by Chloe Garner
“The ones I’ve been helping Mr. Tannis defend against,” Valerie said, and Sam nodded.
“Exactly. There’s a lot going on, and I can’t tell you the whole story anymore, because I can’t see most of it. Jalice came to us because the mages around New Orleans are doing strange things… She can’t tell the difference between the normal mages we work with and the ones that you’re associated with, because she doesn’t care. So we were already involved in your war because of her. But the fact that everything is warded up tight worries me.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Valerie asked. “Without Ethan here?”
“I needed to figure out what was going on with Jalice,” Samantha said. “And Sam didn’t think that Ethan was ready to hear just how much of what he grew up with isn’t close to true. You’ve already had your big break with reality, so he thought you’d handle it better, but not everyone copes well with being told that nothing they believed about the world is true.”
“I’m going to tell him,” Valerie said, and Sam shrugged.
“I’m not asking you to keep any of it a secret.”
She looked at him for a moment, then went back to her cereal.
“What’s it like, being able to see everything?” She paused. “I mean, seriously, how are you guys just here, when you can literally see all of the world’s problems?”
He shook his head, drawing a breath and considering before he answered.
“I try not to go looking for problems,” he said. “There are more out there than I can fix, and we…”
“We’re specialists,” Samantha said. “We fix the problems no one else can. Like demons sponsoring mage wars that are threatening to kill off all of mankind, for example.”
“But… How did you let it get this far, if you could see it coming?” Valerie asked, and he shook his head.
“It isn’t like that. I don’t go out looking at everything all the time. The world is too big for that. There are too many things that I would see that I can’t ever fix. It would break me. And I mean that. I really do. It would break me. When you drove up, I saw you and I went back along your timeline, and then along your mom’s, and that’s how I saw everything I know now, but it wasn’t like I was just hanging out to see if anyone was going to make me do something about it.”
Valerie sighed.
“I kind of feel like that,” she said, and he gave her a sideways smile that wasn’t at all mocking.
“Yeah?”
She nodded.
“I mean, my parents take me out and they show me all this stuff that’s just so messed up, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
He nodded.
“I get it. It’s too big and you don’t have the tools to go after it. And you really do need to go finish the conversation with your mom. It wasn’t done, what they wanted to do, what they wanted you to see. Cut off where you were, I can see how it would be confusing.”
Valerie frowned at him.
“You can see what they said after we got lost,” she said. Alarm. “Do they know I’m okay? They didn’t know what happened to me.”
He nodded.
“They know you’re okay. Your mom has a few contacts that she can trust. In this case, she got in touch with Ivory Mills, and Ivory called Lady Harrington, and Lady Harrington told them that you guys had been in touch with Ethan.”
“Now that’s a huge game of telephone,” Samantha said, and Sam nodded.
“They did it a few more times, to figure out that you were back at school, and that’s the last that they heard.”
Valerie nodded slowly.
“Why didn’t they come find us?” she asked, and Sam gave her a tight-lipped smile.
“You were too good at throwing the Pure off your track. Whatever you did, up in that apartment - and I couldn’t see the last parts of it at all, it blocked out a lot of the magic that anyone could use to find you. They tried.”
Valerie swallowed.
“It was my fault? Did they know that we were still alive?”
“They knew that you’d put up a huge fight and that they didn’t see any signs that the Pure had caught you,” Sam said. “I don’t think your mom ever doubted.”
“I’m glad they haven’t kept up with Ivory. The Council shouldn’t know that she talks to my mom. They’d threaten her,” Valerie said.
He nodded.
“She’s very good at being hard to find. She and your mom really do go back a long way.”
Valerie smiled, pleased with that.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. So… You’re just going to tell me where they are and I’m gonna head out?”
Sam shook his head.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “They should stay here.”
“They aren’t going to,” Samantha answered. “You told me that yourself.”
Valerie nodded.
“I’m not just going to duck in cover. Daphne told me that you guys could help me, because you cared about what happened, but if that’s not true, I’ll just take where my parents are we’ll keep going.”
“And do what?” Samantha asked.
Valerie paused.
Frowned hard.
Tried hard not to get upset.
She had no idea.
Samantha nodded.
“I know,” she said. “I know. It’s not easy, when you’re first starting out and you’re watching everything going on around you and no one thinks you can do anything about it. Honest answer, I don’t even know if you can. But I’m going to try to help. I don’t have much time. When Jalice gets back, I need to leave, because the problems going on in New Orleans are about to blow up, and… It’s all the same problem, I’m increasingly convinced of that, but the war between your Council and the Pure, it’s just a piece of it. And I need to go take care of my piece.”
“Is it true, that we’re the ones who are able to stop all of this?” Valerie asked, and Samantha drew a slow breath, frowning.
“I don’t believe in fate,” she said. “And I don’t believe in curses. I believe that all things work together for good, but that no one on this planet can tell you what’s going to happen in the future.”
“Not without risking a huge headache,” Sam said, and she glanced at him with what might have been humor.
“So, no, I don’t know if you are or are not going to be able to stop the war or the Pure or anything like that. I do think that they have the backing of a demon, and I’m going to draw his attention somewhere else, just now, so if you’re going to have a chance to do something about it…”
“Sam,” Sam said. “That’s just asking her to do something stupid.”
Samantha gave him a little smile and shrugged.
“It’s informing her.”
“I don’t understand,” Valerie said.
Samantha shook her head.
“I know. You aren’t used to war or anything like it. And you guys already tried to cut the head off the snake, once. The problem is there isn’t just one snake, and this one has a nasty ability to regenerate.”
“Hydra,” Sam murmured. Samantha snorted. Valerie felt like she was missing something. Or a lot of something.
She sighed at them.
“I don’t know where they are, I don’t know who they are, I don’t know how strong they are. I can’t do anything.”
“I know,” Samantha said. “You’re too early in your process for any of this to make sense. But your mom might. I don’t know. In the meantime… You really should just stay here. Or go and come back. Would you consider that? Going and delivering the information I can give you to your parents and then coming back here?”
Valerie spread her hands.
Closed her eyes.
None of this was making sense. It didn’t go together.
“Are you telling me that we can end the war?” she asked. “That while the… demon…” Yes, she was going to have to deal with the fact that she didn’t believe in demons at some point. “While the demon is distracted, m
y parents could go kill Fact Alexander, my grandfather, and everything would be better?”
“No,” Sam said emphatically. “No, it wouldn’t all be better. People are more complicated than that.”
Samantha sighed.
“Sam,” she said quietly. He shook his head.
“This is our fight, not theirs,” he answered. “We need to do it.”
“No,” she said. “We need to go find Tridium and ash him. We need to go subdue the revolt in New Orleans, because no one else can help Lange. We need to make sure that the warehouse is safe. We need to deal with Carly. Again. And we need to do all of those things in a space of time during which the Steel could decide that the Cure is possible and unleash it.”
“Send Jason,” Sam said.
“Jason can’t take on mages,” Samantha said. “Even with Angelica.”
“What about Evangeline and Carson?”
“Coming with us,” Samantha said. “We’re outmanned by too much already.”
“You really think they can manage this?” Sam asked.
Valerie watched the conversation whiz past without understanding any of it, but sensing a conclusion was coming, and with it an explanation.
“You told me she was good,” Samantha said. “If she can’t, she can muster the people who can. You said that.”
“Did not,” Sam muttered.
“We need to leave when Jalice gets back,” Samantha said. “True or false.”
“They’re just kids,” Sam said.
“And we aren’t asking them to go in,” Samantha answered. “We’re asking them to take a message. Besides, how old were you when you went off on your own, in this world?”
“My world at sixteen was nothing like this one,” Sam said.
“Look at her and tell me that she’s not more capable than you were.”
Sam’s jaw worked for a moment, then he nodded.
“Okay, I see your point. I don’t like it, but I see it.”
“Still waiting, over here,” Valerie said.
“I’ll send Jason with them to Atlanta,” Samantha said. “How about that?”
“We don’t need a chaperone,” Valerie said reflexively.
“Do too,” Sam answered. “If any of them catch you, they would do things that I wouldn’t even be willing to tell you about, for how old you are.”
“I’m seventeen,” Valerie said. “I’m allowed to go to rated-R movies.”
“Exactly,” Sam said levelly, and Valerie saw something his face that warned her that he wasn’t coddling her.
“Oh,” she said, and he nodded.
“Is a dude with a sword really going to do anything to keep us safer?” Ethan asked. Valerie looked over at him, in a dark blue robe and fuzzy slippers, and had a moment of unreality that this conversation was even happening.
“You would be shocked at how powerful he is,” Samantha said. “Don’t let the fact that he lives in a trailer and eats junk food like it’s about to expire fool you.”
“Expiration dates never slowed him down,” Sam muttered.
“Why do you make him live in a trailer?” Valerie asked, and Samantha shook her head.
“It’s both not worth the time it would take to explain it and so characteristically Jason that you wouldn’t understand it.”
“It’s symbolic magic,” Sam said, and Valerie frowned.
Something about it resonated with her at a level that… The words were foreign in much the same way they had been at Von Lauv, but they made sense.
“He’s more powerful there because he’s alone and exposed,” Valerie said.
Samantha looked at her for a long time, then raised her eyebrows.
“All right,” she said. “Okay. I’m convinced. Her mom can do this.”
“Wait, I thought he was the one… and you thought…” Valerie said, pointing both arms across her chest. “Whatever.”
Sam grinned.
“We don’t make sense,” he said. “You just have to learn to go with it. Okay. So Jason will go with you to make sure you get to your parents, and then he’ll come back here with you. Okay? You can stay here until it’s all over, and then… There will probably still be a war on, the Council will still be in charge, the Pure, or whatever word you want to use to describe them will probably still keep trying to do all of the things that they’re trying to do - many of which you haven’t even heard of - and no one will even know, but your parents will save the world and so will we. Plan?”
Valerie looked from one to the other of the adults, then over at Ethan.
“I came in late and I think I missed a bunch,” he said.
“You did,” Sam said. “Your life isn’t ever going to go back to what it was.”
“Good,” Ethan said. “It really wasn’t very interesting.”
Sam snorted.
He got out a piece of paper and wrote down several things, then handed it to Valerie.
“They have a laboratory. It’s a really good one. Like, if we had more time, Sam would want to go and tear it down piece by piece and bring a lot of it back here, so I’m kind of glad that you’re the one doing it and not her, because I think I can trust your mom to just blow it up.”
“Oh, if her mom is anything like Valerie, they’re big fans of blowing things up,” Ethan said, taking Valerie’s bowl of cereal and topping it off.
“You have no idea,” Sam said flatly, then smiled and shook his head. “There are going to be a lot of humans there, mages - strong ones - who are going to try to stop them. We’ve got… Well, the plan in New Orleans is a work in progress, but they ought to be able to tell when we’ve drawn attention away, because things are going to change, here. The warding on it ought to drop off some, without the demon powering it from the inside. That’ll be when they can get in.”
“If the demon is the one who cares about all of it, why does he need the Pure at all?” Valerie asked. “Is he just using them for grunt labor? Why teach them all of this stuff and pretend like he’s their friend?”
Sam looked at Samantha, who nodded.
“Thing about freewill,” the woman said, sitting down on a stool. “Demons can’t do the worst of the things that humans can, because humans are protected from demons. Well, not you, clearly, but ignorant humans are protected at profound levels from direct demonic interference. But humans? With all of the power of freewill behind them? They can do whatever they want to each other.”
“Why?” Valerie asked. “Where are the rules coming from?”
Samantha frowned.
“That is a big question, and I wish I had time to sit and talk with you for the hours it merits. Demons have rules. Lots and lots of rules. And as soon as you start messing around with magic, a lot of them go away. There are still lots of rules, but…”
“Not lots and lots,” Ethan said through a mouthful of cereal, sounding pleased with himself. Samantha glanced back at him.
“Yes,” she said, dry. “Humans don’t have any rules for what they can and cannot do, outside of raw physics. They are allowed to do whatever they choose, because they, we, have freewill. And if they choose to try to separate the divine out of the physical - killing everyone in the process - they may. And it’s our job - your job, in this moment - to stop them, because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Meanwhile, you have more important things to do?” Valerie asked, and Samantha nodded.
“I know it’s hard to believe. I wouldn’t believe it either, but I do. Because you can. And you can’t do what I’m about to do. And they both must happen. Otherwise there will be dire, global consequences. If I had to pick one, it would be taking down that lab. But that would be a small consolation if New Orleans gets away from us or if Lange dies. Yes, the human race would survive. If you can do this, and you can - or your parents can - then I have to do my part. You can argue it with me if you want, and I’ll take you seriously, but that’s where I am right now.”
Valerie took a moment, listening to that through, feeling like at last
someone was treating her like a grownup.
Like she was capable of understanding.
Samantha watched her, then nodded firmly.
“Okay. I do have presents, though. Sam says that you favor fire magic.”
“Um,” Valerie said. “I think so.”
Samantha nodded.
“Believe him on this. He knows. Your mom does, too. So. I’ve put together some of my favorite ingredients that you can’t get outside of New York that live in that fire magic world. Your mom will probably recognize them - Sam says she’s used all of them before - and if I understand how your magic works right, and boy wouldn’t I love to do a full analysis on that, that means that you’ll probably be able to use them natively.”
Samantha motioned, and Sam disappeared. Samantha lifted her chin at Valerie.
“I can feel the power coming off of you, and I’m dying to see it,” she said. “May I?”
Valerie shook her head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Samantha lifted her hands, indicating Valerie’s hair, and Valerie frowned, taking several moments to figure it out.
“Oh,” she said, lifting her hair out of the way to show Samantha the braid there. “This?”
Samantha flattened her hands slightly, maybe indicating that she didn’t plan on touching it, and she rotated her head around slightly.
“That is… That’s really good magic,” she said, and Valerie shrugged.
“I don’t know what to do with it, yet,” she said, and Samantha shook her head.
“May not need to do anything specific,” she told her. “It’s protecting you just as it is.”
Valerie frowned, letting her hair fall back into place as Sam came back with a metal tool box. He opened it, revealing a selection of goodies separated out like fishing tackle. Valerie’s fingers itched, but she managed not to snatch it away from him.
She was graceful about it.
“That lab needs to be destroyed,” Samantha said. “You tell them that. Okay? Tell them that they’re close. But not close enough.”
Valerie nodded, and Samantha looked over her shoulder as a car pulled up to the front of the house again.