagger as I got to my feet. They would be my father’s Ministers, who had trickled in one by one ever since the Honor Corps and the medical brigade had brought my father back to the palace. I steeled myself and went into the outer apartment to meet them.

  Six of them sat around the massive carved fireplace in high-backed chairs, drinking my father’s spirits and smoking his cigars, as if they were at a dinner party and not keeping watch over a wounded king. I knotted my hands and swallowed back the burn of anger in my throat. Minister Von waved me toward them.

  “Tarik,” he said. He never stood on ceremony with me. “We were just talking about you.”

  Two of the other ministers hitched their chairs aside to give me room to stand in their midst. I complied, feeling, as I always did, too young, too worthless in these men’s presence.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “We are worried that you might have a mind to be a bit unpredictable right now, but we want to be sure that you make an appearance tonight at the gala.”

  I choked back a laugh that didn’t feel quite appropriate. “The gala? My father is lying in bed with a hole in his chest, and you care about that damned gala?”

  “Your Highness,” Minister Farro said. “With all due respect, that’s precisely why you need to make an appearance.”

  “Why, so I can tell the people that I plan to kill one of them?”

  Minister Batar sputtered into his glass of brandy.

  “As far as we know, the shooter acted alone,” Farro said.

  “He was a Jixy,” I spat, turning on him. “I saw him. And maybe you didn’t notice, but he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t have been. No one can shoot that fast, or that precisely. Someone else took Seelar down with a revolver.”

  Von and Farro exchanged unsurprised glances, but the other Ministers apparently hadn’t even thought about how Seelar had died. I shuddered, trying to drive away the memory. It took me a moment to realize I was wiping my hands on the thighs of my trousers, as if I could still feel his blood.

  “We’re looking into that,” Farro said. “The police are interrogating as many of the witnesses as they can find.”

  “Leave it to them. It’s not your concern,” Von said. “What is your concern is that, as far as the people know, you opened fire on them.”

  “I did what?” I cried, taking a step toward him. “I took a shot at my father’s would-be assassin. I—”

  “Fired a gun right over your people’s heads. They didn’t know what you were shooting at.”

  “I wasn’t—” I faltered, spinning away, dragging my hands through my hair. “Please tell me you’re not serious about this.”

  “We’re serious,” the elder Minister Bell said, his voice a mere quaver against the dull roar of the fireplace. He tried to straighten up, but the hunch of his back stymied him. “You need to explain to the people. You need to apologize.”

  “Ap…” I dragged in a deep breath. “I think we ought to cancel the gala. How can you even think of holding a celebration after what’s happened?”

  “This event has been in the works for months, Your Highness. People have gone to great lengths and great expense to make it a memorable occasion for you. You can’t simply dismiss all their efforts. Your father wouldn’t wish it.”

  I glared at Minister Von, always so sensible.

  “And what if the shooter comes back to finish the job?”

  “I believe your father was the only target,” Farro said.

  “Then you didn’t see the shooter aiming his rifle at me.”

  Farro and Von exchanged glances.

  “No,” Von said, quieter. “I didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “We’ll increase security around the premises.”

  I did laugh, then, because it was all so absurd. The Jixy had disappeared in front of my eyes, and somehow Von thought that adding a few more guards at the gates would do a lick of good.

  Dr. Besdin emerged from my father’s room.

  “Your Highness,” he said, and nodded toward the bedchamber door.

  I shot one last glare at Von and Farro and followed Besdin into the dark room. My mother sat by the bedside, her face a quiet flicker in the crack of light that escaped the velvet curtains. She met my gaze without a smile, then released my father’s hand and rustled from the chamber with Besdin on her heels.

  I stood at the window, hands shoved in my pockets, peering through the gap in the drapes at the city below. I could feel my father’s gaze, but I couldn’t trust myself to look at him. Not yet. Not with the smell of blood and antiseptic and the spicy odor of laudanum thick in my nose, heavy as the stink of death.

  “Tarik,” he said.

  The name ground out, hoarse and pale in the shadows.

  I gritted my teeth and said, “I’m going to kill him.”

  “That’s not your job. Come here.”

  I sat down in the chair, pressing my knuckles against my teeth and staring at the white bandage on his chest where the blood had already started to seep through.

  “I didn’t realize you cared so much,” my father said, his eyes fixed on my face, the wide pupils swallowing almost the whole of his silver-blue irises.

  I let out my breath, hating the way my face turned traitor on me. Tears burned behind my eyes, and I had to glance away to force them back.

  “You know I do,” I said.

  The silence drifted between us, drawing out as seconds turned to minutes.

  “Will you be all right?” I asked, when I trusted my voice again.

  “I’ll live. Tarik, listen. I meant what I said. Finding that shooter? That’s not your responsibility.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “Your police will never be able to find him. I can.”

  His brows arched, feebly. “Is that so?”

  I stared at the sliver of light swaying across the floor and said nothing.

  “I spoke to Kor this morning,” he said.

  I jolted. “Father—”

  “Was he telling the truth when he said you dismissed him?”

  �
�No,” I snapped. Then, “Yes, at the time. Things have changed.”

  “Indeed.”

  I thought about apologizing, telling him that I’d been wrong, but it felt false to me. I’d meant it when I’d dismissed Kor. I’d thought I was in the right. But things change.

  “Your ministers want the gala to go off tonight,” I said.

  “I told them to see to it.”

  I groaned and buried my head in my hands.

  “Don’t disappoint me,” he said. The words slurred a bit; the laudanum had begun to work.

  “I’ve already done enough of that, haven’t I?” I asked, getting to my feet. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  “Tarik,” he said, his voice stopping me at the door. “Try to enjoy yourself a little. It’s your birthday.”

  I hesitated, standing there with my hand on the latch. “Is this the beginning of it, then?” I asked, quietly. “The anarchists? Are they trying to bring down our family?”

  He sighed and struggled to sit comfortably. I watched, unable to move.

  “Everything is different now,” he said, his gaze cutting across the shadows. “I’m not certain if it was the anarchists as a whole, or just one isolated element in the movement, but…” His voice faded and for a few moments he stared vaguely at the wall, then he shook his head and focused on me again. “You were right. This is what you have to do. That assassin was a mage, and Rivano’s got the most powerful mages. So get in there, get close to them, close as you can. Infiltrate their organization if possible. Find out what they’re planning…ideology…targets…”

  He pressed his hand to his head, drew one long, deep breath, and sat straight up.

  “Bring me proof of their innocence, or bring them down from the inside. That failing, I will declare every one of them, and everyone who has ever aided them, enemies of the Crown.” His gaze hardened. “They will call for mercy, and I will have none to give.”

  I let out my breath and nodded, and left him in peace.

  * * * *

  Griff had arrived while I was in with my father. He sat with Samyr outside the apartments, hunched over his knees and looking paler than I’d ever seen him. As soon as he saw me he jumped up and grabbed me by the shoulders.