I hate how weak and pathetic I sound. My cheeks burn as I stare holes in the floor, the prospect of eye contact too much to process.
“Yeah,” Jaesin says, cool and neutral. “Remi, you were looking up information on the university?”
They hum an affirmative. “They’re not in session right now, so the only people on campus are professors and grad students. More than likely the name on the envelope is one of them. If it’s a real name, of course. I tried looking for a directory online, but no luck.”
Ania turns to me, the first one to actually look me in the eye. “Diz, you think you can find that info?”
I shrug, my gaze sliding away from the creases on Remi’s cheek from napping against the window. “Given enough time, yeah, but I might need to be on the school’s network to do it, depending on their security. Maybe we should start by going to the university’s post office. We might be able to just ask someone if they recognize the name. It could be it’s the professor himself, using an alias.”
“It’s different handwriting, though,” Remi points out. “There’s at least one other person involved in this letter exchange, if only for that.”
I shrug. “It’s still the only lead we have. How far is the university from the train station?”
Remi shares a map with us all, and at first I can’t even tell what I’m looking at. Jattapore looks completely different from both Kyrkarta and the much older version of itself on the wall in the archive. The ocean crashes in on the western side of the city, and portions of the coastline are highlighted in red with a do-not-travel warning. Apparently all those weather warnings I’ve been ignoring were trying to tell me about the hurricane currently dumping rain on the city, on its way up the coastline. The hurricanes have been increasing in strength and frequency for years, and Jattapore is finally giving way in the face of the constant battering. Just like Kyrkarta and its earthquakes.
“The university post office is right here,” Remi says, placing a marker on the map. “It’s not too far from the train station, and well away from the coast. The worst of the hurricane has moved on, and it wasn’t a bad one, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Shouldn’t be, but probably will be, now that they’ve said it. Way to jinx us. We were lucky the train wasn’t canceled due to the weather, but that luck will probably balance out with something awful later.
Angry rain lashes at the windows as the train pulls to a smooth stop at Jattapore Station, fat droplets that fall harder than anything we ever get in Kyrkarta. It’s nearly as opaque as fog.
“How are we supposed to get anywhere in this mess?” I ask, expecting to be completely ignored. Ania deigns to provide an overly knowledgeable response, though, as she leads us off the train.
“Jattapore has a rail system we can use,” she says. “The flooding and wind are too bad for anything else. They only started having hurricane problems recently, when the ocean started heating up, so they mostly aren’t built to handle it. The rail is the only thing that still runs consistently.”
“I bet the wind makes RidePods fun,” Jaesin says with a grimace. He can jump off buildings and do backflips in boost shoes, but put him in a bumpy RidePod and he turns totally green.
Once we’re on the platform, the others halt in place with their luggage, taking in the humid, salty air, the crowded train station, and the sheets of water pouring from the sky just beyond the edge of the platform ceiling. The architecture around us is different from the buildings in Kyrkarta, more ornamented, and somehow conjuring the swell and fade of the ocean just beyond. My hands itch to climb all over this building, to explore its hidden back hallways and secret rooftop doorways. Maybe some other time.
I catch Remi looking at me, gray eyes a perfect match for the roiling clouds above, but they quickly glance away. They know me so well, though, that they probably read my thoughts.
I don’t want to be curious about this city, though. I don’t want to feel that need, to run through its abandoned buildings, go everywhere I’m not supposed to go, let everything else fall away other than the next stair, the next rooftop, the next flying leap. It feels like cheating on my home to think it, but even in a strange, unfamiliar city, the thrill of exploration would be glorious.
Pointless to imagine now.
“Come on,” I say, waving the others after me. I spotted a sign that said RAILWAY, with a little train icon next to it. Don’t need to know my way around this city to get that. I lead the way up to the raised platform, never once glancing behind me.
That’s the biggest benefit of being in the lead: you never see all the glares directed at your back.
The University of Jattapore campus is beautiful, waterlogged though it is. The trees (so many more of them than in Kyrkarta) sparkle with hanging droplets of rain, glimmering in the few tentative rays of sun that dare to peek through the angry clouds overhead. The storm is moving on, leaving behind fallen branches, storm drains clogged with leaves, and calf-high water in low-lying areas. The university buildings stand proud and unaffected above it all, built of bright metals and stone carved in beautiful curling waves, and bustling with people even in the wake of the powerful storm. According to the net, it was the lowest category of hurricane, though I don’t exactly have the context to judge. It’s earthquakes and oranges. Or something.
We stop for a quick bite at a café called Speedy’s right as they’re pulling their little red awning back out from its storm-tucked position. Two employees bicker back and forth as they retrieve tumbled tables and chairs from across the bricked courtyard, complaining about some other guy who was supposed to bring everything inside before the wind picked up. I guess the people of Jattapore and Kyrkarta do have one thing in common: we’ve all had to figure out how to structure our lives around disaster.
We order our food, then commandeer one of the outside tables to wait for it. I spend an uncomfortable few minutes trying to watch Remi without looking like I’m watching Remi, scanning for any sign of how they’re feeling after our fight. I get nothing, though. It’s like the fight never happened and I don’t exist. They’re totally normal, except for the fact that they won’t look at me. Eventually they ditch us to run to the bathroom, which of course leaves me sitting around with Mom and Dad. Great.
I manage to endure a whole thirty seconds of strained silence before I crack. Playing nice, making jokes, apologizing—it doesn’t matter what I try, so screw it. Not trying anymore.
“So, this is Jattapore!” I say. “Gotta say, not really feeling it so far. Not impressed at all. You sure you wanna live here?”
The way Ania’s and Jaesin’s expressions darken gives me a vindictive little thrill. Wanna shut me out of the family completely? Fine. But I’m not gonna just lie back and make it easy for you.
“Awfully soggy, for one,” I say. “And what the hell are those obnoxious birds circling up there? Do they ever stop screaming?”
Jaesin closes his eyes and tips his head back with a sigh. I silently hope for a bird to poop on his face.
“This is fun, though,” I continue, because I’m on a roll and can’t stop myself. “The three of us here like this. It’s just like when you two were dating! Lots of obnoxious tension, the two of you being all huffy and superior, and me as the third wheel, just hanging out over here while you two take yourselves suuuuper seriously and roll your eyes a lot.”
Ania huffs an irritated sigh.
“I know what you’re doing, Diz, and I’m not going to let it—” she begins, but Remi walks back out to join us, their arms laden with bags of food. The smell of buttery biscuits and charred veggies shuts Ania right up, and we quickly divvy up the food to scarf as we walk. It’s probably better that I shove a biscuit in my face and stop talking.
Everything is fine.
We throw our wrappers in the trash receptacle outside the student union building, then slip through the entrance, into the chill of a building air-conditioned for computers, not humans. A bored student wrapped in a thick hoodie sits at the
front desk with her feet up on the counter, obviously zoned in to some kind of deck game, so we walk straight past her and follow signs for the post office.
We round a corner and spot the post office window set into a long lobby wall. The others head straight for it. I hang back a bit and let them handle the talking. With my track record the past few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if I managed to blow up the post office or something with my mere presence. Jaesin takes the lead, the envelope clutched in his hand, and marches straight up to the clerk at the window.
I turn away to toss my drink in the recycler, then turn back just in time to see the clerk walk away from the window where the others stand waiting. A moment later, the guy comes out a side entrance, out of their line of sight, and stalks back toward them . . . with one fist brimming over with firaz.
“Look out!” I cry, and the others whirl around just in time to see the clerk round the corner and lift his fireball.
In the blink of an eye, Remi steals the maz straight from his hand and wraps it around their own, cocking their arm back like they’re ready to throw a flaming punch. Jaesin beats them to it, seizing the guy by the collar of his shirt and slamming him into the wall. Ania recovers from her shock quickly enough to scan the empty courtyard for witnesses, then starts in on a quick concealment weave. I run to Jaesin’s side and look the clerk over. His name tag reads VAN, and his expression is hard. Not with anger or violence, though. With determination. This guy has a cause to fight for. Means we’re on the right track, I’d guess, one step closer to the elusive Professor Silva.
“Hey, look, Van,” I say, glancing down at his name tag again to double-check. “You obviously know who we’re looking for, and you’re feeling protective. No need for that, okay? The same people who are after him are after us.”
Seriously, we’re four half-drowned teenagers still wearing our awful disguises from the train. Jaesin’s eyeliner is running, Remi’s shirt is nearly transparent from the rain (not that I’ve noticed), Ania’s curls are sagging, and my terrible skirt feels like it’s going to slide right off with the weight of the water it’s soaked up. Do we really look like MMC assassins come to murder the good Professor Silva?
Van pauses in his struggle against Jaesin’s pressing forearm. He studies me, but still doesn’t speak. I step back to include the whole group in my next words.
“Maybe we should take this chat into the office?” I say, nodding toward the door the clerk used to get the drop on them.
Van scowls.
“Fine,” he says, holding up his hands. “My badge is on my belt. You’ll need it to get through the door.”
Remi snags the badge in question, and Jaesin hauls the guy off the wall and around the corner with Ania following, still pouring concealment maz into her shield. We all awkwardly squeeze ourselves into the tight space of the post office back room, where Jaesin finally lets the guy go, but not far. Van straightens his shirt and huffs, then sits back against a desk.
“Well? Why are you here?” he asks carefully, his eyes on Remi. I shift closer to Remi’s side and watch the guy. That was a carefully worded question, fishing for information while failing to actually confirm our own. The answer, now that I try to summarize it in my head, sounds utterly absurd. I snort a laugh before I can help it.
“Remi, do you want to explain our situation to this gentleman?”
They glance over at me with a tiny smile, and my traitorous heart stirs with hope. It’s more than I ever expected to see directed at me again. It lasts barely a second, though, before Remi steps forward to confront Van.
“You obviously know who Professor Silva is. You know what maz-15 is?” Remi asks.
Van’s eyes widen, and he looks away for a long moment, then finally nods.
“Okay, well, so do we,” Remi says. “Long story short, we found out about it, MMC tried to kill us because of it, we went to the archives in Kyrkarta to try to learn more about it, and that research led us here. We know Professor Silva is alive. We know he discovered the cause of the spellplague. We need his help.”
They pause and smile the bright, infectious grin that grabbed me and refused to let go right from our first meeting as kids. “But also, I’ve been such a fan of his work my whole life, and just the chance to meet him would be . . .”
They trail off with a flail of excitement, then seem to remember the circumstances and shove their hands in their pockets.
“That’s pretty much it, right?” they ask, looking around to the rest of us, even me.
“That’s the basics,” Ania says, stepping up to lay a hand on Jaesin’s shoulder.
Van braces his palms on the desktop and looks at the ceiling for a long moment, then back down at Remi.
“You’re spellsick, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Sure am,” Remi replies without missing a beat, though the rest of us turn hot glares on the guy. How dare he bring it up without their permission?
“Why do you still weave?” Van asks, oblivious to the ire directed at him. “Knowing that it’s maz that made you ill. How can you stand to look at it every day? Why don’t you stop?”
“Could you?” Remi says, matter-of-fact. And apparently that’s the right response, because Van finally relaxes, nodding.
“I’ll tell you where to find him,” he says. “If you make it there, I know he’ll be happy to help you.”
If?
Van zones into his lenses for a moment, then a map share notification pops up. Jattapore fills my view once again, but on the opposite side of the city, near a crowded merchant district, a single marker blinks outside the faint blue line of the city’s wards. Remi zooms in and checks the box to show distances. The marker is approximately two miles outside the wards, but it may as well be two hundred, for all that anyone can get there.
Beyond the city’s wards, around the whole world, contaminated maz is dispersed in the very air, the way clean, natural maz used to be. In the past, a spellweaver would have been able to draw trace maz from thin air and spin it into threads to use on the spot. Free, like it should be. To be fair, they could still do that . . . but they’d probably die of the plague before the day was out.
“Ahhh, this might not be too bad,” Ania says. “I can buy us some nullaz, and Remi and I can get the suits and wards set up in an hour or two.”
It’s so nice to be able to just money your problems away.
Jaesin nods, already bouncing on the balls of his feet. “It’s not as far as I thought it would be.” His eyes are aglow at the talk of being outside city wards for the first time since childhood, his grin already slipping back into its boyish seven-year-old version, all toothy and unrestrained.
“It’s not far, no,” Van says, leaning against the desk with his arms crossed.
Then he winces.
“Um. Good luck?”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Please. We got this.”
After all, we’re the best siphoning crew in Kyrkarta. We’ve got skills. I’m pretty sure we can handle a two-mile walk.
Eighteen
ONLY TWO MILES, WE SAID.
Should be easy, we said.
I flinch as the boom of another cannon shot rends the air, but I’m not fast enough—I take another sunnaz blast straight to the face, my vision whiting out in a wash of stars.
“These godsdamned cannons!” I shriek, as near to hysterical as I’ve ever been in my life.
It’s the third direct hit in ten minutes. I’m starting to worry about permanent vision damage.
A two-mile walk shouldn’t have taken more than thirty minutes. Twenty-five minutes in, we’re barely halfway there, and I’m about to collapse.
“I’m running low on everything,” Ania calls over the sound of another cannon blast. “I’m already out of firaz!”
“How the hell are you already empty?” Remi shouts back, dancing around a mine and jabbing a fist into a charging gorilla so realistic I can barely make out the weave that holds it together. Remi’s fingers find the seams just as t
he beast’s jaws slam shut an inch from their nose, and with a rough yank, they pull the whole thing apart like a threadbare sweater.
“I’m a techwitch,” Ania snaps, her partially suppressed accent back in full force under duress. She’s in her total concentration mode, where she forgets to be poised and ladylike. “I can’t just cannibalize one of these—fuck—one of these demon rabbits for its maz.”
Two swears from Ania in less than a week. This is just a day full of unicorns.
And then I trip over a maz mine, which summons a literal charging unicorn, and I deeply and instantly regret every thought I’ve ever had in my life.
“Look out!” Jaesin calls, then puts his shoulder down and rams into the unicorn’s side, knocking it just far enough off course that I don’t get kebabed. I hit the ground and roll in a puff of sandy coastal soil, coming up on my toes to spring away from those stomping unicorn hooves. An ominous CRUNCH comes from my backpack as I roll over it—I don’t even want to know. Jaesin throws himself at the unicorn again, his arms flexing around its neck, slowing it down until someone can get a good shot in.
Ania comes through with a blast from her fast-diminishing stores of nullaz. The maz, so black it seems to radiate darkness, hits the unicorn and breaks apart, individual threads wrapping around the woven motaz and vitaz that give it the appearance of life. The creature stumbles like it’s stepped into quicksand, struggling as it goes down in a tangle on top of Jaesin. His nullaz suit flares as it makes contact with the maz, and Ania hisses a warning.
“Watch yourself! We don’t have enough to patch your barrier if you wear it out.”
“I know that,” he grinds out between clenched teeth, heaving himself up onto one side. I offer him a hand and pull, hauling him to his feet, then turn back to the field before us and compare our position against the map. It’s all I can do. I’m fast and agile, but not beefy like Jaesin. I’m not good at wrestling things. I can’t use maz.
I can navigate, though. I can run, find us a way around obstacles, blaze a trail to the point on the map that hopefully marks the professor’s secret wasteland fortress. Just like running the streets and rooftops of Kyrkarta, right?
Spellhacker Page 17