Chapter 29
29
U gh,” Bryant says, wrinkling her nose as she follows Roma and Chester down the well-worn staircase. “I hate it down here.”
“We’re not even in the prison yet,” Chester points out, swiping his key card and holding open the door. “After you.”
Roma nods her thanks as she strides through, Bryant following close behind. “But, you see, Locke,” Bryant argues, “the trek down the ominous staircase is almost worse than entering the prison itself. The anticipation is the real killer here.”
“I gotta disagree with you there, Nehemiah,” Roma says, squinting in the harsh lighting. “I’d argue that the prison proper is objectively worse than the ominous staircase.”
Chester makes sure the door’s locks engage before motioning them forward. “You’re both ridiculous. And how is the staircase ominous? It’s identical to every other staircase in the building.”
“It’s the vibes, man,” Bryant says solemnly. “It has those ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter here’ vibes. You know what I’m saying?”
“Uh,” Chester says. “No, actually. Literally not at all. It’s a staircase, Bryant.”
“Spoilsport.”
Roma’s eyes widen as Chester leads them down the main hallway, her friends’ lighthearted bickering fading away. The last time she was down here was just after Ez and Obie broke all the demons out, when most of the cell doors were still gaping open, but now??—
“It’s like the jailbreak never even happened,” she whispers, staring down the line of packed cells. “How??—??”
“Even though the mega-rift crisis has been occupying most of the Sanctum,” Chester says, “we’re still seeing a lot of summoners around Redwater. It’s the same uptick we’ve had for the past few months, remember?”
“Ah, yes,” Bryant sighs, rolling her eyes as Chester hangs a left around the interrogation rooms. “The eclipse chasers. Someone really needs to tell them that no, they cannot access an eclipse’s power six months early, thank you very much. Redwater is going to be a hotbed of untapped magic during totality in December, but right now, it’s just business as usual around here.”
“Aside from the mega-rifts, of course,” Chester says, swiping his key card outside the spellcasting library. “And we’ve been getting a lot of neophyte demons from those, too. You and Laguerre might be able to close the mega-rifts with impressive efficiency, Roma, but most of the overnight spellcasters don’t have the greatest demon partners. We usually get neophytes who accidentally wander to Earth a few times per week.”
Roma almost does a double take. Neophytes are getting through a few times per week? The only time that happened on Roma’s watch was when she specifically left a mega-rift open for over half an hour to test her theory. Maybe the overnight spellcasters?—or their demonic counterparts?—are refusing to use transport rifts to travel around town, giving them longer gaps between closures?
Or maybe they’re leaving the mega-rifts open on purpose. Maybe the Sanctum spellcasters and Chain spellcasters are waiting until they get a neophyte demon?—or two, or three?—from Tamaros before closing them. Maybe??—
Hastily, Roma forces the idea from her mind. Even if the Sanctum is working with the Chain, there’s no way they’d voluntarily allow demons into this dimension.
Filling the prison can’t be that important, right?
Roma swallows hard as Chester closes the library’s door behind them, willing the scent of treason to vanish before her friends notice it. “And speaking of the mega-rift epidemic…”
Immediately, Chester’s and Bryant’s expressions turn serious. “I still can’t believe our spell destabilized the Deep,” Chester says, incredulity winding through his voice. “What did you say the odds were, Roma? A two percent chance of it being a spell that couldn’t be cast around a magic reservoir?”
“I still can’t believe we tapped into the Deep and actually survived the experience,” Bryant says, and she lifts her hand. “High five, Locke.”
Chester complies with a grin. Roma rolls her eyes. “You two didn’t tap into the Deep. You’d most likely be dead if you did. But the Deep keeps a record of all casted spells, and it just so happens that it didn’t like recording this particular spell?—almost like a line of bad software code can make a computer crash.”
Bryant blinks slowly back at her. “We… broke the Deep’s software?”
“The metaphor may have gotten away from me a bit,” Roma says, “but generally speaking, yes.”
“We broke the Deep!” Bryant cheers, and she holds up her hand again. “Another high five for us, Locke!”
Chester slaps her palm firmly before turning back to Roma. “So what’s our play? You mentioned that you and Laguerre need to build a point-by-point counterspell, right?”
“Exactly,” Roma says, striding over to the shelf to grab The Magic-Weaver’s Companion. “But we’re not going to be using that counterspell just to close a mega-rift. Going back to our software analogy, casting the counterspell will give the Deep the line of code it needs to fix itself, but to actually run that code, we need to access the Deep and use its magic to activate the spell. Hopefully, that’ll restabilize it and end the infinite loop of rift-openings.”
“Hopefully,” Bryant repeats. “So there’s also a chance of it figuratively and literally blowing up in your faces?”
“We’re already two for two on surviving a brush with the Deep,” Chester says. “I’m sure Roma can make it three for three.”
He says it with the same confidence he’s always had in her spellcasting. Guilt crawls through Roma’s chest. “We can hope,” she says, forcing a smile as she sits down at the table and flips the spell book open. “And?—and I do have the advantage of creating and casting the counterspell with the most powerful spellcaster on the East Coast. I could think of worse demons to work with.”
“She’s good for that, at least,” Bryant agrees, sprawling in her own chair.
“Yeah.” A cautious expression creeps onto Chester’s face as he sits next to Bryant. “Has she?—has she mentioned JJ at all?”
He looks both hopeful and afraid of Roma’s answer. Roma’s heart hurts. At this point, Chester is the only one who still calls him “JJ” in public?—everyone else, even Bryant, reverts to “Jackson” when other hunters are in earshot.
Making the distinction between their old friend’s affectionate nickname and the distant surname for the defector. Roma weighs her options and decides to tread as close to the truth as possible. “Once or twice,” she says softly. “It sounds like he’s doing well.”
Bryant’s eyebrows shoot up. “You really believe that?”
“Yeah. I do.” Roma realizes that she’s picking at the edge of Magic-Weaver’s cover and pulls her fingers away. “I don’t think any of us know exactly what happened between him and Chin, but I think JJ is as happy as he can be right now.”
“Huh,” Bryant says, and she and Chester exchange knowing looks.
Instantly, Roma’s hackles rise. “What?”
“Chester and I were just discussing this the other day, actually,” Bryant says. “The possibility of you starting to sympathize with Laguerre and her crew.”
All the blood rushes from Roma’s head at once. “What? What do you mean?”
Bryant and Chester are worried about Roma sympathizing with Ez? Why do they think that? Has Roma talked about Ez too much? Forgotten to refer to her by her last name? Showed too much respect for Ez’s spellcasting abilities, deferred to Ez’s judgment too often, smiled too much at Ez in public?
How many other people might be “worried” about where Roma’s sympathies lie? The overnight spellcasters? The mixed-breed hunters who initially helped her with the con?
The Council?
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of!” Chester adds hastily. “And it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.”
“No, not at all,” Bryant assures her, throwing one arm over the back of her chair. “But you and Laguerre have been working together since, what, mid-April? And you’ve been on ten-hour shifts with each other for almost a month. There’s a certain amount of familiarity that comes with that.” She raises her eyebrows meaningfully. “A certain amount of trust. Even if that trust is in the worst person possible.”
“And strike teams aren’t trained to be aware of it,” Chester adds, a note of seriousness dropping into his voice. “Not like interrogators are. There are some demons who stay in this prison for weeks or months or even years, and after a while, you develop a rapport with them. They start asking you questions instead of just answering them. Sometimes, you can get them to tell you more by sharing a few details about yourself.” His jaw tightens. “But you can’t let yourself forget that it’s all an act, okay? On both sides. Laguerre is playing you, just like Chin and the kid played JJ. You can’t let yourself fall into that trap.”
Roma’s chest aches. Chester looks so earnest about what he’s saying, so sincere about trying to protect Roma, and for a brief moment, Roma wonders if the demons in the prison really are trying to manipulate him.
Maybe they just start talking because there’s no one else around to listen.
But there’s no way she’s going to say that out loud, not when Bryant and Chester are already doubting her resolve. “Thanks for looking out for me,” she says at last, nodding. “I’ll keep my guard up, I promise.”
Chester hesitates. “And you’ll bring JJ home. Right?”
Roma’s stomach churns. “I’ll do my best,” she says, ignoring the uncomfortable fact that bringing JJ back to this place is the absolute last thing she wants to do. “But?—but to do that, we have to convince Laguerre that this is the correct spell without letting on that we were the ones who cast it. Thoughts?”
Chester drums his fingers against the table, considering. “Maybe we could find a bunch of different rift-opening spells, and you could show her the real one in a pile of decoys?”
Roma shakes her head. “It’s a good concept, but a spellcaster of her caliber wouldn’t even think about creating a reversal unless she was certain she had the correct spell.”
“Well…” Bryant’s eyebrows furrow. “What if you could convince her that this is the correct spell?”
Roma frowns at her. “What do you mean?”
“The Sanctum always has its secrets, right?” Bryant says. “Secrets that you obviously wouldn’t tell a demon. So you can use that to your advantage: claim that our spellcasters have been doing their own research, and that they guaranteed this is the real spell. If Laguerre presses you for details, you can brush her off by saying the Council forbade you to talk about their methods with outsiders.”
The thought makes Roma feel faintly ill. “Laguerre and I have always been very transparent about spell work. It’ll be a red flag if I hide something this important from her.”
Chester winces. “You might have to risk it. This is too important to leave to chance?—or to put off for longer than necessary. And…” His eyes turn cautious. “And your entire mission has revolved around earning her trust. Don’t you think she trusts you by now?”
Roma swallows hard. Looks down at the spell book to avoid her friends’ eyes.
Yes. Yes, Ez trusts Roma at this point. That’s what makes betraying her trust so difficult. “That… might be a good idea,” she says haltingly, flickering her gaze up to meet theirs. “Thanks for your help, guys.”
Bryant beams back at her. “Anytime,” she says, and as she and Chester start discussing how Roma can best convince Ez, Roma realizes with a sinking heart that not even Bryant and Chester should trust her at this point.
She’s lying to every single person in her life right now, and frankly, she’s afraid to face the fallout when her house of cards comes crashing down.