“Right,” Amy said. “They’re going to set sothing up for the end of the week. I asked why it couldn’t be sooner and it’s what you’d think. They all live in fear of Magnus. They don’t want it to be obvious that they’re going anywhere and don’t want it to be obvious that they returned. It takes ti to set it all up.”
“Huh,” I rembered how far Ruthie Shaw had been from anywhere. “I knew they were on the run, but it makes wonder how much of a risk it is to get them together.”
Amy t my eyes, “One that they’re willing to take because they’re afraid that not doing it will be worse.”
I stepped out of the Rocket suit, leaving in a grey flight suit that reford into jeans and a t-shirt. Having a conversation where one of us was in civilian clothes felt weird.
Then I asked, “Did they give us any limits on who could co to the eting?”
She shook her head, “I’m sure they don’t want very many, but I think we should take people with a chance of beating Cabal soldiers and Dominators in case their precautions aren’t good enough.”
“Yeah,” I looked past her toward the door, hoping we had a private conversation. “I’m thinking you, Jaclyn, Daniel, Cassie, Haley, and . That’ll be flexible and hopefully not too many people.”
Amy shrugged, “I can ask them, but don’t assu anything. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but wizards can be… flaky and irrational.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Her mouth quirked, “I’m not a wizard. I’m royalty with an extra helping of ‘ancestral guardian of the realm’. It’s not the sa.”
“Sure,” I said, “I’m no expert on either one. I’ll believe anything you say.”
“Good,” she smiled, “you should. Now I’m going to go and talk with more flaky and irrational people.”
With that she walked out the door, leaving alone in the room. I could hear people talking in the main room—mostly Cassie and Vaughn. They tended to be the loudest, but Camille gave them a run for their money. She might not be louder, but she wasn’t quiet and managed to fit a lot of words in.
I wasn’t quite ready to go out. After the fighting, even with the Rocket suit doing the physical work, I still felt sore. Not all of it was physical either. I’d used so of the techniques Kee had taught . That left taphysically sore. I didn’t quite have words for it. I felt frayed. The nearest thing I could think of was maybe being hungover, but I didn’t have a headache.
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I could think, but I didn’t quite feel all there.
What a massive detour the last few days had been. We’d started with a plan to get in touch with Magnus’ rivals in the Cabal and see if we could get them to help us find him and maybe the machine that Lee had hidden on or around Earth. We’d succeeded on that, sort of. At least we’d gotten in touch with Ruthie Shaw and she seed to have decided we were worth trusting.
It would have been simpler if we’d been able to talk to Lee, but he didn’t seem to be available—which was disquieting. It either ant that sothing big was going down, or it ant that soone had captured or killed him.
On a gut level, the second one seed unlikely given that the world still existed, but it might not be that simple.
Stifling a mont of panic, I reminded myself that I couldn’t assu anything without evidence and that he might predate our universe. He’d kept himself alive and free that whole ti without .
I decided to go online and check prices on equipnt and materials for my lab. It didn’t fix anything, but I bookmarked a few items for later—whenever they felt comfortable shipping to Grand Lake.
I also checked CNN and a few other news sites. All of them were covering Grand Lake. From what I could see, we appeared to be fantastically competent—more competent than I felt at the ti.
It didn’t hurt that the only footage they got ca from our social dia people.
If no one else, they were fantastically competent.
I sank into reading the articles and more than 30 minutes passed without being aware of anything else.
Rachel’s voice pulled out of it, “Reading your own good press? That’s a dangerous rabbit hole to go down.”
She stood there looking like she always had, but not quite if you had eyes to see it. She wore a white, form-fitting uniform with a pistol on her right hip. A white mask hid most of her face, but not her short, dark hair.
What normal people couldn’t see was a shimr of power around her, visible to even without trying. I wondered what she saw in .
As I turned to look at her, she landed on the ground, solidifying, the power dimming. She squeezed my shoulder, “What happened out there?”
It was hard to know where to start. With Hunter releasing the spores to fight us? With Major Justice complaining about the damage we’d caused while fighting the Nine?
She’d been away for months. I started with, “It’s a long story. I don’t know if you want to hear it from the beginning. The short version is that we’ve been fighting the Nine and you know how Hunter creates creatures? They got out of control. That’s what caused the most destruction, but I should tell you sothing first. Travis—”
There I stopped—not because of nervousness, but because I felt sothing and because Rachel interrupted .
“There’s so kind of hum. I don’t hear it. I feel it. Do you?”
She t my eyes, “You do, right?”
“Yeah,” I felt it through whatever sore, aching, taphysical part I’d been trying to ignore.
My Xiniti implant said, “Artificer energies. Most associated with newly activated Artificer creations.”
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