Quintana salutes her and beelines for the coffee maker.
“Better make it to-go,” Casey orders, then turns back to me, Baz, and Stevie. “Okay, my little Tarot badasses. Start talking, and tell meeverything.”
Twelve
STEVIE
“Try to describe it as best you can,” Casey tells Carly. “What, exactly, did you feel?”
We’re all crammed into the kitchen again, desperately shoving in food before heading out. I don’t know why I thought our last big breakfast together would be more of an event, but clearly that was wishful thinking.
I glance around at my friends and fellow witches, hating that we have to split up like this. We’re all so much stronger together. But with enemies encroaching on multiple fronts, we need to be everywhere at once, and the only way to do that is to divide and conquer.
“You know when you’re driving up at elevation, and your ears pop?” Carly says between bites of granola. “Imagine that same sensation on a much bigger scale. I just got out of bed to pee, and suddenly there was this strange pressure all around me—it literally drove me to my knees. For a second I thought I was having a heart attack, but then the feeling just hit me. Not a vision, really, just a knowing.”
“A knowing?” Casey prods.
“Yep. In that moment, I knew without a doubt the sky was going to rip open and unleash a storm of immeasurable power, strong enough to take out everyone on earth like fleas in a tornado.” She forces a laugh, but it’s awkward and nervous. “I know that sounds completely stupid, but I don’t know how else to explain it. The feeling was there, clear as if it had already happened, then gone. When I tried to dive back into it, I couldn’t pick it up again.”
“Maybe it was… something else?” Casey raises her eyebrows, as if her prompting could make this whole thing any less horrifying. “A nightmare? Hallucination?”
“I wish.” Carly sets her cereal bowl in the sink and shakes her head, her shoulders slumping. “After that, there was another pop, then my signal dropped. Completely. Permanently.”
“Is that unusual after one of your insights?” Casey asks. “The dropped signal thing?”
“More than unusual. As far as I know, it’s impossible.” She turns around to face us again, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the edge of the sink. “Basically, the feelings I get—that knowingness—it’s like a constant hum in the background. Sometimes it comes at me in a strong wave, like that night when we saw Trello sneaking into the library with Phaines and I justknewsomething was wrong. Other times I have to make an effort to tune into it and decipher the messages from the noise. But the noise itself is always there, whether I tune in or not. It’s like a buzzing fridge—something you don’t even notice until it stops. Well, it stopped.”
No one says a word to that.
“Told you it sounded completely stupid.” Carly shrugs and inspects her fingernails as if she doesn’t care whether we believe her or not, but her fear is palpable.
“It’s not stupid at all,” Professor Maddox finally says, topping off her travel mug with a good dose of Quintana’s jet fuel coffee. “What you’ve just described? That’s a rift between realms, Carly.”
Professor Broome gasps, realization dawning in her eyes. “Oh, no. You don’t think…?”
“I do. She’s a skilled clairsentient, Kate. What she felt was a premonition. That rift and the so-called storm that follows? That’s the Dark Magician tearing the very fabric of our reality so he and his armies can slip in through the hole.Theyare the storm. Andwe—unless we can stop them—are the fleas.” She snaps the lid of her travel mug into place, the sound making me flinch.
Then, turning to Carly with a kind smile, she says, “I don’t want you to worry about your gifts, Carly. I know you haven’t experienced a loss like this before, but I assure you—it’s not impossible, and itistemporary.”
Carly’s fear evaporates, her relief a palpable surge. “Are you sure?”
Maddox nods. “It’s not unusual for a gifted psychic to experience sensory overload from a particularly powerful hit. Your senses just need a little time to recover.”
“Awesome,” Carly deadpans. “I’ll be back at a hundred percent just in time to greet the invading hoards.”
With that, we spend the next fifteen minutes going over the plans, making sure everyone knows where they’re supposed to be.
Casey, Quintana, and the self-named Hot-Girl Squad are driving out to the desert outpost, where they’ll use the energy vortex there to portal onto Academy lands. The agents will follow the path along the River of Blood and Sorrow toward campus, swimming the final half-mile in.
As soon as they give the signal, the Hot Girls will portal in near the border checkpoint behind the Blood and Sorrow dorms, where they’ll use a combination of—and I quote—“mysterious hot girl stuff and Dr. Devane’s boring-ass mental magick lessons” to create a diversion, allowing Casey and Quintana need to cross into campus proper, where they’ll attempt to locate and dismantle the secret portal Eastman is using to bring in his minions.
Assuming the girls can subdue the Blood and Sorrow guards, they’ll sneak onto campus and link up with Professors Broome and Maddox, who’ll be working from inside Eastman’s inner circle to ferret out any allies and warn them of the impending attack.
Last night, Kirin and Quintana were able to hack into the student messaging network and schedule a message to go out campus-wide two hours after the professors portal in. Once that message hits, Team Asshole will know we’re onto them, but so will everyone else. Hopefully, by the time those invading hoards hit prime time, we’ll have at more than a few witches and mages on our side, ready to fight.
This is it. We’re down to our last few minutes of peace at the Red Sands House. Dressed to fight, geared up with a few small daggers from Casey and some attack and defense potions from Professor Broome, I take a step back and look around at my friends. My family.
Casey and Quintana are taking a final look at the Blood and Sorrow map spread out on the kitchen table. The professors are packing up the last of their potions, double-checking they haven’t left anything behind. My guys are already waiting for me by the front closet where we’ll portal out, each strapped with a backpack full of hiking gear, weapons, food, water, and a few vials of Doc’s blood—everything we managed to collect from the bedroom floor.
