“Did you go for a wand?” Ines said. “Or, like, an orb? Or is it a giant hammer? Please say it’s a giant hammer.”
“No,” Sloane said.
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s the government, so it’s probably a boring box,” Ines said.
“No,” Sloane said. “No, we aren’t going to help you test your fucking weapon.”
“Slo,” Matt said. “Just because it uses magic doesn’t mean it’s a weapon.”
Cho sat down in the chair across from Sloane and folded her hands on the table. Her fingers were thick at the knuckle, and callused. Sloane had heard her say, once, that she liked rock climbing.
“In order to know how to fix whatever it is that’s broken,” Cho said, “we need to understand how magic works and how it’s used. So we have made a tool—that’s all.”
“You expect me to believe you developed this thing so you could keep teenage girls from falling into the sky?” Sloane scowled. “You were already making it before you realized something was wrong—you just said that.”
“We are a branch of the government concerned with scientific advancement—” Cho began.
“I studied history,” Sloane interrupted, swallowing down the flavor of blood in her mouth. “And I know what motivates the government to invest in scientific advancement. We only have rockets that go into space because you guys were trying to blow up Soviets. This is just another Space Race.”
“Even if it is a weapon,” Henderson said, “would you rather Russia or China figure it out first, Sloane? And do you think they won’t be racing to harness magic themselves?”
“I would rather governments stopped playing the who-can-destroy-each-other-faster game,” Sloane snapped. She knew by the ringing in her ears that she was panicking.
“Yeah, well, I’d rather open up a goddamn ice cream shop,” Henderson said. “But we all have to deal with reality.”
“Countless people have died because of magic,” Matt said. “Right here, in this spot, actually. It’s happened right in front of us. And you want us to be complicit in something that might bring more of that?” He sounded choked. Sloane hadn’t heard him sound that way in a long time. “After what we’ve seen—after what we’ve done?”
He didn’t know the half of it, Sloane thought. He didn’t know a damn thing about what she had done, and it would stay that way.
Beside her, Albie was staring at his hands, curled over the edge of the table. His fingers had once been nimble enough to fold the most intricate origami Sloane had ever seen. He had tried to teach her once how to make a crane, and the session had ended in a heap of crumpled paper. But the damage sustained from their time as captives of the Dark One had taken the feeling from his fingertips, so he had given up the hobby. Now those hands were trembling.
“Albie,” she said.
He didn’t look at her. “Isn’t it . . .” He cleared his throat. Albie was shorter than average, with thinning blond hair that stuck up in all the wrong places and a hunched posture from the permanent damage done to his spine. He was nobody’s Chosen One, not now and not ever. “Isn’t it important to know how to use it, though?” he said. “So it can’t be used against us again?”
“Albie,” Matt said. “You can’t mean that.”
“Don’t give me that Hero Voice,” Albie said, his own voice shaking. “Nobody ever used magic against you—any of you!—the way the Dark One used it against me. Whether it’s a tool or a weapon or a freaking plush toy, I’m not going to sit back and let the rest of the world figure out how to do it to us without us knowing how to do it back. Mutually assured destruction.”
Sloane reached for words and came up empty. He had a point—she had been kidnapped by the Dark One, too, but he hadn’t done to her what he had done to Albie, hadn’t attacked her body and left her with no feeling in her hands and no way to rejoin the fight.
He had done something else. Damaged her without so much as touching her.
“If people die because of your help,” she said finally, her throat aching, “you’ll have to carry that around.”
“And if people die because I don’t help?” he said, meeting her eyes at last. “Either way, we’ll carry it. We always do.”
TOP SECRET
AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL
MEMORANDUM FOR: ROBERT ROBERTSON
OFFICER, AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL (ARIS)
SUBJECT: PROJECT RINGER, SUBJECT 2, DEEP DIVE AFTERMATH