Chapter 24

I raced for Lienna and Vinny, my legs weirdly numb from the dread swirling through every atom of my being. Blythe and Tim were already crouched beside them, and the expressions on their shadowed faces ratcheted up my fear.

"We have to slow the bleeding!" Blythe barked. "Tim, give me your belt."

As Tim unbuckled his slim leather belt, I slid to a stop beside them, and my heart jumped into my throat.

Lienna was leaning over Vinny, hands pressed to the right half of his chest. Scarlet liquid welled up between her fingers.

"Kit," she said, her voice on the edge of panic. "Take over here."

I dropped to my knees, and as she pulled her hands away, I saw the damage Kade's spell had done. The magenta blast had caught Vinny on the right side as he'd tackled Lienna. It hadn't cut straight through him—but it had cut deep.

As I pressed my hands hard against Vinny's chest wound, Blythe cinched the belt tightly around his upper arm, just below the shoulder. The gash cutting through his bicep was even deeper.

"I have a vasoconstriction potion," Lienna said, pulling a vial from her satchel. "It'll only last a few minutes."

I removed my hands, and Lienna dribbled the potion across the slicing injury, then added some to his arm.

"Tim, carry him," Blythe ordered. "Kit, help Tim pick him up. Lienna, what other first aid potions do you have?"

While Lienna checked her satchel, I helped Tim get Vinny into his arms. Lienna tipped another potion into Vinny's mouth. He was conscious, but his eyes had a glazed, semicomatose sheen.

Through the pounding urgency, a warning pinged in my head. I could sense minds moving closer.

"We're about to have company," I called over my shoulder.

Darius and Girard, who'd been checking that all the downed agents were staying down, hastened toward us.

"We need to get Vinny to a healer," Blythe said. "Kit, clear the way. Darius, hide us."

All of us? I knew from working with Darius that her request was no small feat for a luminamage—not merely to bend light around a single comrade-in-arms who was keeping close to his side, but to make an entire ungainly group invisible.

"I'll take care of Lienna and myself," I told him. "Let's go."

I took point, racing toward the semi-demolished threshold leading back into the stairwell. As I reached the twisted metal that had recently been a functioning door, I caught sight of the troop of fully geared MPD agents ascending the final flight.

With no time to waste on a Creature Feature or Funhouse warp that might not produce the desired results, I targeted the dozen unfamiliar minds and submerged each one of them in the depths of the nastiest Blackout warp I could summon.

They stumbled, cried out, and fell into varying states of panicked writhing. I unceremoniously shoved one out of the way as I skirted around hunks of concrete on the steps.

Of all my warps, the Blackout—erasing all my target's senses simultaneously—was by far the most intense and psyche-draining. The first time I'd spread it into a halluci-bomb, it had literally brought me to my knees. Now, with frantic fear for Vinny pulsing through me, the strain of hitting twelve independent minds with an all-consuming nightmare void while keeping my allies free of that distress barely registered.

Lienna was on my heels as I sped down the stairwell. I descended past the top level, heading for the floor Lienna and I had searched; it was the only one where I knew exactly how to reach the elevator.

We exited the stairwell into the gray concrete staff corridor. I glanced back and saw that Tim was still carrying Vinny, arms soaked in blood, with Blythe right beside him. Judging by the concentration tightening her face, she was using her telekinesis—either to support Vinny's weight or to keep pressure on his wounds.

Darius and Girard brought up the rear. The luminamage's work was about to begin. With a glance at Lienna, I signaled it was time for her cat's eye necklace. She left a red smear on the artifact as she touched it with her bloody fingers. The moment she whispered the incantation, I invisified us, halluci-bombing every mind I could reach. That, coupled with Darius's light-bending, meant no one batted an eye as our group spilled out of the staff door.

Not that anyone would've noticed anyway. The mood was so shockingly tense in the concourse that I was momentarily worried I'd guided us to the wrong event.

Gone was the carefree, hoity-toity schmoozing, replaced by small groups that whispered in terse conversations with nervous eyes.

Clearly, Ashbluff's body had been discovered.

Leading our group, I cleared a path using a warp of fictitious agents barreling along the concourse. Everyone got the hell out of the way, and we raced for the elevator in the hallucination's wake.

I reached it first and jabbed the call button three times, then retreated as Lienna moved toward Vinny. I adjusted my invisi-bomb to exclude my friends' minds so they could see us as Lienna and Blythe crowded around Tim. Vinny's eyes were closed, his face sickly pale and his breathing frighteningly shallow. I couldn't tell if he was still conscious, but he was alive.

"Kit."

I turned to find Darius a few steps away from the others. Perspiration beaded his face from the effort of hiding the large group.

"Ashbluff is dead," he said quietly.

Had he known that before finding us all on the rooftop, or had he overheard the nervous tittering of the attendees?

"I know. Kade and Druthers killed him." I lowered my voice. "They have their own candidate."

Darius's face tightened, creases deepening between his eyebrows. "We can't let the Consilium take control of the Dissimulation Department."

"I know."

"I need to get the others out of here." His gray eyes burned into mine, as grave and steely as I'd ever seen. He extended his hand to me. "It's up to you, Kit."

I looked down. He was holding out Druthers's blood-smeared dagger, offering it to me.

Ice-cold realization plunged over me. For a paralyzing second, my breath stuck in my chest. Was he asking what I thought he was asking?

No, he wasn't asking. He needed me to do this. If I couldn't, he would stay behind instead, and I'd have to get Vinny and the others out of this building with warps and distractions instead of his lumina magic.

It was my choice.

Swallowing back a shiver of dread, I took the dagger. "I'll take care of it."

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open.

Darius closed his hand over my shoulder, gripping hard—appreciation, understanding, and farewell all in one brief touch. Then he stepped past me, Girard right behind him.

Refocusing on my warp, I shuffled my fake cadre of agents into the elevator as my team loaded themselves in.

"Kit!" Blythe snapped. "Get in."

"Sorry, Cap." I hid the dagger behind my back. "I have one more thing to take care of."

Lienna yanked her anxious stare off Vinny to look back at me. The elevator doors started to close.

My partner jumped forward, her shoulder colliding with a door as she stumbled out. "Go ahead," she told Blythe. "We'll catch up."

The captain nodded, unable to hide her worry as the doors slid closed. I dropped my other warp, keeping only the invisibility.

"Kit," Lienna said, searching my face. "What's going on?"

I let out a breath, guiltily relieved she was with me—even if that meant whatever danger I was about to dive into would drag her down too. Was I a coward, or just stupidly in love with this woman?

"The Consilium has a candidate in the vote for the DD's new director," I said, slipping off my jacket and using it to wipe the blood from my hands. I passed it to Lienna so she could do the same. "We need to find out who it is."

She wiped her palms, tossed my jacket aside, and took hold of my hand, her fingers clamping tight around mine. "Okay."

The contrast between her warmth in my left hand and the cold hilt of Druthers's dagger in my right hand scraped at my resolve.

Invisible to everyone else, we headed for the nearest auditorium entrance. Two suited agents stood guard on either side, looking far more rigid and watchful than they had when we'd arrived.

We stopped just in front of them and peered into the space beyond.

Special Committee members occupied about half the seats encircling the large, raised dais in the center, while the remaining members were grouped in the wide aisle as they conversed. Lights affixed to the circular walls illuminated the stage, leaving the rest of the room in ambient shadows. The ceiling rose for three stories, with the sixty-third and sixty-fourth floors forming viewing balconies around the entire circumference.

As dramatic as those features were, they weren't what stole the breath from my lungs like a jab to the diaphragm. Head tilted back, I couldn't tear my gaze away from the ceiling, as entranced as though I were standing in the Sistine Chapel.

An inconceivably massive Arcana array spanned the entire ceiling. The black lines swirled and intersected, the geometry interwoven with giant runes that stood out in sharp contrast against the white marble. I'd glimpsed the matching array on the floor earlier, but it'd failed to convey the sheer magnitude of magic embedded into this chamber.

On the plane ride here, Darius had grimly informed us that this overwhelming spell held the mythic world record for the largest abjuration array in existence. Its purpose? To block any and all Psychica magic.

Ostensibly, it was to prevent voters from being unduly influenced by all those nefarious telepaths, empaths, and mentalists. Personally, I thought it was unfair discrimination against my class. If they were going to go all out like this, why not block all magic while they were at it?

Regardless, the moment I stepped a single toe within that array, my warps would poof into nothingness.

I dragged my attention down to the stage, where three official-looking folks were discussing something near a podium. A handful of chairs waited off to the side, one occupied by an older woman sitting with the awkward posture of someone who'd like to be anywhere but here, thank you very much.

"Which one of them is the Consilium's candidate?" Lienna whispered, echoing my exact thoughts.

How were we supposed to identify the secretly corrupt asshole owned by the Consilium? It's not like they wandered around with "Hello, I'm a Corrupt Jackwagon" nametags plastered on their ten-thousand-dollar suits. Would I recognize them from the multitudinous lists in the Crow and Hammer's third-floor boardroom?

The official-looking cluster broke apart. Two moved aside, and the third turned to face the podium. A spotlight beamed across his face, illuminating his features in stark detail visible across the auditorium.

My gut took a sixty-two-story nosedive into the skyscraper's basement. "You've got to be fucking joking."

The man at the podium was Jayce Tyrian.

Yes, that Jayce Tyrian.

The same Jayce Tyrian who'd recently taken over Trident Ltd. From whom Darius and I had stolen documents about the weapon, whom I'd terrified with a Matrix helicopter attack, whom all of Darius's sources had claimed was squeaky clean of the Consilium's slime.

And the same Jayce Tyrian who had scary leverage within the Miami precinct, who intended to bury the two nosy agent-impersonators, and who'd ordered the execution of an employee in his own goddamn office.

Here he was, straightening his black silk tie that probably cost more than an MPD-issued smart car as he prepared to speak. He cleared his throat, leaned closer to the mic, and began by promising justice for the late Director Ashbluff, who'd been tragically murdered by a rogue agent right here in the North American MPD headquarters.

Tyrian had been a corrupt piece of shit all along. The Consilium had passed Trident into the care of another loyal lackey. He'd probably been sitting on the weapon file, waiting for the right moment to "find" a Consilium buyer for Visser's rare artifact.

I couldn't hear Tyrian's oh-so-sincere commitment to taking up Ashbluff's mantle. I could barely hear Lienna saying my name.

"Kit!" She shook my shoulder.

I snapped out of my daze and turned to her. Concern pinched her eyes as she looked up at me. My fingers squeezed the hilt of the hidden dagger.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

I loved her. That's what was wrong. I loved her, and she'd almost died today because I'd brought her into this shitstorm.

This time, I wouldn't make that mistake. I understood why Darius had made the decision he had twenty years ago. And I would make the same one.

Reaching out, I cupped her cheek, drew her face up, and kissed her—a fast, desperate goodbye.

Then I let her go, stepped between the two guards, and entered the auditorium. The world-record array did its job, turning that warm spot in my mind into a cold, dark vacuum.

The agents behind me erupted in surprise as Lienna suddenly appeared practically on their toes. A scuffing sound, followed by a grunt, suggested Lienna had goaded the guards into action—though whether to continue distracting them or in a sincere attempt to get past them, I didn't know.

I couldn't look back to find out. I kept walking, hands at my side, the dagger tucked against my inner forearm. A few heads turned, looking toward the commotion in the threshold, but no one called me out as an intruder.

Tyrian was speaking, his voice amplified by the sound system, but I couldn't process his words through the rapid drumming of my pulse.

Twenty years ago, Darius had planned his every move. I didn't have that luxury. I couldn't warp, couldn't hide, couldn't distract, couldn't deceive. I couldn't wait for an opportunity that didn't involve a few hundred witnesses.

Tyrian was right there in front of me. Alone. I couldn't waste this chance hoping for a better one.

The aisle seemed to stretch on and on as I walked, keeping my pace steady and my face tilted down. Each step vibrated like a thunderclap through my bones. All I wanted to do was turn and run in the other direction.

But I kept going. Then suddenly, there was no more aisle. The dais rose in front of me, accessible by three steps that ran around the entire circumference.

Up the steps, I angled toward the podium. Tyrian paused whatever bullshit "such a tragedy but, hey, worked out well for me" speech he was feeding the crowd.

I was five feet away from him when I finally raised my head. Tyrian's politely questioning expression, as though I were a staff member come to deliver a message, faltered with recognition.

His eyes blazed with fury. He didn't even know he should be afraid.

I lunged for him. My left hand grabbed his shoulder. My right hand thrust the dagger between his ribs.

I'd never killed a man like this before, so close I could feel the final gasp leave his lungs. It was both easier and harder than I'd expected. Hard, because his flesh resisted the sharp blade and I had to shove it in. And easy, because once the knife went in, it was over. Just like that.

One moment alive, the next… dead.

Tyrian collapsed backward, the hilt jutting from his chest, and voices filled the auditorium. I turned numbly toward the cacophony of cries and shouts. A sea of aghast faces swam in my vision.

Then the first flash of magic dazzled my eyes, and I snapped back to my senses. Ducking the oncoming blast, I sprinted off the stage. Mythics swarmed out of their seats and crowded the aisles, the majority trying to flee the cold-blooded murderer.

The minority came straight at me.

I dodged the first few would-be heroes and shoulder-checked another out of my path. But there were too many current, former, and combat-capable MPD agents among the Special Committee. They were closing in on all sides, and I was just one man with no magic and no weapons.

I swerved sideways between rows of seats, then vaulted them, trying to make it back to the exit. Magic lit up on every side—a dozen mages and sorcerers taking aim all at once.

Then the brightest flash yet: a volley of fizzing orange fireworks arcing into the air all across the auditorium. Knowing what was coming, I dropped between the seats and grabbed onto one with every ounce of grip strength I possessed, thankful the construction crew in charge of putting this place together had possessed the wherewithal to bolt the chair legs to the floor.

A nearby man in a smart navy blue suit threw himself at me, ready to subdue me in a likely violent fashion.

Then Lienna's gravity bombs hit their targets, burst with bright flares, and expanded into giant whirling orbs of darkness.

Everything that wasn't nailed to the floor, including my navy-blue-suited attacker, was yanked toward the mini black holes. More screams filled the echoing auditorium as dozens of people hurtled through the air and crashed together.

My entire body was jerked upward with astonishing power, my fingers straining to maintain their grasp on the chair's legs and my joints feeling like they were about to snap apart like Christmas crackers, until the spell faded, dumping me onto the floor.

Leaping up, I sprang over two more rows, cut back to the aisle, and sprinted for the exit. For the briefest second, my gaze caught a face among a group of hysterical committee members: Lienna, her eyes wide and complexion leeched of its usual warm hue as she watched me run past.

I flew out the open doors. Mythics were shouting and running around like the proverbial headless chickens, but the agents among them weren't—and they locked on me instantly.

Except now I was past the anti-Psychica array.

I dropped a widespread invisi-bomb, still running, my escape just ahead: the elevator. I jabbed the call button with a telekinetic finger, and it lit up in response.

But the doors didn't open. The indicator above them showed that the elevator was on the first floor.

"He's there!" someone shouted. "Running for the elevator!"

Either there were other psychics in the crowd, or someone had their phone camera out.

Without slowing, I bent my concentration on the elevator doors. Pressure and burning exertion flared through my arms as the stainless steel doors cracked open, then reluctantly yawned wider, revealing the empty elevator shaft beyond.

Multihued light reflected off the white marble. A blast of pink Arcana whipped past my shoulder and blew a smoking hole in the wall. A fireball grazed my right elbow, singeing my less-than-pristine shirt.

Straight ahead, a cluster of cables hung in the gaping space, seven hundred feet of emptiness below.

I didn't stop. I didn't slow.

I sprinted to the open doors and leaped into the elevator shaft, plunging into the darkness as magic exploded behind me.