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“I got here just after it happened, but it looks like you two destroyed the Eye. There seem to have been some aftereffects.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the splitting headache. “I threw the brooch under the third rail,” I said. “There must have been an explosion.”
“Yeah, looks like there was a massive magical shock wave. Everyone on the platform was out cold.”
Everyone, he’d said. “Owen!” I blurted, frantically looking around. I saw a motionless form not too far from me and willed my aching body to crawl over to him.
“He’s okay, just knocked out like you were,” the gargoyle reassured me.
I searched for a pulse, unwilling to take his word for it. In this lighting, Owen looked really awful, his skin a sickly pale color where it wasn’t bruised, bloody, or covered in ten-o’clock shadow. His pulse was strong and steady, and his eyelids were already fluttering. “Owen!” I said, gripping one of his limp hands. “Come on, honey, wake up.”
Without opening his eyes, he asked, “Did we do it?”
“Sam says we did.”
“There’s a melted blob of gold with a cracked stone in it lying on the tracks,” Sam confirmed. “And it doesn’t have a trace of magic in it.”
“Good. It was just a crazy theory, but I’m glad it worked.” Owen struggled to sit up. I slid my arm around him, and we leaned against each other, both of us too tired to do more than that. I wondered if it would be too much to ask someone to send wheelchairs to take us to a car for the ride home. I wasn’t sure I could walk more than about three steps.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed not having anyone attacking me. Owen’s voice stopped me from falling asleep. “What’s that?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and noticed the small box that had been lying between us. “I think I remember seeing it fall right before I blacked out,” I said. “It must be that box we were waiting for.”
“Yeah, our people got here about a split second too late,” Sam confirmed. “But looks like you didn’t need it, after all.”
“Oh, thank God!” A harsh voice caught our attention, and I looked up to see a frightfully bedraggled Mimi climbing onto the end of the platform. “I thought I’d never get out of those tunnels.” She was limping, wearing one high-heeled shoe, the other nowhere in sight. Her skin was smudged with soot, her dress was torn into rags, and her hair looked like she’d stuck her finger in a light socket on a really windy day. “Now, where’s my brooch? It should be somewhere around here. I found my way out of the tunnels by aiming for it, but now I don’t seem to feel it anymore.”
“How did you get out?” I asked.
“I just told you, Katie, I aimed for my brooch.” Even in her exhausted state, she sounded condescending.
“What about the dragon?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Katie, there’s no such thing as dragons. Now, about my brooch? It was a birthday gift from my fiancé, and I’d like it back. Don’t make me call the police.”
I spotted the fake brooch lying nearby on the platform. “There it is,” I said. “Take it. I promise I’ll leave you alone now.”
She limped over to it, bent to pick it up, then pinned it on her tattered dress and took a few long, deep breaths. Then she frowned in disappointment. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t feel the power.”
“The power was in you all along,” I said, feeling like I was reenacting the end of The Wizard of Oz. “You don’t need a gem to be a bit—I mean, to be in charge. You need to find your own power.”
She scrunched up her face, like she didn’t quite believe that, then she shrugged and limped away toward the concourse. Owen and I turned to watch her go, then Owen said, “I hope the dragon’s okay.”
“You’d probably better send someone with magical powers to check on it,” I said. “I know I’m not going back in there.” Then my brain finally caught up to the current situation. With Mimi gone, that accounted for one of our nemeses, but what about all the puritans and Raphael who’d been on the platform with us when the Eye was destroyed? Sam had said everyone was knocked unconscious.
I glanced behind us and saw all the puritans just starting to stir. They were surrounded by MSI gargoyles. “What will happen to them?” I asked Sam.
“The boss figures that attempting to start a magical war puts them in Enforcer territory. He’s staying out of it, on account of the Eye being his creation in the first place. The Council’s not happy about having to take action, but it’ll do them good to have to take a stand on something.”
“What about him?” Owen asked, gesturing toward where Raphael lay, still motionless.
“I dunno. Who is he?”
“He seemed to have had some issue with my birth parents. He should probably be taken to the infirmary and kept under watch. I think he was suicidal. We barely pulled him back from jumping onto the tracks before the brooch exploded.”
“Okay, I’ll have our people deal with him,” Sam said.
There were some popping sounds as the magical Enforcers materialized on the platform. I’d spent too much time evading them during the summer to be entirely comfortable with their presence, even though they were supposedly on our side this time. Their leader came over to us. “There was a report of an insurrection movement?” he said with a suspicious glance at Owen.
