AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Someone on the Council? I wonder which one. I’ll have to talk to James and Gloria.” Owen’s foster parents had once been on the magical Council and retained ties to the bigwigs.
“Meanwhile, Roger wants to get there before anyone above him does, so that when he takes over, he’ll already have the power base in place. I’m not entirely sure what his plan is. I get the feeling that while the Collegium has been mostly secret so far, he wants to go for more obvious world domination.”
“Minerva said we have to stop him. She saw some frightening things if he succeeds. Fortunately, so far he seems to be making all the right choices—for us, not for him. That’s why we need to act soon. We have to stop him before he goes further, and then we’ll stop the Collegium.”
“You know, it might undermine them if they couldn’t operate in secrecy anymore. We could bring them down by sharing evidence of what they’ve done. They have a massive library, but I’ve only been there once, so I don’t know what’s in there, just that it goes way back in time. I’d need you to translate most of it, but I’m sure there’s something we could use in there.”
“I think we’d need something current. What about concentrating on the people in charge? What do you know about them?”
“Today was the first time I saw one of the bosses up close. I got the feeling Roger’s been hiding me. He didn’t even introduce me other than as his assistant. And I can’t use that spell of yours to get to the top, thanks to the magical immunity.”
“But we do already have magical people inside.”
“I thought I was the first one to infiltrate them.” And then it dawned on me. “Yeah, we’ve got a whole frog pond full of people who aren’t happy with the Collegium.”
“You know what to do about that.”
I shuddered at the thought. “I don’t seem to have to go through any kind of security screening to go down to the frog pond, so I might be able to reach them and kiss a frog or two. I’d need to transcribe a copy of the spell to get to the top for them to use.”
“We should coordinate. Do you think Roger’s likely to be in his office tomorrow afternoon?”
“I have no idea. He doesn’t keep to a strict schedule. For all I know, he’ll be off meeting with harpies or threatening little old ladies who run magical bakeries.”
“I just wish there were a way you could signal us from in there.”
“I have some access to the outside world now, but I suspect it’s still pretty restricted. I might be able to reach Minerva if I need to get a message to you.” I shook my head. “I still don’t like it. You know how dangerous these people are.”
“That’s why we’re trying to stop them. And how do you think I’ve been feeling all this time while you’ve been working with them?”
I slid my arms around his waist and snuggled up against him. “Aww, you care.”
He returned my embrace. “Of course I care. It’s been awful, knowing you’re spending your days with that psycho—especially now that I’ve met him.”
“That’s probably the worst I’ve seen him. Well, other than when he flipped out when he couldn’t just pop into MSI. Most of the time, he’s actually kind of nice. He’d be a great boss if you didn’t know about the world domination and frog stuff.”
“You aren’t going to have a problem taking him down, are you?”
“Heck, no. I know about the world domination and frog stuff.”
“So, how’s this for a plan? We pop in, take down Roger, then you and maybe some others go down and save the frogs, and we all use the spell to get to the top and take them down.”
“You make it sound so easy. It can’t possibly be that smooth.”
“There might be a few complications.”
“Does the beacon let you know where the building actually is? Can’t you just storm the castle that way?”
“Believe it or not, the office building is really just a parking garage and one level here in Manhattan. We tracked it, and that’s all we found. Everything else is distributed around the world through various portals. Your office—assuming that’s where you went when you went back to the office—is in London. That makes it really hard to get to them through conventional means. Raiding the entrance here in the city does no good. If we found a location we could raid, they could run to another one before we got to them. That’s why we needed that beacon, to be able to jump straight to them.”
“We’re only going to have one shot at this, you know.”
“That’s why we’re taking it. If anything goes wrong, get out of there, immediately. Get to the parking garage as soon as you can, and from there someone can get you to safety. We’ve got gargoyles watching it now.”
I nodded. This was starting to sound serious.
He caught my chin and tilted my head up. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. Have you ever seen me lose a fight?”
“Not a magical one, no.”
