Chapter 11

Rosabel La Rouge

I was sick. Really, really sick, and the symptoms included obsessive thinking, insomnia, vivid dreams, intense headaches, a disturbed stomach and nausea at least five times a day, among others.

And the name of my disease was fucking curiosity .

For two days I could hardly sit still for longer than five minutes. For two days I couldn’t stop my mind from spinning, had to perform spells on myself to get rid of my headaches, which then felt like I was pulling something out from deep inside me while my magic did its job. And it did do its job wonderfully, much better than before, and I still hadn’t gotten used to how it felt. That, too, was the cause for my nausea every time I thought about it. Really thought about it and found no explanation whatsoever as to why my own magic would feel so foreign to my body.

Turns out, there were zero records of a Mud ever getting their magic back. I found cases of Iridians going to jail because they’d performed spells on the Mud, either to heal them or to hurt them, but none that even mentioned a Mud performing magic in any way.

Which struck me as odd. There was just no way that I was the first made Mud who’d gotten her powers back. There had to have been plenty of Mud before me who probably knew how to fight and had weapons and money—like that Council member who was Mud.

Who remained Mud, even though he was part of the Council.

Why in the world wouldn’t he have had people make a rainbow for him? He had the money and the authority—he was the Council. Why would he stay Mud when he could have gotten his magic back?

The questions gnawed at my insides like a fucking parasite, and the more I read, the more I found nothing on the matter, the bigger and more powerful it became.

Then there was Taland. The case. The paperwork that didn’t fucking exist.

My goddess, Radock Tivoux had been absolutely right. There was no mention of Taland before he was caught—by me —in school. There was not a single word on me being hired to keep an eye on him, to spy on him, to basically deliver him to the IDD. The earliest my name came up anywhere was when they arrested Taland— his girlfriend followed the suspect and knocked him out before he could commit the crime; the student who knocked the suspect out returned home the night of his arrest.

That’s it—that’s all Taland’s file had on me, and because Taland was supposedly there to steal the veler, a highly powerful artifact, and because he’d admitted that he was a part of a dangerous rebel organization, he’d been sent to the Tomb Penitentiary right away.

I found the name of the organization, though, which I’d never heard of before. They went by Selem , and though every other information about them was classified and my name couldn’t access it, Taland had, apparently, admitted in front of the judge that he was really part of it.

The more I read the more confused I became because I was hired by Hill to go after him. I was fucking picked by Hill— me instead of Poppy that night in Madeline’s office—and I was sent to that school and I reported to Hill directly every single month. So why wasn’t that recorded anywhere?

Then there was the case of that story book I found in Madeline’s office two nights ago that kept popping up in my head every now and again. The story—and the drawing of those bracelets on the soldiers’ wrists.

The curiosity to go to the Vault again was like a monster breathing down my neck, but I just wanted to see if it was the same bracelet. Because my memory wasn’t the best and there was a good chance that I’d imagined it, and I just wanted to know if it was really the same.

I wanted to know a lot of things, and that was the cause of my sickness.

Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t find Taland anywhere, that even Wayne O’Bryan’s team had nothing on him or his brothers yet, and the fucking reporters had been following me around like my damn shadow every time I left the Headquarters to go to the mansion. They were relentless.

Now I was in a relatively quiet hallway, sitting in a corner and forcing myself to breathe, because it was the end of the day and I’d stayed four hours past my shift and there was simply no energy left in me to continue to search without a good night’s sleep. It had been two days, after all. Two days—and nights in which Madeline was not attending parties, so she was home and I couldn’t even go back to her office to take pictures of that book. To make sure it even existed, that it hadn’t just been a dream, or something I’d made up because I’d seen that bracelet thing in the Vault.

Goddess, my head was threatening to explode.

“Why do you always look like you’re about to start crying lately?”

I didn’t even have the energy to be startled when I heard Cassie’s voice. We were supposed to meet here in this very spot in another ten minutes or so, but I’d arrived early to do a spell on myself for this horrible headache.

And to get away from the other agents in the main office who were getting more ballsy by the hour and coming to me with their fake smiles and their questions about the Iris Roe.

I swear, I couldn’t catch a fucking break.

“Because everybody sucks and my head is killing me,” I said, and when I saw the cups in her hands I almost cried for real. “You brought coffee.”

I was supposed to bring coffee this time, but there she was—my guardian fucking angel as far as I was concerned.

“Of course, I did. I knew your lazy ass wouldn’t, and I am not wasting my break without caffeine. I still have another three hours to go in this shithole.”

I rolled my eyes as I grabbed the steaming coffee from her hands. “I wasn’t lazy, but I didn’t want them to get cold while I waited for you.”

She raised a brow when she sat on the bench. “That’s what magic is for.”

I hadn’t been shocked by simpler words in a long time. That’s what magic is for.

I looked down at my hands, my father’s ring that was too big for my finger but somehow it never slipped. I was always subconsciously holding it with my thumb even when I was walking. Even when I wasn’t paying any attention to it. I never once lost it because it was my anchor. I was tied to it—my magic was tied to it. Or it had been, and I had always been very aware of it, had always relied on it.

Until I became Mud and I couldn’t anymore.

“A simple heating spell, and voila! Nice and steaming,” said Cassie, showing me her cup and the steam curling up over it.

I forced a smile on my face. “I just have a lot on my mind, that’s all.” And I did, but that wasn’t the reason why I hadn’t even considered using a heating spell for coffee. It’s like I had gotten used to the concept of living without magic in just a week—never mind that the Iris Roe had felt a hundred years long.

“Who could blame you,” she said with a smile. “If I had that many people waiting for me outside, I’d be irritated as well.”

I flinched. “How many people are there exactly?” Because I hadn’t really cared to look.

Cassie laughed. “Reporters and a lot of Iridians as well. They’ve come to ask for money. They made glittery signs and everything.” She nudged my shoulder when I closed my eyes. “Hey, cheer up. It’s fine—they can’t get through the gates. Not here and not at your mansion.”

Another flinch. “Not my mansion.”

“But you could get your own now. You’re stinking rich,” Cassie said. “Cheer the hell up, woman!”

If she only knew why I couldn’t get my own mansion, even my own studio apartment no matter how much money I had in my pocket.

“Tell me something, Cassie. A story. Anything at all—tell me something .” Because I needed a distraction from my own mess that I called life. From these questions haunting me. From this sickness that had plagued me for two days now.

“Okay, okay, I got a story for ya. There were once these siblings, Aurelia and Zach Mergenbach—whom I know personally, mind you—and they saved three kids from a burning house in the most spectacular way. These kids were left home by their parents, who were at an event, right? And the little fuckers found a lighter in the kitchen. And one of them, the youngest— I will not be naming names—accidentally set the curtain on fire. The flames spread and spread, and they couldn’t get out, and they cried for help, but nobody could get close.

“Until Aurelia and Zach came, and you know what they did?” Her eyes sparkled, and she spoke so fast she held my attention effortlessly. “They pulled up the water from the neighbor’s pool— all of it at once —and threw it on the burning house. Just picked up the water and moved it!”

Cassie laughed, and the sound was so warm and inviting that I found myself smiling, too. Her energy was something else.

“Saved the kids though the house was already ruined,” she said between laughing. “And that’s magic for ya, Agent La Rouge. It’s quite magical. ” Again, she nudged me with her elbow and winked.

Impossible not to laugh. “Lame story.”

But she didn’t care. “It’s true.” Though I had no idea if she meant that about the story, or about it being lame, and she didn’t give me a chance to ask. She just threw back the rest of her coffee—she drank all of it like that, while it was still steaming—and stood up. “Break’s over. Gotta go back to the Vault. I’ll see you in a bit.” She leaned down and actually kissed me on the forehead. “Cheer up, Ro. For serious.”

By the time she walked down the hallway, my heart was beating in my fucking throat.

And before I knew what the hell I was even doing, I left my cup on the bench and stood up.

“Cassie, wait!”

Ten minutes later, I found myself in the Vault again.

Blame it on the curiosity. Blame it on a momentary lapse of judgment. Blame it on whatever the hell you want—but I went to the Vault with Cassie again, straight across the red line on the floor in the middle of the room to the artifacts and objects under the second level of protection, and to the cabinet full of drawers near the boxes in the wall that I’d almost knocked down last time. Easy enough to find, even though the others near it were identical because the one I was looking for was right across from the veler.

The veler was still right there where I’d last seen it, and so were those drawers. Six in total, two of them empty, and in the last one…

There you are.

It was the bracelet made out of what looked like frozen mud and felt like metal. The exact same shape and width as those bracelets of the soldiers in the book. Exactly the same.

I sat down on the floor to inspect it, and I couldn’t tell you why I found it so fascinating, just that I did. I searched the drawer, pulled the whole thing out to look for a file, for a piece of paper, for anything at all that would give this thing a name, explain what it did, why it was here, but I found nothing. Every object in this place had a folder underneath it, but not this bracelet.

Almost like it was put here by mistake.

Could it be?

Probably not. This was the IDD—they didn’t do things by mistake, and they most certainly didn’t lock stuff in the Vault accidentally. So, what in the hell was this thing and had I really seen it in that book in Madeline’s office?

Fuck, I needed to sneak in there again, but she refused to leave the mansion since that party. And?—

“Hey, Mud—I mean, Redfire. Coming?”

Cassie’s voice pulled me out of my head, and I jumped to my feet, the bracelet still in my hand.

“Look what I got here—skeletons of dead familiars. Can you imagine? The bitch killed close to twenty and saved their bones.” She showed me the cardboard box in her hands, full of small pieces of bone that brought back a whole new set of memories I didn’t want to have anything to do with, not right now.

“Yep. What a bitch,” I muttered because she’d told me the story of her current case on the way here, of this Greenfire woman who’d basically drained her familiars—not of their magic, but of their lives, so she could live to celebrate her hundred and twentieth birthday—while looking like a fifty-year-old.

“Come on, let’s go. Some of us be doing real work in here,” Cassie said with a sneaky grin.

I forced myself to roll my eyes, and she didn’t see what was in my hands because of the cabinet of drawers in front of me, so she turned around to leave.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I whispered, and I couldn’t tell you what came over me. I couldn’t say what I was thinking or when I’d decided, or that I’d decided to steal that bracelet, but that was exactly what I did.

I closed the drawer with my foot, hid my hand behind my hip, and I followed Cassie outside.

My heart didn’t pick up the beating. My hands didn’t shake. On the contrary—I felt like I wasn’t there at all, like I was floating on thin air.

Like I’d done this a million times before, when I’d never stolen a single thing in my life.

Yet, when Cassie and her box of bones came into view right outside the door, I even smiled.

“Took you long enough,” she muttered, grabbing the folder from underneath the box to give to the guards at the reception desk.

“Let me help with that,” I said and reached for the box.

“No, I got—” I grabbed it from her hands before she could finish. “Great. Thanks, asshole.”

With the folder, Cassie turned to the two guards to get their signature. I put the bracelet in the box while they went through the files and tried to hide it underneath the bones as well as I could.

And I didn’t think about what I’d say if I got caught because I didn’t think about getting caught at all. I just put the box down on the desk when the guards said so, and I smiled when the first one began to sign the documents for Cassie, who spoke and laughed and joked with them as calmly as ever because she had no idea what was in the box she was checking out.

The guards ran their wands and another round device over the bones twice—and I didn’t break a fucking sweat. Someone must have taken over my mind in those moments because I watched and I didn’t even flinch.

I didn’t think about how the bracelet could release its own magical energy, its own signature, different from those bones, and the guards could find it easily. I didn’t think about what they’d say or do when they did—no, I just kept my eyes on their devices, and when they read whatever signals they received from the box, I stood perfectly still.

Then the guards both nodded. “All clear, Agents.”

Just like that. All clear.

Like they hadn’t seen nor had their devices picked up on the bracelet at all. Like its magical signature was invisible.

I grabbed the box again without a word, and Cassie thanked me for being so helpful, and together, we walked out of the Vault side by side.

Even when we went back to the ground floor, and I slowed down my step just a little to fall behind her, and quickly grabbed the bracelet and put it in my pocket, I didn’t break character. My face was expressionless, my breathing even, my heartbeat steady.

Then Cassie turned to look at me, and even though the bracelet was already in my pocket, I could have sworn she knew. I could have sworn she could tell what I’d done, and that’s the first time common sense reached me since I’d touched that bracelet, and I became afraid .

My stomach fell.

“Gimme that,” Cassie said, pulling the box to her chest.

I froze.

“ Freaking Mud ,” she muttered with a sneaky grin, and turned around to walk away.

Joking. She was only joking.

The bracelet was still in the pocket of my jacket when I went back to my cubicle all alone.

I was more hyper than I’d ever been in a long time. As alive as when I first met Taland and I was always running between classes to go meet him and make out. Yes, that’s what it felt like now as I drove my bike much faster than usual, having just left a Target on my way. I hadn’t even minded the reporters taking my picture, as I rushed out of Headquarters. They weren’t allowed close to the back gates anymore, but now they basically camped on the sidewalk of the street next to the fence that I drove through to leave every night.

They didn’t follow me, though, so that’s all that mattered. And Madeline’s guards didn’t let anybody put up signs or cameras near her estate, so it was perfectly okay because that’s where I planned to go just as soon as I did this one teeny-tiny little thing.

I know I promised to never go back to Taylor Maddison’s trailer— I know that. But it was almost midnight. Everybody was asleep, and nobody would even see me, not her family and not her neighbors. I was just going to drop my bike off a street down like last time, grab the paper bag I got at Target, and leave it outside the trailer where she’d see it as soon as she woke up.

That’s exactly what I did.

I put the paper bag in the basket that had been full of clothes the last time I was here, but now was empty. Nobody was going to see it there until Taylor woke up.

Except maybe her mom.

Regardless—she was going to find it and she was going to take it, and all would be well. She’d never know it was from me.

So, I turned around to leave, on my tiptoes, not making a single sound at all, and all the lights in the trailer were off, drapes drawn, so I was fairly certain that I was safe. Didn’t even suspect anybody saw me, until…

“What’s that?”

That my soul didn’t leave my body was a damn miracle.

Taylor’s head peeked out from the edge of the trailer, and she could most definitely see me.

“What-what- why aren’t you asleep?!” I whisper-yelled, and all that adrenaline that I’d felt since I’d stolen—actually stolen —from the Vault doubled within the second, and I was pretty sure my head was going to explode for real now.

“I was. Then I woke up.” She came out barefoot, wearing only her pajamas, her hair all over the place, and she reached for the paper bag I left in the basket.

“Why did you wake up—it’s midnight!” Calm down, calm down—it’s just the girl!

My hands were still shaking.

“I heard you,” Taylor said, then pulled out a small box and a book from the paper bag, holding them up with the tips of her fingers. The very tips, like she was afraid they’d bite her.

“ How did you hear me? I was quiet.” And I knew how to be quiet, damn it. Had I lost my touch? Because I thought I made no sound at all, yet a little girl had somehow heard me.

Taylor turned to me, still holding the colors and the book in the air like that. “This is new.”

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath in another attempt to get myself together. “Yes, it’s, uhm…it’s a coloring book.” She’s been coloring that day and the book had been all torn and she’d only had two colors, so I figured I’d just bring her new ones since she obviously liked to color.

“There’s ten of them,” she said. “Ten books and… three-four— six boxes of colors.”

Well, fuck, when she put it like that now it sounded stupid. Why would she need all those colors?!

Damn it, Rora…

“I, um…I didn’t know what you liked, okay? So, I got you a few just in case.” It had seemed like a good idea when I was at the store because really, what the hell did I know about coloring books? I wasn’t allowed to color since I was probably six years old!

“I know why,” Taylor said, putting the book back in the paper bag as she turned to me.

“You do?”

She nodded. “You’re rich. I saw you on TV. They gave you the dollars. Dad said you’re set for life now. Forever.”

I flinched so hard there’s no way she missed it. Coloring books cost next to nothing, was my first thought, but of course I said no such thing. She lived in a trailer, for fuck’s sake. Even her pajamas were two sizes too small and had holes in them—of course she was going to think a bag full of new coloring books was a big deal. Fucking hell, Rora.

“Yes, that’s, um…yes. That’s true.” I stepped back, feeling so nervous, so panicked, so much more than I’d felt when I was in front of the fucking Council. “I have to go. Get back inside and go to sleep, Taylor. You can check out the books tomorrow.”

She nodded. “When are you coming back?”

“I’m not. I’m not coming back.” And I shouldn’t have been back here tonight, either, or that first time. I shouldn’t have, and I wasn’t going to. This was the last time. “Just get inside, okay? Go back to sleep.”

Again, she nodded, so I turned to leave. I was all the way across the street, cursing myself under my breath for not being more careful, when I heard her calling, “ See you next time.”

I didn’t even turn around to look at her because something told me I’d find her smiling.

I’d done it.

I’d actually stolen.

I’d taken something that didn’t belong to me and I hadn’t told anybody about it.

I’d taken something that didn’t belong to me without permission, and I’d gotten away with it.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe it,” I said to my empty bedroom for the seventh time in the last ten minutes. I mean, I’d stolen something and I’d gotten away with it.

“From the IDD,” I corrected my own thoughts. “From the actual Vault.” And it had been easy because I’d been with Cassie. It had been easy because everybody trusted her, and the guards never really searched her. It hadn’t even occurred to me in those moments that I could get her in trouble. Ruin her reputation, which was the smallest thing that would have happened. Getting her fired or even locked up—those could have happened, too.

My goddess, I hadn’t even thought about any of that when I took the bracelet, and now I still couldn’t believe that I’d actually pulled it off.

I’d put it in the middle of my bed while I stood by the wall because I was too excited, too nervous, a mess of emotions that my body contained only barely. I never thought stealing stuff could be exciting and terrifying at the same time, but here we were. That thing was here now, in my bedroom, in Madeline’s mansion, and I still had no clue why I’d taken it. I had no clue why it had seemed so important that I have it, when it probably wasn’t even the same as the bracelets in those drawings. Impossible.

I’d gotten myself in trouble for nothing.

That night, I couldn’t go to Madeline’s office because she was in the mansion, and she always stayed up late. She could hear me even if she was asleep—I wouldn’t risk getting caught. She would have my head for real if she found me snooping in her office and she wouldn’t even hesitate.

So that night, with the bracelet in the drawer of my nightstand, I slept.

I was so exhausted. All those emotions must have taken a toll on me because I slept like the dead right away, and I didn’t dream of dragons or spiders or Taland at all.

The next three days passed by in a blur.

The reporters were persistent—they still waited for me to finish my shift and took pictures, and even tried to block my way once just to get me to give them a statement. I couldn’t go online without seeing my face everywhere or my name popping up in the strangest places—and don’t even get me started on social media. I’d deleted all my accounts, and the apps from my phone, just for good measure. It was maddening, all of it, and then one day I went back to the mansion and Poppy announced that I had fan mail by the bucket.

She also told me not to worry because she’d gone through it all and had weeded out the letters containing hate speech and/or curses or magic spells that could make me lose my fingernails or my hair—or both.

Yeah, I wasn’t touching that mail if the world ended.

Poppy did enjoy my rise to fame , at least. She now had a lot of followers and went live on social platforms to do Q&A sessions about me, and she even did podcasts with other people to talk about my bringing up. I obviously didn’t listen to any of it, but I was pretty sure it would be full of lies. Not because she meant to lie, Poppy, but she always saw things very differently. It was a defense mechanism for her, I was sure, even though deep down she knew. She’d said so herself that day I woke up from the Iris Roe.

I did go through the videos of us the Council had published, though. Not many were in the public domain containing me, so I had to pay for premium membership with the City of Games to see it all, and I did. That first night, I was up until four in the morning looking at videos where the camera had actually caught Taland with the illusion he wore that I somehow saw right through. I had no idea why, but he was barely there in the footage they’d published. One in the Bluefire challenge shot from somewhere behind him while he created his own clone with his illusion magic and sent it to distract Madame Weaver (they didn’t capture me at all there). One in the Greenfire challenge, where he first met his eagle—the one he said he’d named Aquila, the same one who’d fought for me in the end. It didn’t show how they bonded, only the part where the eagle performed this dance for him while flying all around him, showing off his gorgeous wings.

The other was of Taland running alongside me and my vulcera in the Valley of the Roc, the last and worst challenge of the Iris Roe, while his eagle flew over our heads.

Yes, our bonding and our familiars had never been real, and the feeling of being so connected to my vulcera was gone, completely disappeared. According to what I found on the City of Games website, the surviving animals were returned to where they came from after the game was over. It didn’t say where, just that they’d returned, and though I’d called Help Center pretending to be a fan, asking if I could know where they’d taken the vulcera of the winner specifically, I got no response. Confidential information , they said.

I should have asked those representatives, if I’d only remembered anything other than how to stay alive that day. I should have asked them, but maybe eventually I’d gather enough balls to call them or go see them in person and find out where the vulcera was now.

It hurt to look at footage of her, to see her on screen from so far away, only bits and pieces, of her spinning in the air while she showed me what she could do in the Greenfire challenge, her leading me to the edge of the branch—and we’d walked for much longer than I’d realized when I’d been there—and the shot from the Whitefire challenge as well.

Nowhere in the videos was I shown using my magic—or not using it—but instead turning to my weapons. My circle at the beginning of challenges was captured twice, and they’d turned it red. A pale red, but a red nonetheless.

They’d turned my circle red, so it fit with the lie they told the people, the lie they’d had me tell the people, too.

Now barely anyone online threw the word Mud in the same sentence with my name just a few days later. Barely anyone even remembered—that I saw, of course. Or maybe the Council was just keeping an eye out and taking down anything that didn’t fit the story they wanted everyone to believe.

It made me wonder…had another Mud done what I did before, and they covered it up in the same way?

It made me wonder about a lot of things.

By Monday, I no longer had any hope of finding the paperwork of the mission I was sent to by Hill at that school. I found no paperwork on Taland before he was taken in, which was absolutely insane because I’d had his file in my hands! That professor had brought me the folder with Taland’s info on my second or third day of school. It had been a complete report with his grades and schedule and date of birth and fucking measurements—I hadn’t made that up! I had seen that folder with my own eyes, and when I got back from the mission, I had given it to Madeline at her request. I hadn’t even thought anything of it—I’d just given her the folder because I’d been so broken, so completely ruined that just the thought of having Taland’s picture in my possession tore me apart.

Now I wished I’d held onto it just to have it. As proof.

Against whom ? I asked myself, and I felt like a damn fool. This was the IDD we were talking about, and Hill was at the top of it. What would I have used that folder for?

When the familiar voice reached my ears, I was about ready to close my eyes and fall asleep right there over my desk, hidden away from the world inside the plastic walls of my cubicle. My coworkers, at least, had stopped trying to make small talk with me, especially since I’d been staring at them dead in the eye without answering when they spoke to me, until they walked away. Yeah, I was acting mentally unstable on purpose to get them to leave me alone—so what? These people were awful. They’d have let me die right in front of their feet when I was Mud. I hadn’t forgotten. They wouldn’t get any love from me now—not even a smile.

So other than Cassie, I didn’t even talk to anybody else, and Cameron had yet to assign me to a team, and I usually blocked out anyone who spoke near my cubicle, but this voice in particular I recognized. This voice in particular I’d been looking forward to hearing.

It was the voice of either Jim or Jam, the twins who used to be on Michael’s team with me. I’d only seen them in the hallways twice since I’d come back, and they had practically run away just to avoid having to talk to me.

Now they were here, in the main office, and maybe they thought I’d already gone home because I hadn’t left my cubicle in the past four hours, and it was over two hours since my official shift ended. Or maybe they were tired of running from me and they understood that no matter how long it took, they were going to have to talk to me eventually. Answer my questions.

The reason why I hadn’t gone to their place until now—because I knew where they lived—was because they’d saved my life once. They’d sat back and watched while Erid and Michael had tried to kill me in the forest, but then in the infirmary, they’d done their party trick of a spell and they’d frozen time within that room for as long as it took me to get to another, so that Madeline and all the other people who’d been in there wouldn’t see me. Madeline and all the other people who’d have interrogated me and then killed me for having become Mud.

So, yeah, I gave them the time they needed, and now they were finally here.

I stood up when I heard the other one talking, too—either Jim or Jam, didn’t really matter. They were standing by the cubicle of Celia, a Blackfire who was only a couple of years older than me, talking and laughing—right until they noticed me standing there and watching them in silence. The walls of our cubicles went up to my neck, so all they saw was my head, but still. My eyes told them all they needed to know because they couldn’t see my fisted hands: I was pissed.

A second later, they both turned and smiled at Celia, then made for the doors with their heads down.

Like hell.

I’d waited enough and I was angry, so fucking tired of having been lied to, and I couldn’t find Taland, and I couldn’t wait for September to arrive, and now they thought they could run from me again?

Fuck no. I was sick and tired of their lies, too. My lies. Everybody’s fucking lies.

So, I chased them.

Not something I’m proud of, but it had already been eight days since I’d come back to work, and I couldn’t wait a second longer, so I ran behind them, out in the hallway and straight ahead.

They were running, too, so I barely caught one disappearing down the hallway to my left. The way I moved, you’d think a house-sized spider with sapphire eyes was after me. I saw them turning the corner at the other end of the hallway. No way was I going to let them get away this time.

I crossed through the corridor to the cafeteria and the door on its other side, which led me closer to the toilets, and just around the corner from where Jim and Jam would end up at the end of the hallway they’d run to.

My lungs threatened to explode by the time I made it around the corner and slammed into Jim and Jam, and we all screamed.

“Fucking hell, Rora!” said one of the twins.

“You scared us!” said the other.

“Why are you chasing us? What the hell is the matter with you?!”

“I was about to have a heart attack—why would you?—”

“ Don’t. You. Dare,” I cut him off—Jam, judging by his hair that was tied behind his back, but of course I could be mistaken. But I was resting to catch my breath here, and I needed a second, and they knew very well why I was running and chasing them, and that’s why they said nothing else as they looked at one another. Nowhere to go now.

“Sit the fuck down, both of you,” I said, pointing a finger at the metal bench across from us. The two agents walking by kept their eyes on the floor and hurried past as if to say, we don’t want any trouble.

The twins exchanged another look. If they planned to run again, I was going to kick their ass, at least until they stopped me.

But they sighed at the same time—so strange to be watching them do an identical movement with their identical faces—and then with their heads down, they went and sat on the bench just like I said.

A moment later, I had enough air in my lungs to speak with properly.

“You lied.”

Jam looked up at me. “We saved your life, didn’t we?”

“And this is the thanks we get?” said Jim.

“We saved your life twice !” Jam raised two fingers at me.

“Yes, yes—we found your friend the Bluefire and sent her to find you. That counts, too.” Jim.

“Oh, yeah? What about when Michael and Erid made it very clear to you that they were going to kill me in that forest—does that count? How you stood there and did nothing? Hmm, Jim, does that count, too?!”

Their cheeks turned a bright scarlet, and I was glad. They deserved it.

“Good. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Blush until your cheeks fall off because you were fucking cowards.” And I’d say it again as many times as I needed to because I was done being nice. I was just done.

They looked up at me with their lips parted and their brows raised.

“You’ve changed,” Jim said.

“Yep. Not the same Rosabel we knew.” Jam.

“Was it the Iris Roe? Did they replace you or something?”

“Is it true that you were Mud, and now you’re not?”

“Is it true?—”

“ Boys. ” They clamped their mouth shut. “Don’t try to change the subject. You stood by and let Michael and Erid try to kill me, and then you lied to everybody about that catfairie.”

They both scratched the back of their heads and looked at one another. “Lie? What lie?” said one.

“I don’t remember a lie. We didn’t lie,” said the other.

“No, no, we didn’t. We know this—we didn’t.”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember any?—”

“For fuck’s sake, I will hit you in the face.” And I would. Goddess help me, I would. The boys grabbed their staffs tighter between their hands. “Don’t you dare turn to your magic because you won’t win. I drained that fucking Rainbow, if you need the reminder.” They didn’t need to know how much it hurt to let my magic out now or that I hardly used it.

The boys didn’t make a single sound.

“Why?” I asked when they lowered their heads again. “Why did you say that I killed that catfairie, boys?”

“But you did,” said Jam.

“You did kill the catfairies. Plenty of them.” Jim.

I shook my head. “I’m talking about the big one and you know it. The one who was going to end me after it killed Erid and Michael— that one. I didn’t kill him. I passed out, couldn’t even keep my eyes open. Then I wake up and I find him dead right in front of me with his heart on the ground, and you told everyone that I did it—why? Tell me, right now— why ?”

The boys looked at me without even blinking. They were no longer flushed but pale as the white wall behind them.

“Talk— who killed that catfairie?!” I was trying to keep my voice down, but it was impossible. Goddess, I was so pissed off.

“You did,” said Jam.

“It was you—you killed the big catfairie,” said Jim.

They lied. They fucking lied to my face.

“You d?—”

“Agents McMurray, you’re being called in room three for a briefing.”

We all turned to look at one of our colleagues—Fernand with the sweet smile, one of the few who hadn’t tried to befriend me and get me to tell him how I won the Iris Roe.

“Gotta go,” the twins said, eagerly jumping to their feet. “Nice catching up with you, Rora.”

“See you later!” said one or the other, I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to murder something as they—and Fernand—made their way back to the main office and the meeting rooms to get briefed about their next mission. And I wanted that, too!

I wanted to be briefed and be out there and stop thinking for a second, but instead the best I could do was sit there on the bench on my own, and play with the bracelet in the pocket of my jacket, which I forgot I even had with me most of the time. I never left it anywhere else, but I didn’t really have any use for it. Madeline hadn’t gone out in forever so I didn’t get the chance to check that book again to make sure it was the same bracelet—but why would it be? Why?!

It was silly. It was absurd. I shouldn’t have bothered stealing it, putting Cassie at risk. Putting myself at risk.

Everything sucked and I hated the whole world and I just wanted to be in Taland’s arms and hide my face in his neck and sleep.

Instead, I walked out of Headquarters completely defeated.