Chapter 2 #2
I had no time to think, and I clasped that tiny shard of my amulet in one hand to draw on the dark matter still within it.
Other hand extended, I inhaled to make a small field.
Dark matter stored in the crystal’s lattice rang with the echo of the big bang.
With a practiced flip of thought, I brought my personal energy field in line with it.
The two echoes synchronized, and the stored energy was suddenly mine.
“Benny, down!” I shouted, filling the small field with everything the shard had, exciting the energy to a higher level dangerously fast.
My class-five field ripped apart from the assault, the backlash raking my mind like little daggers.
A silent boom flung me against the wall.
Even expecting it, I hit hard, dizzy as I tried to keep my feet.
Benedict was on his knees, eyes wide. Fawn, too, had slammed into the wall and was gasping in pain, trying to sit up.
Pluck was misty, glowing green from the charged energy passing harmlessly through him. Making a little doggy huff, he sat on the woman’s second lodestone, tongue lolling. She could still see it, but no way was she getting it now.
“You okay?” I said as I rolled my shoulders, and Pluck flicked an ear, clearly amused. Yeah, maybe I’d overdone it, but I hadn’t wanted to be spelled back to the Stone Age. “Ma’am, are you okay?” I added, not really caring. “Lev! You good up there?”
“Good!” he shouted. “Don’t let her spell herself. She’s going to tell us who her friends are. Ben, meet me at the top of the alley in case they return for her. I’ve got the van coming, and Grady and Pluck have her.”
Yeah, we had her, and I tucked the depleted shard into a pocket as I limped to Pluck.
My entire arm tingled with cold when I reached through him to get Fawn’s lodestone.
The piece of glass was unremarkable on the outside, and I handed it to Benedict.
He couldn’t use it as it was tuned to Fawn, but I wasn’t about to take it anywhere near her when I cuffed her.
“She’s a separatist,” I said, and his expression hardened.
“She knew who I was. This entire thing was a trap.”
Again Pluck huffed as he stood and stretched, reminding me of my dog so much it almost hurt. Never happen, he thought as he wrapped a cold tendril around my ankle so I could hear him.
Benedict’s lips moved in a silent swear word.
Angry, he dropped the lodestone into a pocket.
Fawn could make a new one with any bit of glass, but not when the sun was down.
Light powered mages’ magic, and shadow powered mine.
“We didn’t even know there was a separatist cell in Chicago,” he said.
Brow furrowed in concern, he jogged to the head of the alley.
Silent, I watched him, remembering his desperate worry when he found me unable to breathe.
“You will all rot in hell for this,” Fawn said bitterly, and I turned to her.
“Ah, hands out,” I said as I wrangled the cuffs from my coat pocket.
“Like hell!” Suddenly angry, she focused on Pluck. “Don’t touch me!”
She gave me a shove, but I’d had enough, and I shoved her right back as Lev had coached me, using her own momentum to twist her wrist against itself and force her face against the door.
“Fawn Nates, I am detaining you for suspicion of confidence schemes involving ether magic because that’s what the warrant in my pocket says, but it’s your crimes as a separatist that will get you a nice, cozy cell.
” Awkwardly, I pulled her other arm around and cuffed her hands.
I had like zero practice. This wasn’t my day job. “Let’s go.”
“Hands off. Hands off!” Fawn’s eyes went from the empty roof to me when she spun around. “I know people. I know people who can make you disappear.”
Pluck sat on his haunches, his indulgent yawn ending in a little yip.
The friendly sound was at odds with his demon dog aspect, but Fawn paled, clearly knowing if he cared to slip into her mind, he could scramble her brains like eggs in a pan.
Actually, it had been remembering how not to scramble my brains that had been the trick.
Which was probably why he and I were at the top of the separatist mages’ most-wanted-dead list. But just because you could do a thing doesn’t mean you will.
“Move. Now!” This anger wasn’t me, but she had tried to kill Pluck.
Shadow spit, Ryan is going to be mad I broke a lodestone, I thought as I rubbed the dried blood from my palm.
Unlike mage amulets, which could be any chunk of glass, mine had to be made of moldavite to withstand dark matter under stress.
Head down, she began to walk to the top of the alley. Her coat was open, and she looked cold. “You’re going to wake up dead,” she muttered. “I’m important. They need me. Let me go, and they might ignore you for a while.”
The adrenaline was long gone, and I gave her a shove to move faster. Two hunched figures were making their determined way through the snow toward us, but Pluck was relaxed, and I trusted him. “You are dead! You hear me?” Fawn shouted when she saw Benedict and Lev.
Lev was grinning, the somewhat short man giving me a satisfied nod after checking her cuffs. “Ma’am, you need to glory in your right to remain silent.”
“Van is here.” Benedict’s head drooped as Lev shoved Fawn into a faster pace. “Petra, I don’t think I’m cut out for this. I…”
Smiling, I sidled closer to him until his arm went over my shoulder and our sides touched.
“It’s okay,” I said, and Pluck made an annoyed huff.
Amused, I tried to tug the dog to my other side—until he went utterly misty and all I got was a cold handful of nothing.
Ears flat, he padded after Lev and Fawn.
He left no footprints in the new snow. I couldn’t have done it without you, either, Pluck, I thought, but he was no longer touching me and couldn’t hear.
The van at the top of the alley had opened its side door with a familiar rumble, and two militiamen in street clothes got out. Motions brusque, one took Fawn by the shoulder and yanked her in. It was done—badly, but done—and I bumped into Benedict as we scuffed to a halt at the curb.
“Hey, at least now we can concentrate on interviewing students for St. Unoc scholarships.” Because that had been both our cover and my original intent. Working with the militia was from my ill-thought promise, not any real desire.
Benedict took a long, slow breath, his eyes on Fawn and Lev in the van. “I’m sorry, Petra. There won’t be any weavers in Chicago. Not if there is a separatist cell here.”
“How about Naperville?” I said. “It’s on the outskirts.”
He bobbed his head, his smile holding little hope. “I’ll call them tonight.”
His hand gave mine a squeeze, but even I knew it was a thin chance.
We’d been looking for weavers among the sweeper population for over five months and hadn’t found any.
Once you knew what to look for, weavers were easy to suss out, which was probably why there were so few of us left.
Pluck’s cold touch returned to my ankle.
Pluck, remind me again why I didn’t let you drive her insane?
He turned, one green eye finding me. It’s not too late, iced through me, the reminder of his terrifying past chilling me more than the snow falling through him.
Mages had once hunted them and their weaver caretakers almost to extinction—and in return, shadows became the threat the mages said they were in order to survive.
But without shadow, magic had become unbalanced until our society was threatening to collapse under the waste it left behind.
Pluck and I were trying to bring balance back, but no one liked change, especially when it meant knocking mages from their high-and-mighty seat.
That Pluck had restrained himself was a testament to how smart shadows really were. And yet, as I looked at Fawn slumped and cuffed to a seat, I couldn’t bring myself to get in. “Hey, you think we could take a different vehicle?”
Benedict pulled his hand away from the van, smiling as his gaze went from Lev to me. “I could do with a walk. It’s what? Six blocks?”
“Great.” Lev slammed the side door shut. “I’ll see you both at the hotel.” He paused. “Sorry, the three of you,” he added, his attention going to Pluck sitting at my heel like the dog he wanted everyone to think he was.
Benedict tugged me closer as the van crept into motion.
The snowy dusk was beautiful, but I could hardly enjoy it.
Sure, we had captured Fawn, but no one had expected her to be a separatist—much less the bait in a trap set for Pluck and me.
Fawn would never see the inside of a mage courtroom.
No, she was headed for a militia cell and interrogation.
They’d have to keep every shard of glass from her lest she spell herself into forgetting everything.
Though forgetting might be a blessing.