Ray didn’t need to shout at first. He’d pointed the tower out. All I had to do was aim toward it and dodge the perspective-wrenching sections of building that jutted out, made a twist, and seed to be either on the ground or in the sky or, more often than not, both at once.
I flew toward a distant walkway only to find out that it was close and below , flew under a bridge over a lake that was also a walkway over a castle, and found myself at the foot of the tower.
The tower either stood at the top of mountain and looked down on everything or at the bottom of a mountain next to a sheer cliff that went up forever. Which one you saw depended on whether you looked directly at it or whether you looked at it from the side.
When you looked directly at it, you looked down from the mountain. Almost everywhere else got the cliff option. The exception to “almost” turned out to be looking directly away from the castle.
There, you saw nothing but darkness as if nothing existed and never had.
I wanted to ask Kee what she’d been thinking, but knowing her after years of instruction, I had to bet that either it was a deliberate side effect of dinsional manipulation or she’d thought it was funny.
The odds were close enough either way that I couldn’t guess which. I couldn’t rule out the possibility of both either.
As we landed on the rocky hillside next to the tower, I asked Ray, “How did you get out of here?”
As he stepped away from , balancing on a boulder, he glanced into the darkness, shook his head and faced toward the tower. “It’s easier with sonar,” he said. “Magnus told to fly past the tower and aim downward. Whatever I planned to do, he told not to fly into the darkness. He’d sent people in and no one ca out.”
Prentkos frowned, “How many people?”
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Ray shrugged, “Not my problem. They’re gone and I can’t do anything about it.”
Prentkos gave him a look, but didn’t say anything.
I looked the tower up and down. If I had to classify it, I might have gone with off-brand Disneyland tower. Thin and white with no visible bricks in the wall (sorry, Pink Floyd), it started wide at the bottom, curved inward and curved outward again near the top.
An open doorway stood at the bottom. Whatever was inside could only be guessed at because the darkness revealed nothing, much like a drawing of a tower. I could only guess that the artist didn’t feel like putting in more detail.
“So,” I said, “we should have a plan before we go in, but to start, do we fly to the top or go up the inside?”
Ray looked up the tower. “Up the inside if we’re sneaking in, but maybe we should go the direct route. If you want up there with you in a position to help, we need a good lie—unless the two of you don’t lie? Because that’s going to be a problem.”
Prentkos crossed his arms and looked down at Ray. “You know better. We’re human. Please continue.”
Smirking, Ray said, “Nice to hear you admit it. Where I’d go with this is a literal backstab. Magnus has to know that I lost his superpower. I felt it. He had to too. He might not know that you told how to wipe his programming, though. We go in and I tell him that I tricked you into coming here so that his people can take care of you. If I’m lucky, maybe I get close enough to use your knife and stab him in the kidney.”
When neither I nor Prentkos responded, he said, “If you guys aren’t okay with stabbing him in the kidney, we aren’t going to be able to work together because this is how I do business.”
My mory flashed back to Sean’s father, dead in the stadium on graduation because Sean told Ray that he was going to take him in. Then Ray had joined up with the Cabal and pulled in Syndicate L.
Backstabbing almost certainly was his thing—though he’d literally shot Sean’s dad.
Given that Prentkos’ powers included superspeed, he must be leaving this decision to . “Sure,” I said. “I don’t see any way out of killing Magnus.”
“Good,” Ray said, glancing up toward the top of the tower. “I’m glad you’re being realistic because you’re going to have to trust . I’m going to say anything I can to get close to him and that ans I might have to pretend to sell you out. Don’t get wrong, I’m going to try to keep you close because I don’t have a chance against these guys alone, but if getting close ans that I need to tell them to take you out, I’ll do it. Resist furiously because if they’re going for you, they’re not paying attention to , and it’s open season on kidneys.”
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