Before then, Dad said.
“And before then,” I added. “The Overseer should have the equipment needed to access the information.”
Roman stashed the box in the innermost pocket of his long coat. “I’ll put it in her hands myself.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Safe journey.”
“Keep tight hold on him, girl,” he said, quietly. “We’re all counting on the two of you in this. Have been for some time now.”
I nodded, not having the faintest clue what he was talking about. Keep tight hold on whom? Zayvion? My dad? And who was this “we” he was talking about?
But he had already walked off to the center of the room. “When I open the Gate, they’ll see the spike in magic for miles around,” he said. “You’ll want to be on your way shortly after.”
“Here, Allie.” Shame straightened from where he’d been kneeling by a shelf and pressed a holster into my hand. “This is a gun. Not the one Collins made, since you’re all cootified about that one. This is metal, and the clip?” He pulled the gun out of the holster and slapped the clip free. “Bullets worked with magic.”
“I don’t—”
“You damn well do.” He shoved the clip back in the gun, the gun in the holster, and put it all in my hand, holding his hand over it so I couldn’t let it go. “I want you to get out of this alive. That means you will use any weapon necessary to see that you survive. Zay won’t force you to do it, but I will. You’ll carry a gun, and you’ll use it to keep yourself and us alive. Got that?”
No joking, no bullshit. This was Shame stripped down to the stark darkness that curled like death and violence in his soul. He knew as soon as we stepped out on those streets, we were walking blind into a war. All of us were going to have to bear the pain for the magic we called upon. And I was going to have to bear the pain for carrying a weapon that made me face what I had become. A killer.
“I hate you,” I said quietly.
“Better to hate than to be dead, love.” He let go of the gun and turned his back on me. “Plenty of blades, bombs, and bludgeons to go around, people,” he said. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
I hesitated a moment. Didn’t matter what Shame said. This was my life, my choice. I didn’t have to carry a gun just because he told me to.
But he was right. And I’d known it all along. I needed to use any weapon I had at my disposal to get through this. I slipped the holster over my shoulders, my hands steady and sure.
“Roman’s taking the evidence to the Overseer,” I said to keep my mouth busy doing something while Zayvion handed me spare clips that I slid into my pockets.
“Terric, I want you to find out if the Authority and Bartholomew’s men have discovered you’re with us. If they haven’t, I need you to gather information on who’s running the Authority now. If you can find out what resources they’re using to find us, to stop us, and whether they’re guarding the wells, that would be more than useful.
“Also see if they’ve changed their stance on the technology-is-poisoning-magic theory by some damn miracle. If someone running the Authority is suddenly working on a cure for this magical infection, that would be good news.”
“How do you want me to contact you?” he asked. Terric was going with more subtle weaponry. And by subtle I meant two axes he tucked in the belt at his hips, and several throwing knives he was snicking into place on the bolero across his chest. I assumed he also had a gun stashed somewhere on his body.
The trench coat/loose coat look that Terric, Zayvion, and Shamus always seemed to favor suddenly made sense to me. I wondered if there was a coat here I could borrow.
“I tossed my phone. So did Zayvion,” I said. “So we can’t keep in contact that way. Any ideas, people?”
“Did you happen to steal any of the message beads, Shame?” Maeve asked.
“Steal? Please, Mum. Give me some credit.” Shame paused, hands on his hips. He tipped his head as if going through a list of things.
“Might have something in the master bedroom. Just a tick.” He strode off down the hall.
“So,” I said, “we need to get to the wells and see if magic has been tainted at those source points.
“Zayvion and I will go to the Life well. Maeve, do you think you could get to the inn without anyone noticing and check the Blood well?”
“Unless there were cameras at the cistern,” she said, “or someone following Zayvion, no one knows I have been Unclosed. And since I live there, I can’t imagine they would expect me to be anywhere else right now. So, yes. I think I can check. If I run into trouble, I can take care of that too.”
Maeve was a Blood magic user. A very good Blood magic user. She might seem like a gentle soul, but she was fury in a fight.
“I’ll go with you,” Hayden said.
She smiled. “I’d hoped so.”
“Where do you want me, Allie?” Victor asked.
That was the strangest thing. Victor was my teacher, and I guess I’d sort of expected him to stay in the fatherly mentor position in my life. I’d never had him ask me what he should do before. It was strange to be taking the lead position. But not entirely unfamiliar. I’d been coordinating the Hounds for months now.
“Two things,” I said. “Can you get in to the Faith well and see if it’s clean?”
“I should be able to. What’s the second thing?”
“I’d like to get information to Violet, to warn her and Kevin about the poison.”
He thought about it a second. “I think I could contact Kevin fairly easily. Zayvion, did you Close all the years he and I have worked together?”
“No. Just the last fifteen or so.”
He set his shoulders, like bearing an unfamiliar weight. “Well, then. I imagine I might want to have coffee with him just to catch up on our chess game. It shouldn’t be a problem, and shouldn’t take long. What is the plan afterward?”
“We’ll contact each other once we have information,” I said. “Find out if the wells are tainted, who’s running the Authority, what they’re sending out to stop us, and whether Violet is at a safe distance from all this. I’ll need to contact Collins to see if Davy’s doing all right, but that can wait until after we check on the wells.
“Where should we meet up?” I asked. “Should we decide that now?”
“Better not,” Roman said. He was still standing in the center of the room, looking relaxed, instead of like someone who was about to open a Gate halfway across the world and march straight up to the very people who could lock him away again. Or kill him.
“The less that any of us know where we’re all going,” he said, “the less chance there is someone will Truth it out of us.”
That made sense. “So we’ll contact each other with the information and a meeting place when the time comes,” I said. “Works for me.”
Shame strolled in with a shoe box. “Here we are.”
“You put them in a shoe box?” Maeve asked. “Shamus, these are invaluable. Heirlooms.”
“Which is why I stuck them in a shoe box. Safekeeping.”
He placed the box on the coffee table and lifted the lid. The soft scent of roses filled the room.
“I didn’t know you’d kept these, Maeve,” Victor said. “Hugh did fine work.”
“Yes, he did,” she said wistfully. “But as you can see, I didn’t keep them. Shamus did. So then, do they still work?”
“I think so.” Shame reached into the box and pulled out a long string with square black metal beads strung on it. “We have enough for”—he quickly counted—“six of us. So one of us will go without and buddy up. Draw straws?”
“Let’s see if they work first,” Hayden said.
Shame unstrung the beads and handed each person twelve beads and a silver bracelet with a channel carved into it so that the beads could slide into the channel.
Everyone got busy slipping the beads, apparently in a specific order, into their bracelet. Shame looked at Zayvion and me. “Which of you want
s to wear it?”
“Allie,” Zayvion said quickly.
“No,” I said, “not Allie. If it’s got magic in it, I’ll probably break out in a rash or worse. And even if it doesn’t, I have no idea how it works. Is it like a phone?”
“Not at all,” Shame said with a grin.
“It’s a code,” Zayvion said. He stepped over so that he was right in front of me, head bent, the bracelet he was threading the beads into between us. “The beads represent numbers and the numbers represent letters or sentences in a book.”
“What book?” I asked.
“Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“And you’re not joking,” I said.
His lips quirked into a smile. “This isn’t magic, Allie. This is a little trick Shame’s dad put together when Shame was a kid. They actually run on batteries.” He tipped the bracelet so I could see the inside of the band, where a little watch battery was inserted. “And the signal is on a frequency that gets boosted by magic. If you can recite Winnie-the-Pooh, you can decipher the coded messages sent and received.”
“Can you recite Winnie-the-Pooh?”
“In my sleep.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “You know I’ll find every way possible to tease you about that, right?”
“I have no doubt.”
“So what if you don’t know the works of Pooh word for word?”
Zay bent, reached into the shoe box, and pulled out a palm-sized book. “Have Pooh. Will travel.”
I shook my head. “Maybe I should carry that.”
“Maybe you should wear the bracelet,” he said.
“No, I wouldn’t know how to read it. And I’m not going off on my own anytime soon. If I need to, you can give me your bracelet then.”
He hesitated a moment, then put the bracelet on. “You do know by me wearing this, I will demand that you stay beside me at all times.”
“It had crossed my mind, yes.”
He handed me the book, which I stuffed into my back pocket. “Thanks. I think I’ll need a coat too.”
“I’m sure Shame has something you can use. Shame?”
Shame was handing out copies of the book to the other people in the room. “What?”
“Got a coat Allie can wear?”
“Sure, but a coat isn’t going to make you look different to the police cameras.” He turned, gave me a look. “I’d recommend a haircut.”
“Or a hat,” I said.
“Or both.”
I didn’t want to cut my hair. I didn’t want to do a lot of things I needed to do right now. And hair would grow back. If I lived long enough. “Where are the scissors?”
Zayvion frowned. “I don’t think you have to—”
“No, Shame’s right. Anything I can do to change my look is a good idea right now. It’s not just magic users after me, Zay. The police are looking for me too.”
Maeve walked across the room. “Why don’t you let me help you out?” she said. “I hate cutting my own hair, but I’m quite good at someone else’s. Promise I’ll make it cute.”
“I don’t care if it’s cute. I’d shave it right now if it would make me stand out less.”
“No, dear. I think a bald-headed woman might draw more attention.”
We headed off to the guest bathroom, and Maeve found a set of barber scissors in the drawer. “You’ll need to sit, since you’re so tall,” she said.
I walked into the adjoining bedroom and dragged a chair back to the bathroom, plunking it down in front of the mirror. There was just enough room for Maeve to walk around me, and she started by standing behind me, the mirror at her back. She wrapped a towel around my shoulders, tucking it into my collar.
“I’m going to take it quite short, something like a pixie cut, I think,” she said cheerfully. “It will look darling on you.”
“Go as short as you want,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to cut it for a while.”
She brushed out my hair, then began cutting, the scissors making that silky metal-against-metal sound.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Worried and angry and tired. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“I don’t think any of us did. Nightmares?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a bit, then, “I’ve been a member of the Authority for many, many years. Most of my life, really. I’ve seen so many people pass away. Friends, family.” She pulled a comb through my hair, and I could feel the plastic teeth on the back of my bare neck before the cold edge of the scissors replaced them and cut again.
“But I’ve never once seen magic take such a terrible turn. The Authority has always been strong, Allie. No matter what happened or who decided to throw a coup, the Authority has remained true to its purpose. There have always been more of us with good intentions, logic, common sense, and conviction to see that the laws of the Authority are upheld.”
She placed the scissors on the countertop behind her and pulled out a razor blade. She ran the blade in quick, short strokes through my hair.
“And while I can only hope that this time everything will return to normal, that the good of the Authority will stand, it is also true that I have never once in my life seen magic damaged. Changed into something that could mutate the Veiled, changed into a disease. Poisoned.
“So,” she said a little more firmly. “I wanted a chance to say that I am so very fond of you, Allie. I’ve watched Zayvion grow from a very serious boy to a very serious man, and I have never seen him as happy as when he’s been with you.”
“Not even with Chase?” I asked before I could stop myself.
It was a stupid thing to ask. Chase was dead, and she had dumped Zayvion long before he and I started seeing each other. But he and Chase had been together for a long time, had fought together side by side. Had trained together and fallen in love. A small, insecure part of me wondered if I’d ever fully have his heart.
“Not even with Chase,” Maeve said. “I know he’s a quiet man. But if he ever lost you, if you died, I don’t know how he would go on. You’re more a part of him than anyone he’s let into his life.” She stopped cutting my hair and walked around in front of me so she could begin on my bangs.
“I want you to be very careful. There isn’t a person in Portland who won’t be looking for you. Most of them to do you harm. If you were my daughter, I’d pack you up and send you out of town. Overseas. But I know you won’t leave town and won’t back down from this fight.”
“Would you?” I asked.
She stopped cutting and I looked up at her. She smiled. “No. I’d stay right here and fight until they kicked my cold body into the grave.”
“You and I are a lot alike that way,” I said. “And I love you too, Maeve.”
“Ah, Allie.” She shook her head, the corners of her eyes glittering with tears. “There’s a reason I never had a daughter. It’s so there’d be room in my heart for you.”
She reached down and gave me a quick hug, which I returned.
“Now, that’s enough of that nonsense,” she said as she pointed to the mirror over my shoulder. “Let’s take a look at the new you.”
I turned in the chair so I could see my reflection in the mirror.
It was like a different woman was looking back at me. Somehow, she’d managed to cut it so that all the white streaks seemed stronger against my natural brunette. Short, spiky, but longer in the bangs, it made my pale green eyes look twice as wide and gave my cheeks and chin a sharper edge. Surprisingly, it did not look bad on me.
“Um, wow?” I said.
“Yes, wow. Maybe a little too wow.” She frowned, and gave me a critical look. “How do you feel about glasses?”
“I don’t need them, but sure.”
“Shamus?” she called as she pulled the towel off my shoulders and dropped it in the sink.
“What?” he yelled from the hallway.
“Bring me a broom, son.”
He walked in a few seconds later. “Here’s your
broom.”
I turned and looked at him. He grinned. “Well, well. Look at you.”
I raised one eyebrow. “It was your idea.”
“Proof that I am a brilliant man.” He held the broom out for his mother. “But I thought you were going to try to draw attention away from her, Mum, not have every man on the street following her.”
“Hush,” she said. “Do you have a pair of glasses? Not sunglasses. Just a pair of frames?”
“What do you think I am? A one-stop shopping center?”
“You can tell me no,” she said, “and I’ll send Terric out to get her a pair. He’s usually so reliable.”
Shame scowled. “No need to be like that. I might have something around here. For Allie, right?”
“Yes.” She finished sweeping and dumped enough hair to make a wig into the wastebasket.
“I don’t think glasses will make that much of a difference,” I said, helping with the cleanup by getting the chair out of the way. “Maybe if I dyed my hair, but we don’t have time for that.”
“It will help. So will changing out your clothes. Let’s see what Shame has.”
We headed into the master bedroom, where Shame was already looking through several pairs of glasses he had spread out on top of the dresser.
The room was nice, tastefully decorated. Except for the one wall, across which was written $41,000.00 in huge strokes of black paint.
“Nice decor.” I pointed at the graffiti. “Gangtastic.”
“That’s what I was going for—thanks.”
“Why the dollar amount?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t write it.”
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
“These aren’t mine,” he said.
“Then why do you have them?”
“I told you. I won the house in a poker game. And everything inside it.” His smile spread to a wolfish grin. “Maybe a few other perks as well.”
I picked up a pair of plain black frames and put them on. “These?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not unless you and Zay are going to be spending the rest of whatever time you have left sexing it up. Maybe these.”