Page 70 of Strange Lights

The Gauntlet rises to press against the cage. Adele’s necessary means. I shift uncomfortably. Zara looks at my gloved arm with a mixture of disgust and fear.

“You want us to hurt a baby?” Zara says, unable to keep the horror out of her voice.

“It isn’t a baby,” Adele says. “Look at it. It’s a monster. No better than a beast.” She leans forward, hissing insults at him. Even for Adele, the ire in her voice is extreme. She hates this creature.

The boy growls, crashes into the glass, then retreats. He seems panicked, alternating between shows of attempted intimidation and barely disguised terror.

“No,” Zara says flatly.

“Then I’ll lock you in there with it,” Adele says.

Zara blanches.

“I have an idea for a more reliable method of controlling it,” I say. “I’ll take Zara and familiarize her with the basics in the lab first. She needs background filled in unless you want her to be more than useless and interfere with my work. Remember, the most important thing,” I say with emphasis, trying to get the message across to Zara, “is that we don’t squander this opportunity with only one test subject available.”

They both turn to stare at me intently. I have eyes only for the boy and pace the cage’s perimeter like a predator hunting for a way in. It’s the show Adele is looking for. He looks less and less dangerous the longer I stare. But Adele only sees what she wants to see.

“Besides, Zara might have blood-borne diseases transmissible to that creature if he bites her,” I say. “We carefully control the environment in any experiment involving living subjects.”

Zara inclines her head the smallest bit; she understands me and will go along with whatever I’m planning. I only want to shield her.

Adele lets out a small noise of distaste at my tone but lets me get away with it.

“The collars,” I say to Adele, “something like that would be a more reliable method to control a creature like this. Using pain is primitive and imprecise.”

Adele’s eyes bore into me, as if she were trying to see straight through my mask. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

When Adele finally leaves us alone to work, Zara asks me, “Reggie, what are we going to do?”

“We aren’t doing anything. I’ll take care of it.”

30

Turn Against Your Sister

The boy has given up looking for an exit, no longer racing around his cell frantically when Zara and I visit. Instead, he hides, wrapped in a blanket I pushed through the hatch, the occasional flash of his eyes visible from its folds as he tracks my and Zara’s every movement. Zara lounges carelessly sprawled across a lab table, reading a book while I work.

“At least get off the table in case anyone walks in,” I say.

She rolls her eyes but complies. Sort of. She hops down and sits but kicks her feet up onto the tabletop and rocks her chair back and forth on two legs.

I grit my teeth and resist nagging at her again. I’m on edge. Adele wants a progress update, and I have nothing for her. And this time, I’ve been genuinely trying to find a way to appease her. She won’t let up about gates, conduits, channeling massive amounts of magic through these thoroughly unmagical creatures to return something from the void. I know I could do it, make those collars. I know exactly how at this point. Ever since the moment I wandered near that magic abyss to create the Gauntlet, I’ve known how. All it would take is another trip past that threshold. But I don’t know if I could come back from it unchanged. If I could come back at all. If I could control more than one magical gate at a time. And the Gauntlet is always present, a splinter in my mind. I still have some free will left. What if she could control me completely, though?

I think of armies of the dead brought back to life. Of legions of these child-appearing creatures with unnatural magical powers under Adele’s command. But they all fight a faceless foe, an unknown opponent. What am I missing? What is Adele keeping from me? And why?

I’ve made a few prototype drawings. Enough to look like I’m making progress. Not enough to give anyone who looks at my notes enough knowledge to know how to proceed. The thought of Adele wielding that whirling storm of magic through an army of conduits is blood-chilling.

“You aren’t actually going to make her some sort of mind-control device, are you?” Zara asks, right in my ear. I jump in surprise. She’s snuck up on me quietly. I reflexively cover my paper and turn to shoulder her away, surprised to find I have to look up. She’s grown so much recently, and I forget she’s taller than I am already. Her teenage gangly limbs remind me with a pang of nostalgia of that year when her toddler limbs stretched out in similar fashion, baby fat melting away and leaving a scrawny child in their place.

“I’m going to do what I have to. Don’t worry about it,” I say, sounding more frustrated than I mean to.

Zara narrows her eyes, but stalks back to her chair and resumes her rocking and reading.

“Sorry, I⁠—”

The door swings open, and Adele strides in.

The baby starts in fright and darts around the cage, looking for sanctuary and finding none.