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“She approached me yesterday, ready for us to get her to safety. She also said they’re never going to hire Kim, so that plan’s a dead end. Apparently, Gregor knows her a bit too well.”
“So Sylvia’s safe now?”
“Well, not exactly.” I knew I needed to look him in the eye to sell this, but it was hard to do so. “She didn’t show up for the extraction. We haven’t heard from her since then. Either she changed her mind completely, or they got to her before she could get away. If it’s the latter, that suggests she was right about everything else.”
“I think all those other disappearances were another sign.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Now I really couldn’t look him in the eye. I uncrossed my legs, then recrossed them. “Did I also mention that they tried recruiting me? At least, I’m pretty sure it’s them. Obviously, they didn’t say they were the Collegium. It was some financial institution I’ve never heard of. I turned them down, of course. They said they were interested in my common sense, and they’d let me do real verification work. Actually, they seem to know a lot about me.”
“It might be some other company. You’re getting quite the reputation. Magical businesses all over the city would be glad to have you.”
“I think the timing is pretty suspicious, though.”
“Possibly. You’re not even interested in looking into it?”
I started to wonder if he already knew where I was going with this. He had an uncanny sense that helped him predict what I was likely to do. I wasn’t sure how much of that was magic and how much was that he really got me. “Well, that’s the thing. I am thinking of giving them a call. If it’s just another company, then no harm done, and hey, maybe I can even use it to negotiate a raise or a job I’d like better. And if it’s not, then it may be our best shot at getting someone on the inside of the Collegium so we can learn what they’re up to.”
His expression became a lot less friendly and supportive. “I thought we agreed that you going undercover would be a bad idea because they’d never truly trust you.”
“But that was before they started recruiting me. I think maybe I could trick them into trusting me if I made my departure look really good, if there was a good reason for me to be totally over MSI. I’ve been talking about it with the boss, and we figure that we could have things start to go downhill and then end with a bang.”
“What about us? You’d still be engaged to me.”
I really, really didn’t want to face him when talking about this next part, but I forced myself to look him square in the eye when I said, “We’d have to pretend on that, as well. A nasty breakup would make it incredibly convincing. But it would be fake, really. We might even be able to find ways to see each other. We’d have to be careful, of course, but secret meetings could be kind of sexy. I wouldn’t plan to stay there very long, just enough to learn something. Even if I learned some of their locations and people, that would help.”
“Are you telling me this is what you’re doing, or are you asking for my input?” His face was so stony that I couldn’t read him at all. He made Sam, who was literally made of stone, look like Jim Carrey.
“Merlin said I had to talk to you before we decided anything because you’d be making a big sacrifice, too. I won’t do it if you’re against it. But think about it; this may be our only hope. How many people could be saved if I can find out what’s going on? We don’t want them having control of this company. You’re the one always quoting that Casablanca line about the problems of two little people not mattering in the greater scheme of things.”
“You’d be careful?”
“Duh!”
“You’d get yourself out of there the moment it looks like there’s any danger?”
“Of course!”
“Katie, I know you. I can already hear it: ‘But I’m so close!’”
“I’ve seen what delays did to Sylvia.”
“I don’t like it, but I won’t stop you.”
“Trust me, I don’t like it, either. I just don’t see how I have any choice. This may be our only chance ever to get someone inside.”
“Or it really may be some international bank recruiting you.”
“If it is, let’s see what they offer. Maybe I can get a cool new job.”
He grinned, then suddenly looked alarmed. “You are joking, right? You wouldn’t really want to leave?”
“No, I wouldn’t leave. But now I need to go let the boss know we’re on so everyone can begin mistreating me and taking me for granted.”
*
Implementing the scheme to give me an excuse to quit was both difficult and alarmingly easy. While Merlin and I could stage a dispute, there weren’t many other people we were sure we could trust to be in on it, and that meant that whatever happened in my department had to be genuine. That was the hard part. The sad thing was, it happened anyway without any manipulation of events. All I had to do was actually express my feelings about the kind of stuff that happened all the time.
Take the meeting I had with Mr. Hartwell the next day. He was notorious about leaving people waiting, in spite of having a set appointment. Normally, I didn’t let it get to me. I brought work I could do or something to read while I waited or, if I had ano
