Chapter 7

Rosabel La Rouge

Ashely Cameron had not forgotten about me at all.

“Agent La Rouge,” she said when her assistant told me to go into her office. Cassie remained outside, giving me two thumbs up as if she knew I needed the encouragement.

It still made no difference when the door closed behind me and I was all alone with Cameron.

“I was told you wanted to see me,” I said, expression neutral, hands folded in front of me where she could see them.

“I did. Come in, come in, come closer. Mi casa es su casa, ” she said, standing up from behind her desk to come to me.

Please don’t, I thought, but I went to her anyway, every muscle in my body rigid.

It still surprised me that I didn’t hurt anywhere, that my stomach wasn’t growling—from hunger. I was plenty uncomfortable to be here, though, and the smile on Cameron’s face did nothing to make me feel at ease.

She was a very powerful Blackfire, one of the very few I’d come across who had light hair. Not blonde, but a very light brunette. Most Blackfire mages had dark hair and dark eyes. She was petite, too, a few inches shorter than me even wearing leather boots with four-inch heels on them. Her crisp black suit and silk shirt looked made for her, and she smelled rich, but the look in her eyes was almost the same as my grandmother’s—sharp, alert, and you just knew that she saw everything, even when she pretended she didn’t. The crooked smile on her face was fake, and in the two seconds that it took for us to meet in the middle of the room, I had no doubt that she’d scanned every inch of me, just like I’d done her.

She carried guns around her hips—I could just tell she had a holster there under her jacket, and the energy emanating from her body could make anyone hesitate. Her frame might have been on the smaller side, but that would mean absolutely nothing when she used her magic, and she had a lot of power to spare. It was in her aura.

“Thank you,” I said, remaining perfectly expressionless when I took her hand and a small surge of electricity went through me.

“I imagine you’re tired, even if you were healed. But I’m glad you didn’t take more time away from us, Agent La Rouge. It’s good to have you back.”

She almost— almost convinced me that she meant it. She was that good.

“It’s good to be back.” Not sure if I almost convinced her, too, but I wasn’t really trying to make that lie too believable.

“Come on, let’s sit down. We have some things to go over, you and I.”

“Of course,” I said and let her lead me to her desk, an oversized thing with folders and documents neatly piled at the corners, and a big black frame of two identical toddlers on her right with the same colored hair as her.

“My nieces. They just turned two,” she said—must have caught me looking.

“They’re adorable,” I said, and that at least wasn’t a lie.

Cameron beamed when she sat behind her desk and straightened her shoulders. “They really are,” she proudly said. “How are you feeling, Agent La Rouge? The Iris Roe must have taken a toll on you.”

“It did, but I feel fine. A team of Whitefires took care of me. I have no wounds, no pain. I’m okay.”

There would be no point in lying. My instinct weren’t on high alert, and the office was simple, spacious, and her desk was big enough so that there was a good distance between us. I felt safe, but then again, I didn’t fully trust my instincts right now because I’d felt perfectly safe with Michael and Erid, too.

“Glad to hear it,” said Cameron. “I’ll admit, I was impressed to hear that you actually won the game. Nobody really thought it could be done. For a Mud to win any kind of magical game?” The way she said that word— Mud —like it was dirty. Filthy.

Exactly what we’d been taught all our lives, and I don’t know why I was almost offended by her tone of voice.

“Actually, being Mud might be the best thing that could have happened to me.” And maybe that was stretching it, but I couldn’t help myself.

“How so?” Cameron said, folding her hands over her desk, leaning close, her curiosity painted all over her wide brown eyes. “How did that work? I couldn’t imagine living without magic, let alone winning a game the likes of the Iris Roe.”

“Exactly that,” I told her. “I was forced to look for alternatives. We’re so dependent on magic, and I thought I couldn’t live without it, either, but I simply had to learn how to rely on other things. My body, my memory, my weapons.” And Taland. Without him I’d have died in that fucking alley in Night City, and those Whitefire players would have used my body to get their key for the challenge.

Without Taland, I wouldn’t be alive.

And now I was forced to sit here in this office instead of going after him.

“Fascinating.” She brought her hands to her chest. “I could never do what you did. Never.”

Fuck you, I thought. “Well, I could. I did,” I said. “And I don’t know if you heard from the Council, but they tested me and the Rainbow?—”

“Restored your color, yes—they told me this morning. Looks like you got lucky. You can use your Redfire again.” Lucky. That word— lucky.

The Council members had called me lucky, too, and I still had no clue why.

“I can.” Never mind that it wasn’t my Redfire magic. Never mind that it was different, and the Council said different was bad, but Madeline had chosen to lie to their faces—so who was I not to take it?

I didn’t want to die—fuck that, not without seeing Taland, at least. So, I’d keep that little detail to myself for now, and I had no doubt that my grandmother wouldn’t tell a soul, either. After all, she had lied, too, and her precious reputation was in question here. She wouldn’t risk shaming herself, not unless she had a perfectly believable explanation that would put all the blame on me.

“Good news, good news,” Cameron said, her eyes cold and calculating as she looked at me now. “The Council also asked me to brief you on the story that we’ve published regarding your status.” She pulled a black leather folder from the top of the pile of documents on her left and opened it. “I’m sure you saw the people outside. They’re not happy that a Mud stole their colors.”

She laughed.

My skin crawled. You’re just jealous, I thought. “I didn’t steal anything from anyone,” I said.

“No, no, of course not. I just mean they’re pissed that you were Mud and you got to drain the Rainbow— and win five million dollars, too.” Her laughter turned even more bitter. “That must make you proud. A self-made millionaire at the age of twenty. You don’t hear that often.”

I raised a brow. “I’m sure you know who I am, Miss Cameron. I was already a millionaire before the Iris Roe.”

Not really—I wasn’t. My parents did leave me a lot of money, but not millions. Madeline had those; my parents hadn’t. But I just wanted to piss this woman off because I didn’t seem to have the patience to pretend today and I just wanted her to get to the point already so I could leave, go find Taland.

The way her cheeks flushed so suddenly could have been funny. “But the people don’t know that. And they’re pretty angry—those signs were really something.”

It occurred to me how much patience I’d had before I turned Mud and my life went to shit.

It occurred to me how nice I’d been to people my whole life, how I’d always tricked myself into keeping my mouth shut because they probably don’t mean it, or they’re not really aware of what they’re doing, or they’ll probably regret it later and apologize.

No.

Abso-fucking-lutely not. Whatever had happened to me since the night I received that text—or maybe it was just my impatience to find Taland, but I didn’t care if people meant to be rude to me, if they were aware, and I was most definitely not concerned with them regretting anything.

I forced my lips to stretch as I looked Cameron straight in the eye. “The people are jealous because I did what they couldn’t do even with their magic intact, that’s all. I’m obviously not going to take a bunch of signs seriously.” If I were in a better mood, I’d have faked a laugh, too, just for good measure.

“ How, though?” she asked, squinting her eyes at me as she leaned closer over the table. “How did you manage to even drain the Rainbow? That alone requires a lot of magic.”

Taland-Taland-Taland-Taland —“Like you said, I got lucky.”

A second of silence.

“Of course,” Cameron finally said, even though she wanted nothing more than to continue to question me in detail. Even though she was dying to know how I’d finished the game.

But what she said next was even worse.

“The Council has decided to call the claims that you were Mud when you entered the Iris Roe rumors .” My ears whistled. “They’ve decided to tell the people that this rumor was spread with the intent of damaging the Council and the IDD’s image, that you were not turned Mud at any point in your life, and that when you entered the Iris Roe, you did so by asking for their permission first—since you are an agent—and they gave you their blessing.”

Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute…

She didn’t. “They’ve decided to alter all footage that will soon be released to the public to make your identification circle red instead of brown, and the players who’ve walked out of the game alive have already been sent NDA forms along with a check to ensure their cooperation.”

She smiled, closed the black folder, and pushed it over to the other side of the desk. To me.

“You’ll read all the details in there, Agent La Rouge, but before you’re dismissed, I need to make sure that you understand that you will be confirming this narrative to the media when you speak to them today.”

My stomach twisted. “I am not speaking to the media.” If they thought I was going to stand there in front of the cameras and smile and lie through my fucking teeth for them, they were dead wrong.

I wouldn’t—and why in the fuck would they want to lie about me being Mud when I won the game?!

“You are, I’m afraid,” Cameron simply said. “It’s all right there in the file I was sent by the Council. I’m only here to make sure you understand what’s at stake here.”

I didn’t even reach for the fucking folder, and again, I must have spent a lot more time than just four days in the Iris Roe because everything I’d believed in, everything that had come so naturally to me before was gone now, right out the window. I no longer cared to keep my face expressionless—I wanted her to see that I was pissed off.

“Why would the Council want me to lie about being Mud? Isn’t that going to be more inspiring to the people? I don’t understand, why lie?!”

This time, when Cameron laughed it was pretty genuine. “Don’t be ridiculous, Agent La Rouge. If every Mud out there thought they could enter and actually win the Iris Roe, they’d have to shut the whole game down.”

More laughter.

Why ? I wanted to say. Why shouldn’t a Mud get a chance to try?

And wouldn’t that be a good thing, to shut down the Iris Roe that was anything but a game? Slaughterhouse was a much more accurate definition…

Except these things I didn’t say out loud. These things I kept to myself because I was well aware that this woman could use them against me.

“I will need an answer before you walk out of here, Agent,” Cameron said when she was done laughing. “Do you understand what you have to say to the people, to everyone who isn’t me or your grandmother, about your status before the Roe, and during?”

Yes, I fucking understand. “And what happens if I don’t?” Silly question—I already knew.

Cameron grinned. “You’ll find everything in the folder.” And she slowly pushed it even further until the end of it came off the edge of her desk on my side.

I grabbed it almost absentmindedly. It was cold and thick, heavier than I expected.

“And now, for the other part,” Cameron said, leaning back on her chair with a small sigh, as if she got the worst of it out of the way and she could relax now.

“What other part?” There were other parts?

“The forest in Back River,” Cameron said, and it was like she stabbed me right through the lungs. “The forest where you lost two teammates, including your team leader. You killed a catfairie there—the same one we suspect turned you Mud.”

“No.” The word left my lips so fast it was a miracle I didn’t scream it.

Fuck no—that was not what happened. My team leader and my teammate tried to kill me, shot me, and I most definitely did not kill that seven-foot tall catfairie.

Cameron pretended I hadn’t spoken at all. “You will no longer be subjected to interrogation for that day. The Council feels it’s unnecessary since, after all, you won the Iris Roe and are no longer Mud.”

I shook my head— interrogation?

“Michael and Erid tried to kill me in that forest,” I said through gritted teeth because they couldn’t seriously expect me to just pretend that that didn’t happen.

“That is a very heavy accusation to make, especially about people who are dead,” said Cameron, sending chills down my spine. “There is no proof to indicate?—”

“ Proof ?” Somebody must have taken over me and altered my entire personality because right now I couldn’t have cared less about all the trouble I would get into with Madeline when she heard about this. I couldn’t care less about the consequences—and that was very, very unlike me.

“How about that bullet that went through my leg—how’s that for proof? People saw it. I was brought here, locked in an interrogation room, not healed because I’d turned Mud—but I was shot. With a bullet.”

Cameron closed her eyes. “An accident.” She pulled the words out of her mouth with so much difficulty I almost felt sorry for her.

And I almost laughed. “An accident, how—catfairies developed hands instead of paws for a moment there, stole a gun, and shot me?” Did she even hear how absurd she sounded? And yes, I was aware to whom I was speaking, but it didn’t matter. I almost got murdered by my team leader, damn it. By my friend! They were not going to just pretend that didn’t happen!

“Magic,” Cameron said, eyes wide open and locked on mine now, not an ounce of her former amusement left anywhere on her. “The illusion magic that the catfairies attacked you with— all of you. You were lost in the darkness—were you not?”

Fuck. “Yes, but?—”

“And all of your colleagues shot their guns to try to kill the catfairies. Don’t you think a bullet could have accidentally hit you instead?”

“But that’s not what happened,” I spit, shaking my head.

“We all know how powerful catfairie illusions are. Perhaps you even shot yourself by accident or were made to do so by the magic of the illusion—nobody really knows,” Cameron said, and suddenly I wanted to fucking throw up.

This couldn’t possibly be real. These people—they couldn’t fucking be real. Not only had I had to go through all that bullshit, but now they wanted me to say that none of it had even happened?

“Miss Cameron, Michael and Erid tried to kill me. They both attacked me with their magic, and my own came out to protect me when I lost control of my body— that’s how I became Mud. Erid’s magic must have stained mine while she tried to kill me— that was an accident, not the bullet. Michael meant to shoot me. Michael meant?—”

“ Enough .”

Her voice was charged with magic—so much magic that it leaked from her fingertips just slightly. Black flames danced on her skin for a second, and she looked about ready to kill me where I sat.

“The Agents McMurray were at the scene, too, La Rouge. They’ve already told us everything that happened. The catfairie killed Agent Michael and Agent Erid, and his magic turned you Mud before you killed him. However, that story will remain within these walls, within this office. Out there, you killed the catfairie, but you were never turned to Mud. You entered the Iris Roe with the IDD’s blessing, and you won. That’s all there is to it. Understood?”

I knew that even screaming my guts out at her face right now wasn’t going to make a difference. Not because she wouldn’t care, but because she couldn’t do anything about it if she wanted. No, the Council had decided on this story. Just last night they told me that they were going to decide on this, and apparently, they had. When I was in their chambers, I was too disoriented, too afraid, too incredulous to even think about asking these questions or talking to them about any of this, but I doubted that would have made a difference.

The Council had already decided how to fool the world.

They were never going to fool me again, though. As much as that was worth…

“Do you understand, Agent La Rouge?” said Cameron, voice low, those black flames on the tips of her fingers again, as if she was getting ready to charge at me, to attack me, to kill me. I had no doubt that she could.

“I do,” I ended up saying because I couldn’t win against her. Against them. Nobody could win against the Council. “I understand, Miss Cameron. Perfectly.”

“Good. At the moment, you will remain in the office until we appoint you to one of the teams. Your schedule will be sent to your email. Stick to it,” she said.

“I will.” That, at least, was good news. It meant I’d be in here all day, and I’d have time to search for Taland without needing to go out on missions.

A fake smile stretched her lips and she leaned back on her chair again, the black flames disappeared from her fingertips.

Even the tone of her voice had changed completely when she said, “Dismissed.”

She then grabbed another folder from her pile, opened it, and began to read. Pretended to read.

With my own folder against my chest, I stood up and I walked out of the office, my shoulders a million pounds heavier than when I first came here.

And just before I grabbed the handle of the door, she said, “Just a quick reminder that everything we talked about is confidential information not to be shared with anyone, Agent La Rouge. Anyone,” Cameron said in a whisper that I barely heard. “You just got out of the Iris Roe with your magic. You don’t want to go to prison right away, do you?”

Prison, she said. I could have laughed but I didn’t, because she apparently thought I was stupid enough not to realize that I’d die long before I made it to prison if I didn’t do what the Council wanted me to do.

I’d die, and Madeline wouldn’t even have to get her hands dirty with me.

“No, ma’am, I don’t.”

I walked out of the office before she could say anything else, clutching the leather folder tightly against my chest until my hands hurt.

Cassie hadn’t waited for me, and I was thankful for it. Right now, I needed a moment to myself before I even opened that folder to read what it said.

“Congratulations on your victory!”

The words were so foreign to me that I almost didn’t turn to look, thinking they were talking to someone else. But it was Cameron’s assistant who’d called after me from her desk by the door, with a big smile on her face, flushed cheeks, and she waved at me excitingly when I met her eyes.

“Big fan!” she then said.

To me.

Big fan— of me .

I wasn’t a rude person by nature, never had been. On the contrary—I hated rude people, but in those moments, I was literally speechless. I had nothing to say, no word came to mind, no thought that made sense except the one that wanted me to keep moving, run, get away!

So, I did. Without a reply, I practically ran away to the end of the hallway and down the stairs like my ass was on fire. I kept my eyes to the floor and my head down, the folder to my chest tightly until I made it to the showers in the locker room because I knew they would be empty. No shifts started or ended at one in the afternoon, and I was right. Nobody was there.

I need a moment. Goddess, those two words had been such a slap to my face, and I needed a good, long moment to just be. So, I went to the last cabin, closed the frosted glass door, and sat on the tiles at the very corner with my eyes closed, hoping I didn’t throw up, at least, as I hid away from the world.

I hoped in vain.

It was true. Everything Cameron said was true—it said so right on a two-pages long document inside that folder she gave me, signed by The Council. Only one signature, but I had the feeling I knew who it belonged to—the Whitefire woman who’d drawn her sword with the bone handle from thin air. With it, she’d waited for me to as she waited for me to do magic, to fail so that she could cut my head off. Or maybe stab me in the gut?

Could be.

They had expected my magic to be different— some had even hoped for it—and it had been. So fucking different, yet they couldn’t even tell.

The fucking Council, and they. Couldn’t. Tell.

Which was fishy as hell to me, not that I was complaining. I got to keep my head on my shoulders, but it made me so awfully suspicious of everything .

Why did they insist that I’d gotten lucky to have my color back? Why couldn’t they tell that my magic didn’t feel like my magic, that it was different from the magic I’d had my whole life? What kind of different had they been looking for when they asked me to do a spell for them? What did the Blackfire councilman think I’d turned into?

Why, how, why?!

So many questions, and the buzzing in my head didn’t stop even when I threw up and cleaned the cabin floor, then went to the sinks to clean myself up, too.

All the while the folder stayed with me.

People watched me. As I hurried to the offices—what were basically cubicles, except bigger—everybody in the hallways stopped and turned to look at me, and I could have sworn all of them whispered my name.

I hated it. I hated it so much I had no idea what to do with myself when I finally made it to my desk, which was down the middle of the leftmost row in the large room. The cubicles were surrounded by meeting rooms and offices of the team leaders, and the one right across from me had been Michael’s. The door was open, but the office was empty. They’d even taken out his desk as far as I could see.

More than half the cubicles were empty. The teams didn’t often spend a lot of time by their computers unless we had to prepare a report. Agents were always out in the field, except today every team available seemed to have decided to stay in just to make me miserable. Just to make me sweat even more until I finally sat down on my swivel chair, put that folder down, and closed my eyes.

Breathe, Rora, breathe, I reminded myself, and it helped somewhat. My heartbeat slowed down and my hands were no longer shaking—until I turned around, sure that everybody had gone back to work already, but found their eyes on me.

They were all standing, rising on their tiptoes to see me through the cubicles’ plastics walls. I turned around again, biting my tongue to keep from cursing out loud.

What the hell was wrong with these people? It was just me—the same girl they’d worked with for the past year. Nothing about me had changed—well. My magic had, but apparently even the Council couldn’t tell. Madeline could, but she pretended she believed that it was because the Rainbow had made it more powerful, hence why the color of it had become red—which was bullshit. The power of magic had nothing to do with the shade of the color, only the intensity, and my normal orange magic had been plenty intense since I was eighteen years old.

So many questions, and these people staring at me when they hadn’t even offered me a hand when I was in need made it worse. It took me longer than I like to admit to get my thoughts in order, to open that folder, and read the whole thing again.

Nothing had magically changed. The letters, the words, the signature at the end remained the same as the first time I read it. They really wanted me to lie about being Mud. They really wanted me to get out there by the end of the day and talk to those reporters, and give a statement, say that my magic was weaker then, but I was never Mud. I was always a Redfire, and I’d entered the Iris Roe same as all other players— with the permission of the IDD, of course, which I’d requested beforehand because I was an IDD agent. A trained agent—and that’s why I’d won.

They wanted me to lie to the whole fucking world.

“They’re waiting for you,” someone said, and I looked up to find Fernand, a fellow agent looking at me from the cubicle next to mine with a smile on his face and a flush to his cheeks I didn’t think I’d ever seen before.

“What?” My mind was elsewhere—on those letters still, on the fact that my body was shaking slightly, and the fact that it had all started to feel like a dream to me. Not real life, no—there’s no way this could be real life.

“They’re…they’re waiting for you,” he repeated.

His smile looked a bit painful.

“They’re right outside the doors, Rosabel. Come on, they’re waiting.”

This from someone else—Abigail, another one of my colleagues. They had all gathered somewhere behind me, watching me, some smiling and some murdering me with their eyes, and I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

Who’s right outside—who? Tell them to leave me the hell alone!

Then Cassie basically pushed the group of agents apart and came through, eyes wide and glossy, her hand around my arm: “We have to go— now. ”

They were the reporters, and they had really come inside the gates, and they’d set up their cameras right outside the building’s main doors as they waited for me.

Surreal.

At least thirty people were there, not to mention the dozens of IDD guards that surrounded them, their eyes wide, their arms to their sides, ready to jump to action if it came to it.

Because they’d let reporters in like they shouldn’t have because it was against protocol, but…

“ They let them in so you could give a statement. Make it quick. ”

Those were the words Cassie—or maybe even someone else—whispered in my ear from behind, then pushed me forward, out those doors and onto the top stair of the entrance. In front of all the cameras and the reporters.

They talked at the same time. They asked a hundred questions at the same second.

Is it true that you were Mud?

Did you commit murder while in this Iris Roe?

Which one was the toughest challenge?

How were you able to enter through the gates without magic?

How did you complete the challenges without magic?

Did you cheat during your challenges?

Did you smuggle illegal spells and weapons into the Iris Roe? How did you bring them in undetected?

Is it true that the IDD gave you permission to enter the game even though they knew you were Mud?

Is it true that the Council gave you permission to enter the game because they didn’t know that you were Mud?

How did you turn Mud?

Is it true that you ran away from your grandmother to enter the Iris Roe?

On and on they went, and they didn’t stop.

My head was threatening to explode the more I heard, and strangely I understood everything. I heard every single question that left their lips while the flashes of their cameras took my vision away every few seconds.

I realized that I was stuck here, that even if I wanted to run right now, I wouldn’t make it.

And if I tried, I’d only get in trouble with the Council, with the IDD.

Trouble with the IDD meant possible jail time in the best-case scenario, and death in the worst—and most probable. If I was in jail or dead, how was I going to look for Taland?

If I died, how would I know if he’d survived with his magic intact?

So, I took in a deep breath, and I pretended that I really was in a dream, and I spoke.

I couldn’t tell you where I found the voice, or exactly what I said, but I didn’t really answer any of their questions. I just said what the Council had told me to say in that document they’d sent for me, which basically meant that I lied through my teeth.

I was never Mud. I was born a Redfire, and I was an agent, and I entered the Iris Roe because I wanted to win, and I got permission from my superiors at the IDD to enter, and I completed the challenges the same way as everybody else—with magic. That’s what I said, or at least I was pretty sure that this was it.

And then, whoever started the lie that I was ever Mud should be ashamed of themselves; it’s not true.

And lastly, exactly as it said on those papers, A Mud could never enter the Iris Roe and live to tell the tale.

My goddess, those words really left my mouth. I said them with my own lips and my own voice and the reporters exploded into more questions, but a hand closed around my arm and pulled me back—I was done.

I didn’t see anything but those black dots and stars in my vision, and I had no clue where the hell I was going, just that there was no more light in here, no more flashes. No more shouts and no more crowds.

No more lies to tell.

“ Keep going. Just keep walking, ” said Cassie, and I was forever thankful that she existed. In the worst moments of my life she’d been there, and if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have made it. Not that first time when I was wounded and bleeding, crippled by physical pain, and not now when those lies, my own words, my own truth threatened to suffocate me.

“Lie down—right here. Don’t worry, I won’t let anybody in. Just lie down and close your eyes, Ro. You will be just fine…”

She had taken me back to the locker room, to the bench across from my locker, and she’d bundled up a jacket—probably her own—and put it under my head as a pillow. My eyes were closed and though I felt the tears, they could have been someone else’s. I wasn’t feeling like myself at all right now—just that girl who lied to the world about who she was and what she’d done. I wasn’t me at all.

I slept.