9
I woke blinking, my eyes squinted against the sunlight that streamed through the wall of windows on my left, and bounced off white walls on the other three sides of the room I was in. I looked down. I was on a high bed, my legs covered by a white sheet and thin blanket, the rest of me wrapped in one of those nubby, printed hospital gowns.
“You’re awake.”
I lifted my gaze. Scout sat in a plastic chair across from my bed, a thick leather book in her hands. She was in uniform, but she’d covered her button-up oxford shirt with a cardigan.
“Where am I?” I asked her, shading my eyes with a hand.
“LaSalle Street Clinic,” she said. “A few blocks from the school. You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. The doctor was in a few minutes ago. She said you didn’t have a concussion or anything; they just brought you in since you passed out.”
I nodded and motioned toward the windows. “Can you do something about the light?”
“Sure.” She put aside the book and stood up, then walked to the wall of windows and fidgeted with the cord until the blinds came together, and the room darkened. When she was done, she turned and looked at me, arms crossed over her chest. “How are you feeling?”
I did a quick assessment. Nothing felt broken, but I had a killer headache and I was pretty sore—as if I’d taken a couple of good falls onto unforgiving limestone. “Groggy, mostly. My head hurts. And my back.”
Scout nodded. “You were hit pretty hard.” She walked to the bed and hitched one hip onto it. “I’d say that I’m sorry you got dragged into this but, first things first, why, exactly, were you in the basement?”
There was an unspoken question in her tone: Were you following me again?
“The brat pack went down there. I was invited along.”
Scout went pale. “The brat pack? They were in the basement?”
I nodded. “They fed me a story about a stash of contraband stuff, but it was just a prank. They locked me in the model room.”
“The model room?”
I drew a square with my fingers. “The secret custodian’s closet that contains a perfect-scale model of the city? I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about here.” >
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. Look, I was patient about the midnight disappearances, the secret basement stuff, but”—I twirled a finger at the hospital room around us—“the time has come to start talking.”
After a minute of consideration, she nodded. “You’re right. You were hit with firespell.”
For a few seconds, I just looked at her. It took me that long to realize that she’d actually given me a straight answer, even if I had no idea what she’d meant. “A what?”
“Firespell. The name, I know, totally medieval. Actually, so is firespell itself, we think. But that’s really a magical archaeology issue, and we don’t need to get into that now. Firespell,” she repeated. “That’s what hit you. That green contact-lens-looking deal. It was a spell, thrown by Sebastian Born. Pretty face, evil disposition.”
I just stared blankly back at her. “Firespell.”
“It’s going to take time to explain everything.”
I hitched a thumb at the monitor and IV rack that stood next to my bed. “I think my calendar is pretty free at the moment.”
Scout’s expression fell, her usual sarcasm replaced by something sadder and more fearful. There was worry in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Lil. I was so scared—I thought you were gone for a minute.”
I nodded, not quite ready to forgive her yet. “I’m okay,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I meant it.
Scout nodded, but blinked back tears, then bobbed her head toward the table beside my bed. “Your parents called. I guess Foley told them you were here? I told them you were okay—that you fell down the stairs. I couldn’t—I wasn’t sure what to tell them.”
“Me, either,” I muttered, and plucked the phone from the nightstand. They’d left me a voice mail, which I’d check later, and a couple of text messages. I opened the phone and dialed my mom’s number. She answered almost immediately through a crackling, staticky connection.
“Lily? Lily?” she asked, her voice a little too loud. There was fear in her tone. Worry.
“Hi, Mom. I’m okay. I just wanted to call.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, relief in her voice. “She’s okay, Mark,” she said, her voice softer now as she reassured my father, who was apparently beside her. “She’s fine. Lily, what happened? God, we were so worried—Marceline called and said you’d taken a fall?”
I opened and closed my mouth, completely at a loss about how I was supposed to deal with the fact that I now had proof my Mom was on a first name basis with Foley—not to mention Foley’s perspective on my parents’ careers—so I asked the most basic question I could think of. “You know Foley? Ms. Foley, I mean?”
There was a weird pause, just before a crackle of static rumbled through the phone. I pressed my palm against my other ear. “Mom? You’re cutting out. I can’t hear you.”
“Sorry—we’re on the road. Yes, we’re—yes. We know Marceline.” Crackle. “—you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said again. “I’m awake and I feel fine. I just—slipped. Why don’t you call me later?”
That time, I only heard “traveling” and “hotel” before the connection went dead. I stared at the phone for a few seconds before flipping it shut again.
“I just lied to my parents,” I snottily said when I’d returned the phone to the table. I heard the petulance in my voice, but given my surroundings, I thought I deserved it.
Scout opened her mouth to respond but before she could get words out, a knock sounded at the door. Scout met my gaze, but shrugged.
“Come in?” I said.
The door opened a crack, and Jason peeked through.
“My, my,” Scout murmured, winging up eyebrows at me. I sent her a withering look before Jason opened the door fully and stepped inside. He was out of his Montclare Academy duds today, and was dressed casually in jeans and a navy zip-up sweater. I knew this was neither the time nor the place, but the navy did amazing things for his eyes. On one shoulder was the strap of a backpack, and in his hand was a slim vase that held a single, puffy flower—a peony, maybe.
The flower and backpack weren’t Jason’s only accessories. When Michael appeared behind him, I gave Scout the same winged-up eyebrows she’d given me. A blush began to fan across her cheeks.
“Just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Jason said, closing the door once he and Michael were in the room. He dropped his backpack on a second plastic chair, then extended his arm, a smile on his face. “And we brought you a flower.”
“Thanks,” I said, self-consciously touching a hand to my hair. I couldn’t imagine that anything up there looked pretty after twelve hours of unconsciousness. Scout reached out to take the vase, then placed it atop a bureau next to a glass container of white tulips.
I pointed at the arrangement. “Where’d those come from?”
“Huh?” Scout asked, then seemed to realize the tulips were there. “Oh. Right. Let’s see.” She pulled out the card, frowned, then glanced back at me. “It just says, ‘Board of Trustees.’ ”
“That was surprisingly thoughtful,” I mumbled, thinking Foley must have given them a call.
“Garcia didn’t want to study,” Jason said, “so we thought we’d amble over.”
Scout arched a brow at Michael. “Does Garcia ever want to study?”
“I have my moments, Green,” he said, then moved toward the bed. When he reached me, he picked up my hand and squeezed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit by a freight train.”
“Understandable,” Jason said behind him, and Michael nodded in agreement.
“Scout was just about to explain to me exactly what’s going on beneath Chicago.” Jason and Michael both snapped their gaze to Scout. I guessed they had mixed feelings about her confession. She waved cheekily.
“But now that the full club has convened,” I continued, linking my hands in my lap, “you can decide amongst yourselves who wants to do the explaining. Blue eyes? Brown eyes?” I glanced over at Scout. “Instigator?”
“I am so not an instigator,” Scout said. “I was the one being chased, if you’ll recall, not doing the chasing.”
“Instigator,” Michael said with a grin. “I like that.”
When Scout stuck her tongue out at him, he winked back at her. Her blush flared up again. I bit back a smile.
“All right,” Jason said. “You got dragged into the conflict, so you deserve some answers. What do you want to know?”
“Scout already said I was hit by firespell,” I said, “and I’ve figured out some of the rest of it. You three are in cahoots and you roam around under the convent and battle bad guys who make earthquakes and shoot fire from their hands.”
Silence.
“That’s not bad, actually,” Scout finally said.
Michael cocked his head at me. “How are you feeling about the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part of that?”
I frowned down at the thin hospital sheet, then picked at a pill in the fabric. It was probably time for me to give some thought to whatever it was I’d been dragged into—or, maybe more accurately, that I’d fallen into.
“I’m not sure,” I said after a minute. “I mean, I’m not really in a position to doubt the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part. I’ve felt the earthquakes, felt the fire. It hurt,” I emphasized. The memory of that burning heat made my shoulders tense, and I rolled them out to relieve the tension.
“I’m alive,” I said, glancing up at them, “which I guess isn’t something I can really take for granted right now. But beyond that, I haven’t really had time to think much about it. To process it, if that makes sense.”
I glanced up at Scout. Her expression had fallen, and she nibbled the edge of her lip. There was fear in her face, maybe apology, as well. It was the insecurity that comes from knowing that someone you’d brought into your life could disappear again, leaving you alone.
“It makes sense,” she quietly said. Her words were a statement, but there was a question in her tone: Is this it for us? For our friendship?
Scout and I looked at each other for a few seconds, and in the time that elapsed during that glance, something happened—I realized I’d been given an opportunity to become part of a new kind of family; an opportunity to trust someone, to take a chance on someone. My parents may have been four thousand miles away, but I’d gained a new best friend. And that was something. That was the kind of thing you held on to.
“Well then,” I said, my gaze on hers, “I suppose you’d better fill me in.”
It took her a moment to react, to realize what I’d said, to realize that I was committing to being a part of whatever it was they were really, truly involved in. And when she realized it, her face lit up.
But before we could get too cozy, Jason spoke up.
“Before you tell her more than she already knows,” he said, “you need to think about what you’re doing. She was underground for only a little while. That means there’s a chance they won’t recognize her. We can all go about our business, and there’s no need for them to know she exists.”
He crossed his arms and frowned. “But if you bring her into it, she becomes part of the conflict. Not a JV member, sure, but part of the community. You’ll put her on the radar, and they’ll mark her as a supporter of the enclave. She may become a target. If you tell her more, she’s in this. For better or worse, she’s in it.”
I was okay with “for better or worse.” It was “till death do us part” that I wasn’t really excited about.
“Look around,” Scout quietly said, her gaze on me. “She’s in the hospital wearing a paper nightgown. She has a tube in her arm.” She shifted her gaze to Jason, and there was impatience there. “She’s already in this.”
As if she’d made the decision, Scout half jumped onto the bed and arranged herself to sit on the edge. As she moved around, Michael and Jason took a step backward to get out of her way, exchanging a quiet glance as they waited for her to begin.
“Unicorns,” she said.
There was silence in the room for a few seconds. “Unicorns,” I repeated.
She bobbed her head. “Unicorns.”
I just blinked. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with that.”
“Aha,” she said, a finger in the air. “You didn’t expect me to start with that, did you? But, seriously, unicorns. Imagine yourself in medieval Europe. You’ve got horses, oxen, assorted beasts of burden. Times are dark, dirty, generally impoverished.”
Jason leaned toward Michael. “Is this going somewhere?”
“Not a clue,” Michael said. “This is the first time I’ve heard this speech.”
“Zip it, Garcia. Okay, so dark, dirty, lots of peasants, things are dreary. All of a sudden, a maiden walks into a field or some such thing, and she expects to see a horse there. But instead, there’s a unicorn. Horn, white mane, magical glow, the whole bit.”
She stopped talking, then looked at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry, Scout, but if that was supposed to be a metaphor or something, I got nothin’.”
“Seconded,” Michael added.
Scout leaned forward a little, and when she continued, her voice was quieter, more solemn. “Think about what I said. What if, all of a sudden, every once in a while, it wasn’t just another horse in the field? What if it really was a unicorn?”
“Ohhh,” Jason said. “Got it.”
“Yep,” Michael agreed.
“There are people in the world,” Scout said, “like those unicorns in the field. They’re unique. They’re rare.” She paused and glanced up at me, her expression solemn. “And they’re gifted. With magic.”
Okay, I guess with all the unicorn talk, I probably should have seen that coming. Still, I had to blink a few times after she laid that little egg.
“Magic,” I finally repeated.
“Magical powers of every shape and size,” she said. “I can see the doubt in your eyes, but you’ve seen it. You’ve felt it.” She bobbed her head toward my IV. “You have firsthand experience it exists, even if you don’t know the what or the why.”
I frowned. “Okay, earthquakes and fire and whatnot, but magic?”
Jason leaned forward a little. “You can have a little time to get used to the idea,” he said. “But in the meantime, you might want to have her move along with the explanation. She’s got quite a bit to get through yet.” He smiled warmly, and my heart fluttered, circumstances notwithstanding.
“You must be a real hit with the ladies, Shepherd, with all that charm.” Scout’s tone was dry as toast. I bit back a grin, at least until she looked back at me again. She gave me a withering expression, the kind of raised-eyebrow look you might see on a teacher who’d caught you passing notes in class.
“Please,” I said, waving an invitational hand. “Continue.”
“Okay,” she said, holding up her hands for emphasis, “so there’s a wee percentage of the population that has magic.”
“What kind of magic? Is it all earthquakes and air-pressure-contact-lenses and whatnot?”
“There’s a little bit of everything. There are classes of powers, different kinds of skills. Elemental powers—that’s fire and water and wind. Spells and incantations—” >
One of the puzzle pieces fell into place.
“That’s you,” I exclaimed, thinking of the books in Scout’s room. Recipe books. Spell books. “You can do spells?”
“Of a sort,” she blandly said, as if I’d only asked if she had a nose ring. “They call me a spellbinder.”
I glanced over at Jason and Michael, but they just shook their heads. “This is your field trip. You can get to us later,” Michael said, then glanced at Scout. “Keep going.”
“Anyway,” Scout said, “the power usually appears around puberty. At the beginning of the transition to adulthood.”
“Boobs and earthquakes?” I asked. “That’s quite a change.”
“Seriously,” she agreed with a nod. “It’s pretty freaky. You wake up one morning and boom—you’re sporting B cups and the mystical ability to manipulate matter or cast spells or battle Reapers for dominion over Chicago. Gossip Girl has nothing on us.”
I just stared at her for a minute, trying to imagine exactly what that life would have been like. Not just the part about waking up with B cups—although that would be a pretty big adjustment. I glanced down at my chest. Not a horrible adjustment, I guessed, but nonetheless . . .
“You still with us?” Scout asked.
I glanced up quickly, a flush rising on my cheeks. She grinned cheekily. “I’ve thought the same thing,” she said with a wink.
“Before you two get too friendly,” Michael said, “tell her the catch.”
“There’s a catch?” I asked.
“Isn’t there always?” she asked dryly. “The thing is, the magic isn’t eternal. It doesn’t last forever, at least, not without a price. When we’re young—teens, twenties—the magic makes us stronger. It works in conjunction with our bodies, our minds, our souls. When we’re young, it’s like an extra sense or an extra way to understand the world, an extra way to manipulate it. We have access to something humans forgot about after the witch trials scared it out of everyone, after fear made everyone forget about the gift.”
“And when you get older?”
“The power comes at a cost,” Jason said. “And our position is, the cost is pretty nasty.”
“Too high,” Michael added with a nod.
I arched an eyebrow. “A cost? Like mentally? Does it make you crazy or something?”
“It could,” Scout said. “It rots the body, the soul, from the inside out.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean, it rots the body? Like, it kills people?”
She nodded. “The older you get, the more the magic begins to feed from you. It drains you, transforms you. The magic shifts, from something symbiotic to a parasite. And in order to stay alive, to keep up with the power’s constant craving, you have to feed it.”
“With what?” My voice was quiet. So was Scout’s when she answered.
“With the energy of others. Those who keep their power must learn to drink the essence of others—like vampires of the soul. We call them Reapers.”
“Takers of life,” I thought aloud.
“Bringers of death,” she said. “You want a shorter life span, they’re the folks you call.”
“You said they take the energy of others,” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
Jason took a step forward. “Have you ever seen people who you thought seemed drained of energy? Depressed? Like, kids who are sleeping in class all the time, dragging around, that kind of thing?”
“I’m a teenager,” I flatly said. “That’s pretty much how we live.”
“Puberty takes its toll,” Scout agreed, “but hormones aren’t the only problem. Reapers target people with self-confidence issues—people who don’t fit in. And slowly, so they don’t gain too much attention, the Reapers consume their energy. Call it their aura, their soul, their will to live. That spark that makes us who we are, that makes us more than walking robots.”
“The earthquake and fire kids,” I said, “The ones chasing you—chasing us—under the convent. Those were the Reapers?”
Scout nodded. “It’s a belated introduction, but meet Alex and Sebastian. She’s a senior in the publics; he’s a sophomore at Northwestern. They don’t actually need to do any reaping right now—they’re too young—but they help find victims for the older ones. That’s the Reaper way. Do whatever you have to do to keep your grip on the magic, regardless of how many people you hurt—or kill—to do it.”
“Okay,” I said. “So these bad guys, these Reapers, suck the souls out of people so they won’t become walking zombies. But what about the rest of you?” I looked at each of them in turn. “I assume you don’t plan on doing any soul sucking in the future?”
Before they could answer, there was another knock on the door. Before I could answer, a scrubs-clad nurse walked in, tray in hand.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “How are you feeling?” She shooed Scout off the bed, then put the tray—which held a small plastic tumbler of water, a small plastic pitcher, and a chocolate pudding cup.
“Okay. Considering.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, then came to my bedside and measured my pulse. She pulled the end of a tube from a machine connected to the wall, then held it toward me.
“Stick out your tongue,” she said. When I did, she stuck the chunk of cold plastic beneath my tongue, then watched a read-out behind me. “Shouldn’t you all be in school right now?” she asked without glancing up.
“We have passes,” Scout said.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said again. When the machine beeped, she pulled out the thermometer, put it away, and then moved to the end of my bed, where she scribbled something on my chart. When she’d returned it to its slot, she looked at me. “Visiting hours are over in an hour.”
“Sure,” I said. After a final warning glance at Scout, Michael, and Jason, she disappeared out the door again.
Suddenly starving, I pointed at the tray at the end of the bed. “Hand me the pudding cup and get on with the story,” I told Scout. She peeled off the foil top, then handed me the cup and spoon as she licked the remnant of chocolate pudding from the foil. I dug in.
“No soul sucking,” Michael continued. “From our perspective, keeping the power isn’t worth it—not to feed off others. We aren’t willing to pay that cost, to take lives so we can wax poetic about how great it is to be an Adept.”
I swallowed a giant spoonful of chocolate pudding—magical near misses really built up the appetite—then lifted my brows at him. “Adept?”
“Those of us with magic,” he said, “but who are willing to give it up. It’s what we call ourselves. Our philosophy is, we hit twenty-five, and we return our power to the universe. We stop using it. We make a promise, take a vow.”
“It’s an even trade,” Scout said, with a small smile. “No more power, but no more upsetting the balance of the universe.”
“No more being Adepts,” Jason said, his voice quieter and, I thought, a little wistful, as if he’d considered the blow that giving up his magic would be, and he wasn’t thrilled about it.
“Okay,” I said. “So, to review, you’ve got kids with magical powers running around Chicago. Some of them are willing to give it up when the magic gets predatory—that would be you guys.”
Scout bobbed her head.
“And some of them aren’t willing to give it up, so they have a future of soul sucking to look forward to.”
“That’s a fair summary,” Michael said with a nod.
“But that doesn’t explain why you guys are running around under the convent throwing, what, firespell, at one another.”
Scout looked up at Michael, who nodded, as if giving her permission to answer the question. “We found a list,” she said. “A list of, well, I guess you’d call them leads. Kids who’ve been scoped out by Reapers. Kids they’re targeting for a power lunch, no pun intended.”
I nodded my understanding.
“I’ve been working out a spell of protection, a little half charm, half curse, to keep the Reapers from being able to zero in on their targets.”
“How do you do that?”
“Have you ever tried to look at a faraway star,” Scout asked, “but the closer you look at it, the fuzzier it gets?”
“Sure. Why?”
“That’s what Scout’s trying to do here,” Michael said, crossing his arms and bobbing his head in her direction. “Making the targets invisible to the Reapers. She’s been working on a kid who lives in a condo on Michigan, goes to a high school in South Loop. They haven’t been real thrilled with that.”
“And that’s why they’ve been chasing you?” I asked, sliding my gaze to Scout.
“As you might imagine,” she said, “we aren’t exactly popular. Our ideas about giving up our power don’t exactly put us in the majority.”
“The gifted are proud to have magic,” Jason said, “as well they should be. But most of them don’t want to give it up.”
“That puts us in the minority,” Michael added. “Rebels, of a sort.”
“A magic splinter cell?”
“Kinda,” Scout said with a rueful smile. “So the Reapers identify targets—folks who make a good psychic lunch—and kids who are coming into their own, coming into their own gifts. Spotters,” she added, anticipating my question. “Their particular gift is the ability to find magic. To detect it.”
“Once a kid is identified,” Michael said, “the Reapers circle like lions around prey. They’ll talk to the kid, sometimes their parents, about the gift, figure out the parameters, exactly what the kid can do. And they’ll teach the kid that the gift is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that any souls they take are worth it.”
“The Reapers try to teach the kids that the idea of giving up your power willingly is a conspiracy,” Jason said, “that feeding on someone else’s energy, their essence, is a kind of magical natural selection—the strong feeding on the weak or something. We disagree. We work our protective spells on the targets, or we try to intercede more directly with the gifted, to get the kids to think for themselves, to think about the consequences of their magic.”
“For better or worse,” Scout added.
“So you try to steal their pledges,” I concluded.
“You got it,” Scout said. “We try to teach kids with powers that giving up their powers is the best thing for humanity. You know, because of the soul sucking.”
I smiled lightly. “Right.”
“That makes us pretty unpopular with them, and it makes the Reapers none too popular with us,” she added. “We didn’t need the original Reapers. And we certainly don’t need Reapers spawning out there.”
“Seriously,” Jason muttered. “There’re already enough Cubs fans in Chicago.”
Michael coughed, but the cough sounded a lot like, “Northside.”
I arched an eyebrow, and returned my glance to Scout. “Northside?”
“Where the Cubs are,” she said. “They’re territorial.”
“I see. So, what do you do about the evangelizing? About the Reaper spawn, I mean?”
“Well, we are the good guys,” Michael said. “They’re bullies, and we’re a nuisance. We make it harder for them to do their jobs—to recruit, to brainwash, to convince kids with magic that they can keep their powers and live long, fulfilling lives as soul-sucking zombies.”
“We thwart with extreme prejudice,” Scout said with a grin. “Right now, we’re doing a lot of protecting targets, and a lot of befriending the gifted who haven’t yet been turned toward the dark side.”
“A lot of things that get you chased,” I pointed out, giving Scout a pointed look.
“That is true,” she said with a nod. “Reapers are tenacious little suckers. We spend a lot of time keeping ourselves alive.”
I crossed my legs beneath the thin blanket. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have let them into St. Sophia’s.”
Scout snorted. “We didn’t let them in. The tunnels beneath the convent connect it to half the buildings in the Loop. Welcome to the Pedway.”
“How many of them are there?” I asked.
“We think about two hundred,” Scout said. “Sounds like a lot, but Chicago is the third-biggest city in the country. Two hundred out of nearly three million isn’t a lot. And we don’t really have an ‘in’ with them, obviously, so two hundred’s only a best guess.”
“And you guys?”
“This month, we’re holding steady at twenty-seven identified Adepts in and around Chicago,” Michael said. “That includes Junior Varsity—high schoolers—and Varsity. V-squad is for the college Adepts, their last chance to play wizard and warlock before it’s time to return to a life of mundane living. We’re organized into enclaves in and around the city. Headquarters, kind of.”
Another puzzle piece fell into place. “That’s what the symbols on the buildings in the model room mean.” My voice rose a little in excitement. “There was a Y in a circle, and these kind of combined circles, sort of like a cross. Those are enclave locations?”
“Those circle things are called ‘quatrefoils,’ ” Michael said. “The Y symbol indicates enclave and sanctuary locations—that’s where the Reapers plan their minion baiting—around the city. There are six enclaves in Chicago. St. Sophia’s is Enclave Three.” >
“Or ET, as the idiots like to call it,” Scout added with a grin, bobbing her head toward the boys.
Jason lifted his gaze to mine, and there was concern there. “Did you say you’ve been to the city room?” He looked over at Scout, and this time his gaze was accusatory. “You let her into the city room?”
“I didn’t let her in,” Scout defended. “I wasn’t even there. The preps found the room and led her down there, locked her in.”
Jason put his hands on his hips. He was definitely not happy. “Regulars know about the city room?”
“I told you people would get through,” Scout said. “Not all the tunnels are blocked off. I told you this was going to happen eventually.”
“Not now,” Michael interjected. “We don’t need to talk about this right now.”
A little tension there, I guessed. “Why the tunnels in the first place?” I wondered. “If Reapers are out to suck the souls from humans and keep you guys from getting in their way, why don’t they just bust through the front door of St. Sophia’s and take out the school?”
“We may be a splinter cell,” Jason said, “but we’ve got one thing in common with the Reapers—no one wants to be outed to the public. We don’t want to deal with the chaos, and Reapers like being able to steal a soul here and there without a lot of public attention.”
“People probably wouldn’t take that very well,” I said.
“Exactly,” Scout agreed with a nod. “Reapers don’t want to be locked up in the crazy house—or experimented on—any more than we do. So we keep our fights out of the public eye. We keep them underground, or at least off the streets. We usually make it out and back without problems, but they’ve been aggressive lately. More aggressive than usual,” she muttered.
I remembered what Scout had told me about their long, exhausting summer. I guessed ornery, magic-wielding teenagers could do that to a girl.
“They have given chase a lot lately,” Jason said. “We’re all thinking they must be up to something.”
The room got quiet, the three of them, maybe contemplating just what the Reapers might be up to. Then they looked at me expectantly, maybe waiting for a reaction—tears or disbelief or enthusiasm. But I still had questions.
“Do you look forward to it?” I asked.
Scout tilted her head. “To what?”
“To giving up your powers?” I uncrossed my legs and buried my toes in the blanket—this place was as frosty as St. Sophia’s. “I mean, you’ve got costs and benefits either way, right? Right now, you all have some kind of power. You hit puberty, and you get used to being all magically inclined, but then you have to give it up. Doesn’t that bother you?”
They exchanged glances. “It’s the way it is,” Scout quietly said. “Magic is part of who we are now, but it won’t be part of us forever.”
“But neither will midnight meetings and obnoxious Reapers and power-happy Varsity Adepts.”
Scout lifted her eyebrows at Jason’s mini-tirade.
“I know,” Jason said. “Not the time.”
I guessed things weren’t entirely hunky-dory in Enclave Three. “So the guy that blasted me, or whatever. You said his name was Sebastian. And he’s a Reaper.”
Scout nodded. “That’s him.”
“He said something before he blasted me. What was that?”
“Ad meloria,” Michael said. “It’s Latin. Means ‘toward better things.’ ”
I raised my eyebrows. “I’m guessing that’s their motto.”
“You’d be right,” Scout said. “They think the world would be a better place if they kept their magic. They think they’re the elite, and everyone should give them their due. A survival of the fittest kind of thing.”
“Survival of the craziest, more like,” Jason muttered. He glanced down at his watch, then looked up at Michael. “We probably need to head,” he said, then glanced at me. “Sorry to leave you in here. We’ve got some stuff at MA this afternoon.”
“No problem. Thanks for coming by. And thanks for the flower.”
He stuck his hands into his pockets and grinned back at me. “No problem, Parker. Glad you’ve rejoined the land of the living.”
I grinned back at him, at least until Scout’s throat clearing pulled my attention away.
“I should also head back,” she said, pulling a massive, baffled down jacket off the back of her chair. She squeezed into it, then fastened the clips that held it together. The white jacket went past her knees, which made it look like she had on nothing but tights and thick-soled Dr. Martens Mary Janes beneath it.
“You look like the Pillsbury Snow Boy.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s breezy out there today. Not all of us have these warm, lush accommodations to look forward to.”
I snuggled into the bed, thinking I’d better gather what warmth I could, given the possibility that I’d be returning to my meat locker of a room tomorrow.
“Take care,” Michael said, rapping his knuckles on the tray at the end of the bed. I assumed that was the macho-guy equivalent of giving me a hug. Either way, I appreciated the gesture.
I smiled back at him. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”
“And hopefully under better circumstances.” He cast Scout a sideways glance. “Green.”
She rolled her eyes. “Garcia.” When she looked at me again, she was smiling. “I’ll give you a call later.”
I nodded.
The trio gathered up their things, and I clenched my fingers, itching to ask one final question. Well, scared to ask it, anyway. My palms were actually sweating, but I made myself get it out.
“Jason.”
They all turned back at the sound of his name.
He arched his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Could I talk to you for a sec?”
“Um, sure.” He shouldered his backpack, then exchanged a glance with Scout and Michael. She winged up her brows, but let Garcia push her toward and out the door.
When the door shut behind them, Jason glanced back at me. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah.” I frowned down at the blanket for a minute before finally raising my gaze to his crystal blue eyes. “Listen, I just wanted to say thanks. For getting me out of the basement, I mean. If it hadn’t been for you and Scout—”
“You wouldn’t have gotten hit in the first place,” he finished.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, not really able to argue that point.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he softly said. “And for what it’s worth, you’re welcome, Lily.”
I liked the way he said my name, as if it weren’t just a series of letters, but a word thick with meaning. Lily.
“I mean, I’m not glad you got wrapped up in this—especially since you don’t have magic to defend yourself with.” He tipped his head to the side. “Although, I think I heard something about a flip-flop?”
“I guess Scout’s been giving up all my offensive moves?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And impressive moves they are. I mean, who’d have thought that a few square inches of foam were really a technologically advanced—”
“All right, Shepherd. You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?” he asked, with a half smile.
Turned out, Jason’s half smile was even more deadly than the full, dimpled grin. The half smile was drowsier—almost ridiculously handsome.
“You did,” I finally said.
We stared silently at each other for a moment before he bobbed his head toward the door. “I guess I should join Scout and Michael?”
He made it a question, as if he didn’t want to leave, but could sense my nerves. Heart pounding fiercely in my chest, I stopped him. “Actually, one more thing.”
He raised questioning brows.
“When we were down there in the basement. When I got hit. I thought—I thought I heard a growl. Like an animal.”
His eyes widened, lips parting in surprise. He hadn’t expected me to bring it up, but I couldn’t get the sound out of my mind.
Jason hadn’t yet given me an answer, so I pressed on. I knew the growling hadn’t come from Scout—she’d admitted to being a spellbinder. And I didn’t think it had come from earthquake girl or firespell boy. Jason was the only other person there.
“That sound,” I said. “Was it you?”
He gazed at me, a chill in his blue eyes, shards of icy sapphire.
“Scout gave you the simple answer about Adepts,” he finally said. “She told you that we each have magic, a gift of our own. That’s a short answer, but it’s not entirely accurate.” He paused, then wet his lips. “I’m not like the others.”
My heart thudded so fiercely, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear it. It took me a moment to ask him. “How much not like them?”
When Jason looked up at me again, the color of his eyes had shifted to green and then to a silvered yellow, like those of a cat caught in the light. And there was something wolfish in his expression.
“Enough,” he said, and I’d swear his voice was thicker, deeper. “Different enough.”
He turned to go.
My heart didn’t stop pounding until the door closed behind him.