All the breath in my lungs escaped in a whoosh. The blood drained from Deacon’s face. Children. This fight had entered a new level. “How bad is it? Have they caught who did it? How many were injured?”

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. When Sybil finally spoke, her voice was lower than I had ever heard it. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

  24

  The drive home was a blur. I wanted to be on the ground in Elustria, doing something, helping, not stuck here on Earth.

  “Children. Why would they go after children?” Deacon’s pale face unsettled me. I hadn’t seen him shaken up before.

  “Because they want to hurt us. Don’t try to find a rhyme or reason to what they do. It’ll only drive you mad. We can’t understand it because we’re not like them.” We fell into silence, my hands gripping the wheel as I sped toward home and Deacon’s fists tightening and flexing in his lap. What words were there to say at a time like this?

  From my parking spot, I could see Mr. Harmon sitting in front of his door. “Listen, before you get out”—I placed my hand on Deacon’s arm to stop him from opening the door—“remember that this is my home. My neighbor doesn’t know what I am or what I do. As horrible as we’re feeling right now, we can’t show it. He can’t ever know something’s wrong. Got it?”

  Deacon nodded. He took a few deep breaths to gather himself.

  “I’ll have to introduce you to him. There’s no way Mr. Harmon is going to let me walk by with a guy he hasn’t met and not introduce himself.”

  Deacon’s transformation as he stood from his seat and shut the door stunned me. An affable smile graced his lips, and a cheery little lilt entered his stride. He looked like a man happy to be alive as we strode to the building.

  Halfway up the stairs, I waved to Harry. “Good morning, Mr. Harmon. How are you doing today?”

  “Oh I’m fine, fine. You know how it is.” He made a show of looking around me to Deacon. “Not doing as well as you are, though. Who do we have here following you home?”

  I smiled, shoving all my feelings aside, letting my love for Harry light my eyes. “This is Deacon. Sybil invited us over. And before you ask, he’s just a friend. Deacon, this is Mr. Harmon.”

  Mr. Harmon started to stand to shake hands, but Deacon waved him back into his seat. “No need to get up, sir.”

  “Polite. I like a young man with manners. And a nice handshake too,” Mr. Harmon said, looking at me as they shook hands. He wagged his eyebrows at me and then focused on Deacon. “You can call me Harry.”

  Before Deacon could reply, I stepped in. “Your plants are looking a little dry, Mr. Harmon. Let me help you with that.” I grabbed his watering can that was filled and waiting for me to tend to the hanging plants. Even if we were in a hurry, it only took a second, and I knew it meant a lot to Harry. He could care for them himself, but he liked having an excuse for some conversation, so he often had his watering can waiting for me to help.

  “Thank you, dear. Always looking out for me.” Harry gave me one of his warm grandfatherly smiles then turned to Deacon. “And you, young man, you’re a fool if you’re staying just friends with this one. I hope that’s her decision, not yours. Otherwise, I think you’re mighty dumb.”

  “Mr. Harmon!” I glared at him. “I told you, I’m not looking for anything romantic right now.” He would never stop his matchmaking ways.

  “You’re wasting your youth. You need to have a little fun.”

  I rolled my eyes and leaned down, giving Harry a little peck on the cheek. “Looks like you’re all set. We’ve got to get to Sybil’s.”

  “Of course, don’t let me keep you. Nice meeting you, Deacon.”

  “And you too, sir.”

  I’d only rapped my knuckles once on Sybil’s door before she opened it. She ushered us inside, her face lined with stress. “Good, you’re here.”

  The inside of Sybil’s apartment looked about like you’d expect after meeting her. Everything was bright colors and funky art. In a matter of days, she’d done more decorating than I had in years. While I liked to think it was for her cover, the Circle had never gone to such lengths for me, so it was probably all her.

  “Have you got any more information?” Deacon asked as soon as the door shut behind us.

  Sybil nodded and gestured to the sofa. “Take a seat, and I’ll tell you what I know.” Deacon and I sat side by side on the sofa, and Sybil took the chair opposite us. “It happened quickly. It was at Moonlark Academy.”

  I gasped. The possibility that it was my old school hadn’t occurred to me. My happiest years had been spent there learning and exploring the grounds in the foothills of the Spineback Mountains.

  “Isn’t that out in the countryside beyond Selara?” Deacon asked. “It seems like an odd choice for an attack.”

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Sybil said. “I’m sorry, Nadiya.” Of course Sybil would know I’d attended Moonlark.

  Deacon looked at me with a questioning eye.

  “I was a student there when Alistair recruited me.”

  “You were recruited that young?” Deacon’s astonishment filled his face. At least there was something about me he hadn’t known.

  “Yeah.” This wasn’t abstract or theoretical. I was certain I knew the families of some of the students. “And you said they’re all dead? You’re sure?” I asked Sybil.

  “They haven’t found any survivors. The entire school was leveled. It happened too quickly to evacuate. The only reason we have any information at all is because one of the parents was talking to their daughter when it happened and saw the attack. The entire school exploded into a fiery mess.”

  “Exploded?” I asked. It wasn’t a common attack method in Elustria.

  “Don’t tell me they think dragons did this,” Deacon said. The school was close to the Spineback Mountains, ancestral home of the dragons. It wasn’t uncommon for freak accidents, especially fires in the area, to be blamed on dragons.

  “No, the Circle doesn’t,” Sybil said. Deacon relaxed a little. The last thing dragons needed was to be hunted out of vengeance. “According to the mother who saw the attack, it was mages.”

  I didn’t underestimate mages. I knew better than most what they were capable of, but I couldn’t figure out how this was possible. “How could a mage get into the school without being detected? There aren’t any teleportation rings anywhere near the campus. If anyone tried to place any, they’d be found and destroyed immediately.”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know. The witness said the mages seemed confused. Security incapacitated them, but there were still explosions.”

  This kept getting stranger. “You keep saying them. How many were there?”

  “The witness is guessing about a dozen.”

  A dozen mages? That was the most out of character part. Mages didn’t work in groups that big. This witness wasn’t trained to take in details like an agent was, but what she said made no sense. “She said they were incapacitated and then there were still explosions. If there aren’t any teleportation rings on the campus, then the mages died too?”

  “That’s correct,” Sybil said, her voice resigned to a new senseless reality. “It must be a tactic they picked up here on Earth.”

  Everything rushed into sharp focus. The meeting, the need for humans, the devices, and the bombs. It all came at me like a blow to the stomach. The force of it doubled me over. I cradled my head in my hands, hoping to find some flaw in the revelation.

  “What is it?” Deacon asked. Of course, it would seem odd that the thing that troubled me the most was Sybil saying the mages had died.

  I shook my head, hoping that it would all go away, but the reality stared back at me in the eyes of the people we’d seen this morning. “They weren’t mages. They were humans.”

  Deacon sucked in a sharp breath, realizing the truth as I had.

  “What are you talking about? Humans can’t travel to Elustria,” Sybil said.

  “They can now. That’s what we saw today.” I relayed everything that happened. “We couldn’t figure out what use they would have for humans in Elustria, really what use they’d have for humans at all. But this is it. They’re unwitting suicide bombers. That’s why all of the explosives at Christoff’s had remote detonators. The mages must’ve had the elf port them away and then they detonated the bombs. When we watched them today, they must have been handing them each an explosive in addition to the magical device.”

  A wave of nausea overcame me. When we had watched them go through the portal, they were going to their deaths, and they were taking innocent children with them. The faces of the humans flashed before my eyes. They’d been happy, hopeful, convinced they were improving their lives. The seminars had simply been a way to control them, to make them compliant, to ready them for slaughter. I’d seen some really fucked-up things in my work, but this was the first time that it had made me physically ill.

  I rushed to the bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Bile and acid burned my throat. When I flushed, I looked up, and Deacon was standing in the doorway. He took a washcloth and wet it in the sink then handed it to me. “Here, for your face.”

  I welcomed the cool touch of the cloth to my forehead. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m sorry for all of this.” He crouched down next to me.

  “It’s not like it’s your fault.” For a brief moment, I wondered if he had known. Had he somehow let this attack go forward in a quest to fulfill prophecy? As quickly as the thought came, I quashed it. I didn’t know much about Deacon, but I did know that he couldn’t stomach something like that. His disgust and shock in the car had been genuine.

  “Still, you shouldn’t have to deal with it. No one should.”

  “Someone has to. At least I know I’m competent to stop it.” I rose to my feet and rinsed my mouth out, trying to feel the confidence of my words. When I cleared my mouth of the bitter taste, I caught Deacon’s gaze in the mirror, my fervor burning in my eyes, hoping he saw my sincerity. “I am going to stop it, Deacon. Those mages are going to regret ever thinking up this plan. I swear it. But first, we have to find the mage who spotted us.”

  25

  When Deacon and I emerged from the bathroom, Sybil stood helpless in the living room. She had the look of someone who realized that a lifetime of preparation had been inadequate. The fear and uncertainty in her eyes were the same as a rookie’s. It was one thing to study and prepare in the safety of a classroom or temple and quite another to be faced with death and destruction in reality.

  I brushed right past her and sat back on the sofa. Talking about our feelings wouldn’t change anything. The best antidote for what Sybil felt was action. Deacon joined me and Sybil resumed her seat. I told her, “This is all just a test. A proof of concept. Now that they know it’ll work, they’ll make their attack at the feast. My guess is they were counting on the remote location of the academy to give them some cover. If it hadn’t been for that one parent, no one would know what really happened. It would have been blamed on dragons.”

  “At least now we can prepare for it,” Deacon said, but it was a vain hope.

  “How?” I asked. “Our people aren’t used to anything like this. Our only chance is to stop it.”

  Sybil said, “We can have the royal courts tell everyone to stay home. We can cancel public festivities.”

  I had a hard time believing that the Directorate wouldn’t plan for such a contingency. It didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t go through all this, come up with a masterful plan, and let it be ruined by people staying home. “It won’t change anything. Christoff said they had meetings all over the world. From a preliminary look at Christoff’s computer and a simple Internet search of the seminars, he’s right. Why do that? Why have so many meetings when all you really need is one? At first I thought it was a contingency. If one group doesn’t follow through, you have a backup, but I don’t think that’s it. I think they’re intending for each meeting to go through simultaneously on the day of the feast. They’ll be able to attack dozens, maybe hundreds of different locations. And we can’t predict where they’re going to show up. We can increase security at high-profile locations, but once the portals are formed, it’ll be less than a minute before those bombs go off. I don’t know how we react to that. If everyone stays home, they’ll send these bombs into our neighborhoods. There’s no escaping it. We’re going to have to stop it.”

  The only warning we would have was when alternate schedules were posted for the Be Your Best Self meetings on the day of the feast. By then, it would be too late.

  “So what do you want to do?” Sybil asked me. I’d expected her to defer to the Circle, but she wasn’t here for them, she was here for me. I was the supposed leader who would thwart the attack.

  “We need someone from the Circle to investigate the rings the mage used to get away, see if they can figure out where they go.” We didn’t have enough information to proceed with a plan and there was only one lead. “We have to find the man who ran from us.”

  “He seemed like a coward to me. Didn’t even try to fight us, just turned and ran.” Thick layers of disgust coated Deacon’s voice.

  “Why was he there?” Sybil asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “He might have had the detonator, or he was just a lookout to make sure everything went as planned.”

  “He knew we saw him. Would the Directorate really keep him Earthside in this situation?” Deacon asked. He made a good point.

  “I don’t know. We can hope that he didn’t report his failure or that the Directorate doesn’t want to divert resources to bring him back. He might be lying low here. Let me go get my laptop and we’ll see if we can find any clues as to who our mystery guy is.” I got up from the sofa. “I’ll be right back.”

  Mr. Harmon had mercifully retreated indoors. I couldn’t talk to him now. In my apartment, I leaned against the door and took in a few deep breaths. I needed a moment out from under Sybil and Deacon’s expectations. By nature, I wasn’t a crier, but the tears came, streaming silently down my cheeks. Children. Innocents.

  “What’s wrong?” Pint flew to me. “Who do I gotta beat up? You tell me, and I’ll roast ’em.”

  I wiped the tears away and laughed. I needed a laugh. “No one. This is for me to handle.” Even if he couldn’t help, he should still know. “The Directorate attacked Moonlark Academy. They sent innocent humans strapped with explosives. Everyone’s dead.”

  “Shit, Nadiya. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” He landed on my shoulder and licked a tear from my neck.

  “No. Just don’t die, all right?” I scratched him behind one of his little horns.

  “Psh. I’m a dragon who doesn’t go around killing people for a living. I’m going to outlive you, no contest.”

  “Thanks.” I pushed back from the door and grabbed the laptop and flash drive from the coffee table. “I’m headed back over to Sybil’s.”

  “I want to come. I like her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You like her because she feeds you steak.”

  “It’s not my fault she goes grocery shopping more than you do.”

  True. My housekeeping skills needed improvement. With how hectic my schedule had been and would continue to be, I owed him. “Fine, but we’re going to be working.”

  “I won’t bother a soul.”

  Perched on my shoulder, Pint could pass for a lizard as long as he kept his wings folded in. It slipped my mind that Pint and Deacon hadn’t met each other until I walked into Sybil’s and Deacon’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. I cut him off before he could ask. “Pint, this is Deacon. Deacon, this is Pint. He’s my cursed talking dragon.”

  Pint nodded to Deacon. “I prefer wiseass to cursed.”

  Deacon stood and walked closer, peering at Pint as if trying to figure out a trick. “He really can talk.” When Deacon reached out a hand to touch him, Pint breathed a stream of fire that singed Deacon’s fingertips. Deacon snatched his hand back, shaking the burn from his fingers.

  “Wow, you’re quick,” Pint said. “You sure you’re up for being the Dragon Fae’s partner?”

  I flicked Pint. “Be nice.”

  “You keep a dragon as a pet?” Deacon asked, ignoring Pint’s attitude.

  “Hey, I’m no one’s pet. I’m a trusted confidant. I was here before you, and I’ll be here after.”

  Deacon glared at Pint, a little jealousy sobering his expression. The two dragons in my life were getting off to a great start. Luckily, Sybil came to the rescue.

  “Hey, Pint, look what I have for you?” She conjured a piece of meat from her fridge. “And I got you something last night! Come look.” Pint flew to her, taking the meat from her hand and following her to the sliding glass door to her balcony. “It’s a little doggie door to match the one at Nadiya’s. I thought you could use it to come visit.”

  “Yeah, you’re no one’s pet all right,” Deacon murmured.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard or something, dragon protector?” Pint said as he chewed on another piece of meat.

  “You two stop it. We have work to do. Pint, you said you wouldn’t bother a soul.” He had the decency to look chastised as he followed Sybil to her chair and cuddled up in her lap, taking more steak from her fingers. But I noticed he stuck his tongue out at Deacon and covered it by licking his face.

  I sat on the sofa and opened my laptop. The flash drive had a decrypted copy of Christoff’s hard drive on it, so I had access to all of his stored passwords. Deacon sat next to me, and I asked him, “Were you serious when you said you’d be able to identify that mage if you saw him again? Could you recognize him even without his magic?” I wouldn’t be able to pick the guy out of a lineup. He had been too far away and running too fast, but as a shifter, Deacon would have better senses than me. I relied on them now.

  “Absolutely. Without a doubt.” Deacon’s voice was all business now.

  I navigated to the seminar’s website, BeYourBestSelf.club, and logged in with Christoff’s username: VegasLeader. His password was Paul3/21. He really had embraced his human cover down to using his kid’s name and birthday as a password. Using Christoff’s information, I had administrator privileges. That meant I could view a full directory of all personnel. I pulled up everyone associated with the Phoenix meeting. “Stop me when you see him.” I scrolled through the pictures in the directory. Not every name had a picture attached, but everyone who I’d seen at today’s meeting did. They seemed to be reserved for people who were further along in the “ascension” process. “Anything?”

 

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