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Chapter Seven
There was a small quiet as we all stared at the hill. I could hear hollow echoes of the blast reverberating in my head and feel sweat trickling down my cheek, stinging a cut on my lip. Then someone started walking toward the ridge, a black silhouette against the dim glow, and we all followed.
I made it to the crest of the dune and froze. The canyon looked like a giant meteor had hit it. Where a cluster of adobe buildings had once stood, there was nothing but a yawning crater, black and still smoking. The initial heat must have been incredible. In places the sand had taken on a runny, glasslike sheen, melted in an instant.
Nothing moved.
No, I thought, but it was distant and blank. We all stared at the place MAGIC should have been for a long moment. Finally, somebody started moving and the rest of us followed. We picked our way down an old path until it was lost under a drift of dirt and rock thrown up by the explosion. Judging by the colors, some of it had come from far underground. The once pale tan landscape was now raw umber, old gold, blackened bronze and ash gray. It was also slippery in places, where cooling glass hid under the softer sand that was still raining down. I kept my footing because Pritkin had me by the arm, his grip mirroring the tight clench of his jaw.
The mages seemed to have forgotten I was there. We sidestepped over broken stones together, across drifts of white-speckled ash, under clouds of fine black particles that billowed up with every movement and settled over our clothes, our faces, our hair. I could taste them at the back of my throat. Nothing could have survived.
My legs suddenly gave out, dumping me in the dirt. I rested my head on my knees and took slow, deep breaths, forcing the hollow, aching fear pushing at my ribs to still. More ash floated up, threatening to choke me, and I didn’t care. I saw a succession of faces across my vision, all friends who lived and worked at MAGIC—or had. One in particular caught my breath. Rafe, my childhood friend, was the closest thing I ever had to a father. And he was buried under there along with the rest, assuming he hadn’t been incinerated by the explosion.
Part of my brain was busy running the odds, looking for an angle that would provide a way out—even when I knew damn well there wasn’t one. I wrapped my arms around my torso and shook but not with grief. Not yet. It was rage that stopped my throat and made it almost impossible to speak. It felt like being flayed, being hollowed out and filled with boiling acid. I’d never experienced so much anger, such a bitter desire to strike back. Because this wasn’t something that our enemies had done to us.
I’d said we were going to tear ourselves apart; I just hadn’t thought it would start so soon.
The mages were shuffling around like zombies, blank faced and disbelieving. Their feet stirred up black and gray clouds, disturbing the embers. Something was burning underground. There were glowing orange-red spots beneath the ashes, dotted here and there like a huge funeral pyre. I watched them with eyes that stung and watered from more than the particles in the air.
The Senate was gone. Beyond the personal tragedy, it was a military disaster—the disaster—that would almost certainly hand Apollo a win. Not today, maybe, but soon. Whether their arrogance allowed them to see it or not, the Circle couldn’t hold out alone against the forces he had amassed. It would be lucky to last the month.
“Shift us inside,” Pritkin said, his voice a harsh rasp. Several nearby mages heard him and turned to look at me, expressionless and tense as drawn wire.
I slowly lifted my head, gazing at Pritkin through a haze of grief and rage. His eyes were dark and wild, the pupils devouring the green, leaving a corona of feverish jade. He looked wounded; he looked the way I felt, as if he’d done the calculations, too. As if he already knew we’d lost.
“I thought we’d at least get to fight the war first,” I said.
“The lower levels. Cassie—with MAGIC’s wards, some may still be intact!” He gripped my arms like there was some kind of urgency. Like any wards could have held against that. “Take us there!”
“Null net,” I said, unable to get anything else out.
“Remove it!” I heard Pritkin order someone, but I didn’t bother to see who. Sweat was running down my back, soaking the seam of the dress, and I must have touched something hot because my palms were burned. “She is innocent of the charges. Let her prove it—remove the net and she’ll help us!”
“Help us?” Liam stepped forward, almost unrecognizable with his grubby face, blossoming black eye and hate-filled snarl. “She killed a dozen mages tonight!”
“The fissure killed them,” Pritkin retorted. “And she had nothing to do with that.”
It was like Liam didn’t hear him. “They were good men! Richardson most of all, killed while still in mourning for his son—another of her victims!”
The unfairness of the accusation should have bothered me. It would have, ten minutes ago. Now I didn’t even blink. For some reason, I wasn’t angry anymore; instead, I felt empty, like someone had hollowed out my body and replaced my bones with dry wood, like I’d break if I moved too fast.
“She didn’t kill Nick,” Pritkin said, maintaining his temper although his glare could have powdered diamond. “She wasn’t even there when it happened. And Richardson died in the fissure.”
“So you say,” Liam sneered. “Yet she survived.”
“Barely.”
“I don’t understand why you threw everything away in support of her, but it may not be too late,” Liam told him, suddenly earnest. “Help me bring her in and I’ll vouch for you. We all will. You can say anything—that you were bewitched, that she and those vampires did something to you—and as long as she’s out of the way, the Council will believe it. We need people like you now more than ever!”
“And the girl?” Pritkin demanded.
“She’ll get a trial,” Liam said, his face closing down.
“A trial she’ll lose.”
“It’s one life! One life against the thousands who will die if we can’t bring cohesion back to the Circle. You or I would gladly give our own lives in such a cause. If she’s any kind of Pythia, can she do less?”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Pritkin said harshly. “By your reasoning, she’s evil and must be destroyed before she can help our enemies, or she’s innocent and must be destroyed to preserve the Circle. Either way, she dies.”
