by CM Raymond
She kept walking. Maybe it was a mistake, she couldn’t be sure. All she wanted to do was be alone for a few minutes.
“What’s the rush, sweetie?” he called again. “Come join us.”
Hannah stopped, then spun to face them. A guy in the middle of the group, the one that looked douchier than the others, was grinning and nodding. “So you can hear. And I thought you were just a nice pair of legs.”
Hannah had experienced catcalling before—it was nothing new. What was new was that she now had magic on her side. She thought about scorching his ass with fire, but instead, she just gave him the middle finger. “Screw you,” she shouted, then turned and walked toward Memorial Hall.
“What the hell’s your problem?” another voice from behind her said. This one was close and female.
A young woman—Hannah’s age—caught up with her.
“Those asshats are my problem,” Hannah said.
The girl tilted her head toward the boys. “Ross and company? Asshats? Hey, new girl, the hottest guy in school was just trying to flirt with you. What are you, some kind of idiot? They think you’re hot, just look at you.”
Hannah did look at herself. Properly washed and in an expensive gown. It was a reminder that she was no longer the dirty hustler from the Boulevard, and people were going to treat her differently now.
“Thanks,” Hannah said.
The girl laughed. “Don’t thank me. I’m not your friend. I’m competition.” The girl spun and pranced over to the circle of guys.
Shit, I hate this place, Hannah thought as she entered Memorial Hall.
****
Jack must have woken up on the right side of the cell, Parker thought. The large man had been talking all morning without interruption. “I’m telling you, man, things weren’t always great for me in the Boulevard either. I know that you and the girl, Hannah, thought that we all had it made—those of us that were working for Horace. But it wasn’t easy, not if you have a conscience. That’s what got me into the shit. Being nice to you guys. I think I was nice to everybody, even though I was trying to do my job. Can’t be a nice guy and work for the government, I think that’s the lesson. I learned a lot of lessons like that. And here’s another thing…”
Parker nodded along as Jack revealed all of his benign secrets about working for the slumlord of the Queen’s Boulevard. None of it mattered, and Parker couldn’t care less. As long as Jack was working, Parker was happy. Couldn’t have any attention drawn to the two of them, not today.
Parker glanced over and watched the big man’s fingers twist nuts onto bolts of the large metal pieces that he was in charge of. After that, he’d slap a large wrench on them and tighten them down before passing them onto the next person on the assembly line. It was perfect work for the brute, and Parker was glad that he was sitting right next to him.
“You know what I mean?” Jack asked.
Parker nodded as he continued to twist the wires. “Yeah, man. Exactly. That’s exactly what I think.” He had no idea what Jack was saying, and it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be around to finish the conversation.
Parker’s eyes kept cutting up to the catwalk over the floor. After another hour of Jack’s talking and nearly a thousand units finished, it finally happened. One of the guard members, a kid not much older than Parker, came down off the balcony. Parker heard every step of his boots on the metal steps. Knocking twice on the door that led off the floor, the young guard waited. Within a few beats, the door squeaked open, and an older guard, who stood about a head taller, emerged. The two exchanged a few words, and then the younger guard relinquished his post.
It was now or never if Parker’s plan was going to work.
It had to.
He’d studied the pattern for countless days. Every second was accounted for. Once the older guard released the security door, Parker grabbed the three-foot beam of metal right out of Jack’s hands. The man said something, but like most of the words he’d been saying to Parker that day, they passed unheard.
In three steps, Parker was on the guard. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance. Things were easy on the floor. The workers were broken men.
Parker was different. The guard never saw his approach or the hunk of metal that connected with the side of his head. He dropped immediately. Parker hopped the unconscious guard, letting loose of the metal bar, and slid his fingers between the door and its jamb half a second before it sealed itself shut.
He exhaled. The plan was still in play. He slipped through the door before the sounds of men yelling behind him got too loud.
Kicking off his shoes, he moved quickly down the hall after the younger guard. Stage one was perfectly planned. Now he was flying blind, and he would have to work with instinct and guts. Turning a corner, Parker saw the kid in front of him. He could hear the guard whistling an old folk tune—a remnant from before the Age of Madness. Poor bastard thought his day had just gotten better.
Ten feet in front of the guard was the door that led off the factory floor and onto the next stage of the plan. Surprise was a powerful weapon, and Parker wielded it well. He picked up his pace and closed the gap between them. With only four feet distance, he screamed at the top of his lungs. It was guttural, and not even Parker knew what he was saying.
Turning, the kid’s eyes were wide. In that instance, Parker realized that the guard wasn’t much different than himself. Probably some guy living on the edge of the market. His mother probably talked him into casting his lot in with the guards. The Matriarch knew they needed all the able bodies they could get.
But wherever he came from, the guard was standing in the way between him and freedom, between him and Hannah.
That made him an enemy.
Parker didn’t hesitate. Letting his momentum take him, he dove at the guard, large metal cuffs extended out in front of him. The sound of crunching bone and cartilage filled Parker’s ears, and the kid dropped into an unresponsive heap on the floor. Shuffling through the guy’s pockets, Parker found a set of keys.
He tried them all in rapid succession, but none of them was the right size for the cuffs shackling his arms. He cursed under his breath, then turned and ran down the hallway, praying that Jack had exaggerated when he talked about the security field.
Standing before the next door, he fumbled with the keys, trying each as he went. Finally, one found purchase in the lock, and Parker heard a click—another barrier down. The next hall was so damned dark, he had to move more slowly, but there was a light ahead and Parker moved toward it. As he approached, he held his breath, knowing he was only one wrong step away from capture.
The light was coming from another room, and Parker stood on his tippy toes, peering through the grated window. He couldn’t believe his eyes. In the middle of the room was a machine like nothing he’d ever seen before. Tubes, beams, and levers ran in every direction. The metal monstrosity was enormous, and his eyes followed its frame up nearly twenty feet. At the top was an enormous funnel.
He watched as man after man—each wearing their own cuffs—rolled carts toward the funnel from a walkway above. When they reached the edge, they dumped their loads in. Within minutes, he observed hundreds of pounds of amphoralds—the gemstones from the Heights—pouring in.
It was some kind of magitech, larger than Parker had ever seen.
Brow furrowed, he muttered to himself, “What the hell?”
Parker’s eyes followed the machinery back to its base. There, chained to a bench, was a man in a robe. His eyes were black like the magic users, but they had dimmed somehow. His face lacked any emotion. Wires ran from his head to the machine. And every few seconds, the man’s body would twitch. It took a second for Parker to put the pieces together.
Amphoralds weren’t magical in and of themselves, but they held magic. The research and design wonks in the Academy had figured out a way to channel a magician’s power into the gems. They were like holding tanks that could distribute the energy on command—like the power gathered by win
dmills outside the city walls. Clearly, they had figured out how to draw power from a magician to fuel tons of amphoralds. They were building a giant power source for whatever the hell Parker, Jack, and the other workers were building.
In the few minutes, he watched, he could tell that they were sucking the life out of the magician connected to the machine. They were killing him to fuel their evil. He thought of Hannah and the Founder and prayed that whatever plan they were working on, it was going to happen soon. Whatever Adrien was up to, it was no good—and freaking huge. The Chancellor needed to be stopped—and Parker needed to make it happen.
Alarms sounded all around him. His escape was now public knowledge.
“Shit,” he grunted as he broke for the end of the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hannah placed her hand on the metal knob. At her touch, the locks clicked open.
Cool, she thought. Magitech like this was almost nonexistent on the Boulevard, and since the technology was invented during Ezekiel’s absence, it wasn’t something she had spent much time around recently either. Like everything else in her life, it took a little time getting used to it.
She turned the knob and stepped into her new dorm room. The room wasn’t big by Capitol standards—although it dwarfed the room she grew up in—but it was perfectly tidy. The space was a mirror image of itself: two of every piece of furniture sitting directly across the room from each other. Two beds. Two desks. Two chairs. Two dressers. Two of everything. The only difference was that the left side was full of someone’s personal items. The desk on the left had papers and pens lined neatly on its surface. Apparently, her roommate had already arrived.
Hannah turned to her right and stepped over to her bed. A note sat on the pillow:
Hey, roomy,
Welcome to Arcadia! You’re going to love it here. Drop your stuff and come on over to the theater in Old Main. Convocation is today, and you don’t want to miss it.
Yours,
Cassie
Hannah didn’t know how to interact with the rich guys on the lawn. Trying to room with a rich young woman was going to be utterly impossible. She moved the note off her pillow and dropped it on the desk, and then laid back on the bed for a few minutes. Everything was so moving so quickly, she just had to think for a minute.
She wondered what Parker would do.
He’d charm the pants off these people, she thought. Her friend always knew how to read people better than she did. Where Parker flourished while grandstanding, Hannah’s strengths were always found in subtlety. Maybe here was no different. Just keep my head down, she thought to herself. Let the opportunity come to me.
She began the meditation techniques that Hadley had taught her and immediately relaxed.
****
After collecting herself and having pushed all anxiety out of her mind, Hannah got up to head to the theater. She spent her life surviving and pretty much kicking ass wherever she went. And while the Academy was a new kind of challenge, it was a challenge she knew she could handle.
She crossed the quad which was now empty and entered the theater on the other side of campus. Her heart sank as she saw that the tiny auditorium was already full. Noble students were busily talking to one another as they waited for the convocation to begin—not that Hannah had any idea what a convocation was.
The only seats remaining were down at the very front—forcing Hannah to already abandon her low-profile philosophy. Nothing like being the new girl doing the walk of shame. She took each step carefully, making sure not to trip. At the bottom, she found an empty seat next to a guy with tight frizzy hair and thick spectacles. He was already taking notes, even though the assembly had not yet begun.
Grabbing the seat, she looked up to find a line of chairs on stage filled with prestigious looking older folks. She recognized the faculty from her examination. August caught her eye, his smile as large as ever.
At least I have one friend here, she thought to herself.
Scanning the crowd, Hannah realized she had no clue what the hell was happening here. For all she knew, it was a virgin sacrifice to kick off the week. For the first time, she was glad for that one night with Franklin a summer ago.
Deciding to grab some intel, she elbowed the guy sitting next to her in the arm. His head snapped up from his notebook and an apprehensive look covered his face.
“Hey, any idea what this is all about?” she asked the frightened young man.
The kid pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose, blushed, then looked back down at his notebook. Hannah looked down at herself, remembered her fitted noblewoman’s dress—and the figure inside of it—and smiled. Back on the Boulevard, it wasn’t rare for guys to hit on her. But she always figured they were all idiots. Based on how the men here were treating her today, she started to wonder if she was considered damned attractive by Academy standards. The realization couldn’t help but make her smile, and then she nearly laughed thinking about Parker and what he would say if he was here now.
She decided to try it again. “Hey man, I won’t bite. I’m just new here. They didn’t really explain stuff at the door.”
The nervous student looked up from his notes. “It’s... it’s opening convocation. To welcome the students back to school.”
He turned back to his notes, and Hannah decided to leave him alone. As she waited for the convocation to begin, she listened to the voices behind her. Over and over she heard people mention the new person, and Hannah’s paranoia made her assume they were talking about her.
But before she could sink lower into her seat, Ezekiel walked onto the stage. Hannah realized that he was the new person they were all referring to. This must have been the new job he was referring to, she thought.
Ezekiel—still in the guise of Lord Girard—stood out from the other faculty. His purple robes looked majestic; the amulet made of the giant amphorald that hung in front of him. Hannah knew that it was only an aspect of his mental magic, but the others in the room assumed that it was real.
Amphoralds made the magitech work, which made them very costly. Hanging a rock that size around your neck was showing off. All the nobles were rich, Girard and his daughter were obscenely wealthy.
Hannah remembered that Ezekiel wasn’t just her teacher, but now, in the halls of the Academy, he was her father. They had to play the part. Making sure that several of the kids around her were watching, she gave Ezekiel a wave. He nodded back. Exactly what a nobleman hopped up on his own pride would do.
But it was more than an act. At that moment, Hannah realized that Ezekiel was more of a father to her than anyone had ever been. She smiled. It gave her comfort knowing that she wasn’t alone in here. She had an ally who truly cared about her—one that could kick ass.
Another man followed Ezekiel on stage and shattered any sense of calm Hannah had. Adrien was taking the podium.
Hannah felt her blood boil as she laid eyes on the man she wanted to destroy—the man who had taken everything from her. She had spent months picturing this moment, but it always included his blood dripping down her knife. Instead, the man was perfectly safe, surrounded by people who loved him. In fact, the Chancellor was a rock star. When Adrien entered the room, everyone cheered and stood.
Reluctantly, Hannah rose to her feet, but she couldn’t bring herself to applaud the monster in front of her.
There he stood, only ten feet away, and unsuspecting. Hannah knew that with all of the passion, hate, and rage inside of her, she might have been able to take him out right there. She pictured his robes going up in flames.
Adrien started talking, but Hannah couldn’t hear a word coming out of his filthy mouth. All she heard was the dying voice of her brother. The students around her sat, but Hannah remained on her feet, her hands tensed at her side.