“And once we get a black box, how do we open the portal?” I say, breathless.
You will need a Source, Hairless One.
I frown. “The black box uses the Source to rip open the portal?”
No, Percy says, with the long-suffering tone of someone trying to explain an extremely simple concept to a child.The black box tears open the hole. The Source helps to keep it open.
The Source.I chew my lip, thinking. The Source is the key. The tethers are only able to keep the portals open because they’re implanted with bits of Source.
It takes a moment for Percy’s explanation to sink in fully, but then I’m rummaging through my wardrobe.Source. Source. I need aSource.My mind chants the phrase over and over as I search, like it’s an affirmation.
After Harrisford had rescued me from the Magecorp tower, healed me, and put me in myTwilightshirt, he’d presumably stuffed his mother’s suit somewhere.
When I finally come across it, I realize thatstuffedisn’t exactly the right word. He had, in fact, folded it up neatly and placed it inside a drawer. I shake out the tweed fabric. It’s still covered with dust and debris from the explosion.
“What are you doing?” Heli asks, unfolding herself from the bed and coming to stand by me.
I don’t answer her. I just continue my careful search of all the crevices in the tweed, running my fingers along all the neatly sewn seams. And then—
“Got it,” I say, my heart giving a triumphant flip. Resting in my palm is a piece of Source: shrapnel from the explosion.
Percy tells us that Nathaniel Price has plenty of black boxes. He’s not quite sure what they’re called, how to work them, or even what they do, but he assures us that every time he witnessed Nathaniel tearing open a portal, he’d done so holding one of the boxes.
It takes the rest of the afternoon for Heli and me to sketch out a plan. Percy, having never had his bond formally rescinded from Nathaniel’s control, still has the ability to enter the Price family mansion. Unfortunately, the protection charms and security wards won’t allow either of us to accompany him, but he agrees to go in on his own.
That night, under cover of darkness, Heloise, Percy, and I sneak up to the tall steel fence of Mr.Price and Mrs.Mason-Price’s enormous estate property. In the distance, the peaked roofs of the Pricemansion are shadowed against the inky sky. Fortunately, it’s cloudy and dark, so Percy blends seamlessly into the surrounding shadows.
I crouch beside him, nerves tying my stomach in knots. This is dangerous—so dangerous. “Be careful,” I say, my mouth running dry. I only just got Percy back and I don’t want to lose him again. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t be seen.”
He narrows his eye to a slit.You are severely underestimating a cat’s ability to be stealthy.His tail twitches, irritated.It seems a conspicuous gap in your veterinary knowledge.
I don’t even have it in me to be annoyed by the snootiness of his tone. “Just…hurry back, okay?”
He spends some moments regarding me with a haughty look.Do not fear. I shall hurry.And as he turns away, he adds,I do not want to lose you, either.
I stare at him, open-mouthed. Did Percy just admit that he actually…cares about me? I don’t have time to ask, because already he’s squeezing into the minuscule space beneath the fence. Having demonstrated that cats actuallyaremade of liquid, he trots off into the darkness. When he is a few meters away he all but disappears, swallowed whole by the night.
“And now we wait,” I murmur. My chest feels constricted, as though I’ve zipped myself into a too-tight dress.
Heloise sits down, her back against the fence, and before long I sink down beside her.
“Do you think it’s actually Magecorp behind the surges?” I ask, after we’ve sat silently for a few minutes. “And the explosions?”
“I dunno, Gwen.” Heli’s eyes are wide and dark, liquid pools in the moonless night. “It doesn’t sound like using people as tethers is a new thing. I think”—she gives a small frown—“that maybe the surges and explosions are from something else, like Mr.Briggs claimed.”
“Maybe whoever’s sabotaging Magecorp is kidnapping the implanted people and using them up too fast.” I scrunch my nose up in disgust. “I would say it sounds like something the MLO would do, but then Professor Kaur…” I trail off. It’s beyond imagining to believe that the dean, my hero, would be involved in anything that shady. Not to mention someone as gentle, and asnoble, as Pen.
“Iknow, right?” Heli says, tipping her head back against the fence.
I almost lean back too, but instead I leap to my feet, because Percy is back. “Percy!” I whisper as he slips back underneath the fence. “You brilliant, brilliant animal.”
He trots toward us, a sleek black box around the size of a cigarette packet clamped between his jaws.
I stare at him, puzzled. “I thought you said it was a big box?”
It is big to me, Percy retorts, dropping the box at my feet. And it’s true. The strange black object might be small to me, but Percy had to almost unhinge his jaw to fit it inside his mouth.
I pick up the black box off the ground and shove it in my pocket. It’s heavier than I expected, and oddly cold. “You’re right. And thanks. You can definitely have some baked beans for that.”
