Chapter 6

Rosabel La Rouge

Chaos.

There were people outside the gates of the IDD, mostly reporters. Both human and Iridian, there must have been at least a hundred reporters there with their cameras and their phones and their recorders.

Even from a distance, I knew they were there for me. Even before I saw the signs of the people to the sides of the wide street, I knew everybody was there for me.

ROSABEL LA ROUGE IS A FRAUD - said one of the signs with a large red X at the end.

MUD ARE NOT IRIDIAN - said another.

GIVE US THE COLORS BACK, MUD!!!

NO MAGIC NO WINNER - and more.

I could hardly believe my eyes, but two big groups, possibly twenty people each, stood behind the reporters and held up those signs as they looked around and at the Headquarters building.

Every hair on my body stood at attention. For a moment there, I imagined someone seeing me approaching, and all those people jumping in front of my car, or on my car like they did in movies.

I turned the wheel and drove half onto the sidewalk, but I didn’t care—I went back and all around, to the other side of the Headquarter gates that were mostly used to bring in supplies, and to transport criminals to the Tomb, or to release those who’d done jail time.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell,” I chanted as I drove with my head lowered as far as I could.

It was madness . It was absolutely insane to have all these people here, and goddess, if they saw me, it would be end of me. All those cameras and those phones—if these people spotted me, I would be done for.

They didn’t.

Somehow, I made it all the way around the large fence of the IDD, and to the back gates. There were only four reporters there, whom I hoped had come for someone else, but I hoped in vain.

I didn’t hear anything, but I saw when the woman wearing a crème-colored suit pointed her hand toward me and then all four of them started running to my car just as I stopped in front of one of the three bar gates. A guard was coming to check my badge, which I did not have, and when he saw them, he actually looked afraid.

His eyes met mine through the windshield. The reporters were already at my window.

It was the longest two minutes of my life and I still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening to me. I kept my eyes ahead on the guy who’d called for more guards to help him keep those reporters off, and I froze every muscle on my face like that. I wouldn’t move an inch until I was inside.

Three other guards came out and had to basically pull the reporters off my car violently, and then the first one pulled up the bar with his hand to let me through without even asking for my badge because more reporters were coming from the front of the building, running like they were being chased by fucking dragons.

Then I was inside.

My ears whistled and I didn’t hear shit, but I saw the guard knock on my window, so I opened it. The sound of people screaming somewhere behind me shocked me for a moment.

“Badge,” the guard said, but I shook my head.

“I don’t have it on me.”

He flinched. “I can’t let you through without?—”

“I forgot to make sure my wallet was safe while I was being chained to a chair and tortured in a basement. My face is going to have to do, and if you really want to pretend you don’t know who I am, scan my fingers—but do it quickly because those people mean business.”

I pointed my thumb back as if he needed the reminder that more reporters were trying to basically break through the gates and the ramps, pushing the guards who’d gone out to keep them back harder by the second.

“ Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the guard said, reaching for the guns on his holsters. “Just go—get in there. They’ll scan you in the garage. Go, go, go!”

I didn’t hesitate.

My tires screeched when I took the car forward, closing the window because the sound of those people screaming my name was getting to me worse than I could have ever imagined.

Almost there, I whispered to myself, until the doors of the garage were in front of me, and the guards who were stationed nearby followed my car as I drove in to scan me, as if they, too, didn’t recognize my face.

It was going to be a long fucking day.

I found my phone just as I left it in my locker, the battery dead. But I also kept my charger in there, so I plugged it in right away while I put on the leather jacket and the leather pants of my uniform, the last clean pair I’d left here. The other? It had been basically torn off me and goddess knew where it had ended up now. I was going to need to put in a request for a new uniform. And a new badge, too. A new ID and a new credit card—all that stuff I’d carried with me in my small wallet that I no longer had.

The locker room was empty, thank goddess. I’d come straight here because I’d wanted to keep away from the people who were looking at me strangely, like they couldn’t quite figure out how to feel about me yet. The same people I’d worked with for over a year in this very place. The same people who’d smiled and said hi to me more often than not.

The same people who had just stood by and watched when I first turned Mud and I could barely stand on my good leg that day I escaped the interrogation room, too.

Those same people.

I just wanted to stay away from them, not to mention that I was borderline paranoid to be here because I knew somebody wanted me dead. Whether Madeline believed me or not, Michael, my own team leader, and Erid, whom I’d actually considered a friend, had tried to kill me in that forest. They’d shot me. Had turned me into Mud. And Michael said that he had orders from higher up to do it, so that meant whoever wanted me dead had come from here.

If I was going to be at ease in the IDD Headquarters again, I needed to find who that person was.

Was it Kristof Harlow, managing director of our division? Or maybe Ashley Cameron, his boss? Or maybe Gabriel Phu, her boss?

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, feeling a little bit better now that I had a holster on—my old one, but I didn’t care. The leather was a little worn, but it held the knives that I had in my locker just fine. My custom-made M17s were gone, too, but I could always put in the request for new ones as soon as I walked out of this room.

And my leather jacket…

I grabbed it from the hanger and held it in my hands for a moment, sure that I’d feel something. I didn’t.

These jackets came to us with protective spells that made them extra sturdy and extra durable against magic and sharp objects—like claws. In my line of work, a week passing by without being face to face with some kind of creature who wanted to kill me was considered lucky . But that day at the forest, the catfairie’s claws had torn through my leather jacket when he slammed his foot to my stomach with ease, something that shouldn’t have happened.

Unless somebody had deactivated the protective spells of my uniform without my noticing, and maybe they did the same to this pair of pants and jacket, too.

My magic, this new kind that didn’t feel like mine at all, sprung at the thought of whispering a protective spell of my own. Even knowing that it would hurt while it came out, even knowing that it would sting the way it did while I was in the Council’s chambers, I began to whisper the spell, this one third-degree, the most effective protection spell one could place on objects. It would last at least a couple of months before it began to weaken.

The magic came.

It sliced right through me, not in harmony with my body or with the spell as it should be at all. Instead, it behaved like it was my enemy and it wanted to cause me as much pain as possible while it shot down my arm and used my ring as its anchor point, then came out and spread onto the jacket.

The only reason why I didn’t scream was because I had my tongue between my teeth and my muscles clenched tightly while the red flames danced on the black leather for a moment, then merged with it, becoming invisible to my eyes.

Tears streamed down my cheeks in a rush. Goddess, this was so, so wrong. Magic didn’t hurt when it came out of you. Magic was in tune with your body, your thoughts, the air around you— magic doesn’t hurt!

So then why were my knees shaking and my arm pulsating with pain? The spell worked. I could tell just by feeling the shifted energy of the jacket. The protective spell was active, and I had no doubt it would hold, but that pain.

That pain was not supposed to be there at all. I thought I’d imagined it in the Council’s chambers, but I hadn’t. It had just been less then, probably because I’d used first-degree spells.

Releasing my breath, I went and sat on the bench on the wall across from my locker, and I gave myself a second to calm down. I gave my body the chance to relax, my heart to slow its beating.

It was okay. It hurt because I’d been Mud and then I’d drained that Rainbow. It hurt because this wasn’t natural—but it was still better than no magic at all. It was still so much better than having no means to protect myself, and maybe it would get easier. Maybe I just needed to practice.

I could use the gym and the training area for that. My phone was enough charged that it turned on, but other than a couple missed calls from Poppy, and random app notifications, nothing new there. No call from an unknown number, and no text—I checked. I’d secretly hoped that Taland had somehow found my number and sent me his location when he came out of the Iris Roe, but he hadn’t.

Then the locker room door opened.

I was finding it very difficult to cling to my old instincts of keeping a straight face no matter what. Maybe it was just the exhaustion. Maybe it was that the Iris Roe had left me with more trauma that I was probably ever going to realize, but when that door opened, I turned with my eyes wide and my mouth open and my hands on the handles of my knives—which surprised me. My magic was no longer what I reached for first to protect myself—it was my weapons.

Luckily, I didn’t need to draw them out nor use that awful magic on anyone, because it was only Cassie coming through with a big smile all over her beautiful face.

“ Guess who’s back, ” she sang. “ Back again !” Then she screamed— Woooo! —and ran and hugged the shit out of me so hard I was having trouble breathing.

She’d hugged me like that the last time we saw each other, too. When nobody else wanted to come even close to me. When nobody else wanted to help me even though they all saw I was barely standing.

She’d been there and she’d hugged me and she’d helped me and she’d cried. I remembered that perfectly well.

Maybe that’s why I suddenly found myself wrapping my arms around her, too, hugging her the way I hugged people so rarely. I guess multiple near-death experiences could turn a girl into a hugger because I’d hugged Poppy with my own free will back at the mansion, too.

“Oh, goddess, I am so happy you’re here! You be kicking ass, woman. Hi-five!” Cassie said when she stepped back and raised both hands. I hi-fived her with both of mine, too, and I was actually smiling.

“Hey, Cassie,” I said, and I thought I might burst in tears at this point, but thank goddess I didn’t.

“Hey, yourself. Look at you—fresh out of the Iris Roe.” She cheered as she leaned back and made a point out of looking down my body to the tips of my boots. My cheeks flushed instantly, but I didn’t bother to try to pretend I wasn’t affected.

In fact, I didn’t think I wanted to bother so much to keep everything on the inside anymore. What was even the point?

“It’s just me,” I told her, and she beamed.

“It’s just you— plus brand-new magic and five million dollars in your bank account!” The way she screamed made me cover my ears because I was going to go deaf any second. “The rich keep on getting richer. Tsk-tsk-tsk ,” she teased me.

“It’s the way of the world,” I said with a shrug. “You look good, Cassie.” Because I really wanted to stop talking about me now. That had been enough—more than enough.

“Thank you, sweetie. And you are glowing. Who woulda thunk the Iris Roe would doll you up like this?”

I flinched. “Pretty sure not dying should get that credit.” Not even that, but my grandmother’s healers. I hadn’t even been conscious, but I could tell they’d done a lot of spells on me because I felt reborn. Completely healed, not an ounce of pain in my body—when I wasn’t using this new magic, that is. Even my skin was glowing like I’d spent months at the spa.

“That, too,” Cassie said with a wave of her hand. “Tell me, c’mon. How was it? Did you see a lot of people die?”

She sat down on the bench and I joined her, and she was actually serious about that question.

“I did, yes.” A lot more than I wanted to remember—and I’d killed people, too. In the Redfire challenge, in that Ghost Festival where the sound of those instruments that played themselves had blurred my common sense and reason completely. I’d lost it—really lost it there, and who knew how many lives I’d taken?

Goddess, the guilt was going to eat at me for as long as I lived. It had already begun to dig a hole right in the middle of my chest.

“ And ? Tell me—how in the fuck did you survive, woman?! Don’t get me wrong, I am the happiest girl in the world that you did, but the Iris Roe while being Mud? That’s gotta be a hell of a story.”

A bloody, scary, painful story, I thought. “A story for another time,” I said.

“I get it, I get it,” Cassie said, and she didn’t look offended, thankfully. “You haven’t really had time to process, I guess. Must have taken a toll on you, but you look really, really good, Rora. I mean it.”

“My grandmother loaned me her team of Whitefire healers. The best money can buy. They spelled me while I was out of it still and I woke up brand new, basically.”

“Damn,” she whispered. “And they say money’s not everything.”

“It really isn’t,” I said, but she waved me off. For me, I’d give all the money I had—both the fortune my parents left me, and this new money from the Iris Roe, just to go back in time and not have to experience any of it. Go back all the way to high school, to that first time I met Taland, so I could grab him and tell him the truth and run with him to the end of the world so that neither of us had to go through any of those awful things we’d endured.

Not just my money, but I’d give up a limb if I could, too. Days off my life. My magic—take your pick.

“Says the rich girl,” said Cassie with a snort. “But seriously—I’m glad to see you. Glad you’re alive, and that you got your magic back. We thought you were going to take some time off, considering, but it’s good to have you back, Ro.”

There went that wave of tears, crashing at me from the inside. “Thanks, Cassie. I appreciate it. And I don’t need time off—I feel fine.” Time off meant time sitting in my room doing nothing and thinking —my least favorite thing to do. And time off meant time away from the IDD Headquarters where I couldn’t use the surveillance systems and research rooms to try to find Taland—so, no, I was okay right here.

“Suit yourself,” she said. “I got something for you.”

She turned to look at the door first, to make sure that nobody was coming through, then reached for something in her pocket—my wallet.

My heart fell all the way to my heels.

“I cleaned it up—it had blood on it,” she said, offering it to me. “I found it in the trunk of my car that night.”

This time I couldn’t stop the tears from pooling in my eyes, but I did keep them from falling.

My wallet that I thought was going to have to be replaced—it was there, in my shaking hands. Small and made of maroon leather, clean because she’d really cleaned it, and inside was everything exactly as I’d left it—my badge, my documents, some bills, and most importantly, a tiny black and white picture of my mom and dad when they first started dating.

“Thank you, Cassie,” I said again. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

If I had any energy left, and if I wasn’t sure that I’d crack and start sobbing if I hugged her right now, I’d squeeze her until she couldn’t breathe.

She gave me a sad smile. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Rora.”

“Me, too,” I said, and when I forced a laugh so I didn’t start crying, a tear slipped from the corner of my eye. I wiped it away quickly so maybe Cassie didn’t notice. “Me, too, Cass. But how have you been? Are you still stuck on the night shift?”

“They actually gave me first shift yesterday. Today, too. I’m not going to get to do my job yet, but it’s progress. I’ll take it.”

“Happy to hear it,” I said. “Any new development while I’ve been away?”

It occurred to me that it had only been about a week since I saw her. Since she put me in the trunk of her car and drove me out of Headquarters. Only a week, but to me it felt like a lifetime. Years and years and all that pain…

“Not much, really. The twins were assigned to Eric’s team. The rest is pretty much the same.” Cassie shrugged.

My heart skipped a beat. Jim and Jam—my former team-members, the Greenfires who could freeze time for a whole minute—like they’d done for me in the infirmary room.

Jim and Jam, who’d stood by and done nothing in the forest to stop Michael and Erid from killing me, but then they’d saved my life later, and had found Cassie, had told her where I was. That’s why she’d found me first that night, and she’d taken me out of here.

They’d also lied through their teeth when they told the IDD that I’d killed the seven-foot tall catfairie in the woods—I hadn’t. I’d been turned Mud by Erid’s and Michael’s magic by then, had been bleeding, weak, barely able to keep my head up. I hadn’t had the strength to kill a bug, let alone a catfairie—yet the twins had told everyone that I did.

Fuck, I needed to talk to them to find out what had happened. I needed to thank them, too.

“That’s good,” I said to Cassie. “What about me?” Because Michael and Erid were dead now, and I no longer had a team.

“No idea, but Cameron wants you in her office whenever you’re ready. I think she’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

I flinched. “ Ashley Cameron?” As in, the boss of our boss who had no business talking to simple agents like me?

“The one and only,” Cassie said. “I spoke to her once or twice—she’s okay, I promise. Doesn’t bite or anything. Unless provoked, of course.” She wiggled her brows as she grinned.

It was all I could do not to groan. “Can’t I just go back to work and forget the past week ever happened?” That’s all I wanted—to forget and find Taland. Then, when I was with him, I could remember. I could think and overthink and hurt and cry and laugh—whatever it was that I needed to do, but not before. Definitely not today.

“Nope. The real world doesn’t give you breaks,” Cassie said. “That’s what my cousin always says.”

“Your cousin is right.” I felt like I hadn’t had a break since I was in school with Taland.

Taland-Taland-Taland, somehow it was always about him. Just about him.

Cassie laughed a little. “He’ll be happy to hear that, and if he was here right now, he’d tell you, Zachary Mergenbach is always right. ”

My mind was elsewhere—on him , of course, but I still noticed the way Cassie’s smile changed there for a second. I still noticed how she sat upright and raised her brows and that smile froze on her glossy lips—almost like she was waiting for me to say something else. To react.

And I wondered, did she make a joke I didn’t get, maybe ?

But the moment passed quickly, and Cassie stood up and said, “Come on, let’s get you to Cameron.”

With my wallet intact and my phone halfway charged, I wore my leather jacket, certain that it would protect me if it came to a fight. Incredible how fast I’d come to think in terms of protecting myself even from the people I would have never suspected before the Iris Roe. Before my team leader tried to kill me. But those two experiences had showed me exactly what people were capable of, and I was never going to trust that I was safe ever again—which sucked, but it was better than to be caught off guard. Better than to be sorry later.

So, I zipped up my jacket and made sure I could reach my knives easily if I needed, then dragged my feet behind Cassie, hoping that Cameron had forgotten all about me and I could just get to my desk and start searching for Taland already.