Chapter 17 #2
Still oblivious to the dross, the woman stared us down, the confidence gained facing down an entire table of tenured professors in her stance. “After inspecting the vault, I have determined it broke from inert-dross expansion. Identical to what broke the university vault.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Herm said. “There’s enough of it here.”
“Which brings me to my point. Petra has made it clear she doesn’t want a vault at all.”
“Ah, hold up.” Benedict stiffened in warning. “That’s not true. She’s been lobbying for shadow release valves, not a vault boycott.”
My entire side went cold where Pluck pressed into me.
“Once, maybe,” I admitted, and Dana smiled as if she’d gained some points.
“But even the memorial shadows agree that we need a vault to store the dross that the university is creating. That’s actually half of Thoth’s problem—that I’m advocating vaults. That’s why he’s cracking them.”
Dana pressed her lips together. “So you say.”
“Dana,” Ryan interrupted. “I wish you would explain your thinking, because right now all your words will do is rile the university into a premature action that benefits no one.”
Arms crossed over his middle, Herm leaned back against the folded Ping-Pong table.
“I think it’s more than odd,” the woman said confidently, “that in less than an hour after we leave, Petra opens the vault and somehow a chunk of frozen dross gets in there and it mysteriously breaks.”
“Mysterious, hell,” I said loudly. “Thoth blew it. There’s nothing mysterious about it.”
“A shadow that showed up when Marty did,” Dana continued as if I’d said nothing. “A shadow who would need a weaver’s help to even get here.”
“I just told you he could get here on his own,” I said, ignored, and Pluck’s grip on my ankle tightened until my foot went numb.
“No, this all adds up just fine.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Marty and her shadow Thoth are the ones blowing up the vaults.”
My breath caught as Dana twisted my words, using them to throw Marty under the bus.
“Marty?” Benedict blurted, and I was glad that she was out at the van with Nog. “Dana, are you serious? The girl can’t even make a decent field.”
I’m not so sure about that, Pluck fizzed, and my gaze went to the sorted trap sticks.
I licked my lips and shifted to the edge of the couch. “You weren’t here,” I said, remembering the young woman’s fear. “Marty came to me looking for help. She was terrified down there. You can’t fake that.”
“Besides,” Ryan said, his voice far more calm than mine, “the timing doesn’t work for Marty to be responsible for any of this. The vault under construction was damaged before she got here. Petra and Pluck weren’t here at the time, either.”
“Yes?” Dana said. “We only have Petra’s say-so about when Marty and her shadow arrived.”
“Thoth is not her shadow,” I insisted, but even Ryan looked worried.
“What’s your point, Dana?” Benedict asked flatly.
Dana’s unwavering gaze landed on me. “Petra, why did you open the door to the vault?”
“Stop right there.” Herm pushed off from the Ping-Pong table, his weathered face creased in anger. “I see where you’re going. This is bullshit. Petra did not blow the vault. It was an accident. At worst, a coincidence.”
Anger and fear mixed in an ugly slurry, fizzing through me. “You can’t seriously think I’m doing this,” I said, but Pluck’s thoughts fizzed miserably. He had seen it coming.
“Grady and Pluck did not crack the vault,” Benedict said hotly. “Not this one, nor the one under construction. And if you want to hinge this on inert dross, it was your idea to centralize dross here to turn inert.”
Dana shook her head, refusing to concede the point. “It doesn’t change the fact that Petra opened the vault and then left it.”
“Because Thoth was up here trying to kill us!” Benedict exclaimed, and my gaze flicked out the window to Nog and Marty standing by the van in the sun.
“You’re right about one thing,” Dana said confidently. “Marty is too inexperienced to orchestrate the destruction of a vault. But Petra and Pluck are not. Ryan, I want Petra and Pluck put into custody immediately.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Benedict blurted as a pang of fear slid through me, heightened by Pluck’s own dark thoughts. “She’s the only one who can catch him!”
Cheese and crackers. I had gotten Marty exonerated only to put myself in the fire. Dana wasn’t a separatist, but her fear coupled with her far-reaching voice would be just as devastating.
“To prove their innocence if nothing else,” Dana added, as if that would make it right.
Ryan put both feet firmly on the floor, his elbows on his knees as he shook his head. “Accusations like that don’t wash off, Dana. Be careful.”
Herm was suddenly standing beside me, his hand warm as it touched my shoulder. “Go. Now,” he muttered, but I couldn’t even get my ass off the arm of the couch.
“If they’re innocent,” Dana continued, “there is no harm done.”
“No harm?” Benedict blurted. “You’re slandering a well-respected member of the university. Petra has done nothing but good for…” His words faltered. The collapse of the auditorium was my fault.
“If the attacks on the vaults cease while they are in custody—”
“Then we will all count ourselves fortunate,” Ryan interrupted. “Petra and Pluck have no reason to see our society fall apart.”
I exchanged a worried look with Benedict. Fall apart, no. Rearrange, yes, but for some people, change was seen as a destruction of what they held dear, not a betterment of it.
Dana, too, knew this truth, and she stood by the fireplace as if it were a dais, that drift of dross now sparkling at her heel.
“Grady is advocating the reemergence of a shadow age the likes of which we’ve not seen since the dark ages,” she said, and Pluck seemed to shrink deeper into himself.
“Her so-called balance is a lie. This devastation has always been their true agenda. A return to shadow domination.”
“Hey!” Benedict stood, his face red with anger.
“Or else why did their appearance begin with the destruction of the auditorium?” she said. “It was only luck that it didn’t kill our entire graduating class and a large portion of our instructors. Fewer experienced mages to stand against them.”
Holy cats, she was on a roll, and Pluck’s anger fizzed through my own.
“Dana,” Ryan said sharply. “Thoth is clearly responsible for this.”
“And who is in charge of Thoth?” Dana said triumphantly. “By your own admission, Marty doesn’t have the skill and, if you are to be believed, isn’t bound to Thoth. That leaves Petra Grady. The only weaver known to exist.”
“You think I did this because you believe a shadow can’t work alone?
” I said, and Herm’s grip on my shoulder tightened in warning.
Seeing Dana’s trap, I closed my mouth. It was a lose-lose situation.
Validating that shadows worked independently might start a shadow hunt.
Lying and saying that I controlled them would put me behind bars. And she knew it.
“If the lodestone fits.” Dana paced before the unlit fireplace as if lecturing. The dross on her sparked, broke, and the woman’s toe snagged on the lip of a tile, sending her lurching. Arm flashing out, she caught herself, skinning her palm on the rough fireplace stone.
Clearly pissed, she stopped where she was and rubbed her raw skin. “Shadows have never acted on their own,” she muttered. “At least not like this. Grady was, is, your employee, Ryan. Perhaps you should recuse yourself from any decisions regarding her guilt or innocence.”
My what? I thought as I stood.
Pluck clung to me, winding into a snake about my arm and neck. It’s happening again, he thought in panic, but I refused to believe. Dana was one person, and I had many who trusted me.
People who turned on me before, I thought, before quashing it.
Herm shifted to stand between me and Dana. “You need to get out of here,” he whispered as Ryan began to argue with Dana. “You and Benedict. My truck is a few streets over out back. Leave your cells somewhere along the way. There’s a burner phone in the glove box. Call me when you’re safe.”
“If I leave, what’s stopping her from spreading her lies?
” I said as Benedict sidled up beside me, his brow furrowed in worry.
Thoth was getting exactly what he wanted.
There would be no balance. Mages would attack shadows on sight.
Who knew what the sentient energy would do now that they had been promised a little peace and found it ripped away?
“I will. Ryan will. You need to go,” Herm insisted as Ryan’s and Dana’s voices gained strength. “I’ve seen this before.”
So have I, Pluck bubbled and fizzed in agitation. The Spinner is right.
I glanced out the window to Benedict’s highly identifiable car. “Cameron can vouch for me. Thoth told her everything. If I get her out—”
“You will go nowhere near the marshal,” Dana said, interrupting both me and Ryan. “She’s already been attacked by shadow once. There’s no proof that you didn’t do that.”
Cheese and crackers, what was wrong with this woman?
Brow furrowed, Herm tugged on my arm for my attention. “Go. I’ve got this.”
“You can’t think Petra hurt Cameron,” Benedict said, floundering for words. “Never…”
Dana nodded. “I think the marshal found something out. Thoth might have put her in a coma, but who told Thoth to do it?”
“I did not put Cameron in a coma!” I shouted.
“Well, you certainly did nothing to get her out.” Dana turned to Ryan. “I’m going to talk to the board, and I will not leave until they agree that she and that shadow be incarcerated. It will look better if Grady comes in of her own volition.”
My blood ran cold. I’d be in a cell, and Pluck…I will not let them put you in a bottle, I vowed, and his grip on me tightened until my arm went numb. Shadow spit. Herm was right. I had to get out of here.